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FarmSMART                  
 September 2022
Sunset 2022

September Sunset.

Dear Friend,

'Tis the season to savor sunsets as you stop and smell the pollen! 

Savor the following seasonal topics:

  • Mulling over margin. 
  • "Secret sauce" through cloud integration with Conservis.
  • Ag professionals to huddle in Oklahoma.
  • Read our latest blog posts.
  • Back to the backups.
                                                                             SDG

 

Mulling Over Margin: the "Elusive" Cost of Production  

 Manage Moving Margins
Congress may consider farm program changes to incorporate margins, the most critical component being cost of production.  Way back in 1933 Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace considered these costs "are too elusive.”

We encourage you to dig deeper in this FarmDocDaily research article, Mulling Over Margin, Part 2: the “Elusive” Cost of Production.

Among the findings:
  • "The share of total costs attributed to operating costs and allocated overhead differs significantly between commodities."

Allocated Overhead
  • "The more diffuse nature of crop production costs suggests that the accounting necessary to calculate margins for a prospective crop margin program may be more complex than is the case for the existing dairy margin program."

  • "Within the allocated overhead, different crops would benefit more depending on whether land, labor or equipment—or some combination of the three or the costs included within the subcategories—are used."
     
  • "Cost-based payment calculations raise questions about the consequences for input prices or cash rent and land values, for example; whether such payments help the farmer or merely get passed through to industry or landlords."

  • "Elusive in 1933, the incorporation of costs in farm payment programs would be far more complicated in the modern era."
Secret Sauce

Three innovative and thriving  operations shared their "secret sauce" at the 2022 Ag Software Success Summit. Our first presentation is from the 2015 Top Producer of the year, Peterson Farms, who intensively manage 18,000 acres in Kentucky through a cloud integration of Conservis with FBS.  Click here to watch a video by Peterson CFO and partner Bernard Peterson.

ASAC ConferenceAg Professionals To Huddle in Oklahoma

The American Society of Agricultural Consultants will hold its 2022 Annual Conference in Oklahoma City, OK, on Sunday, October 23- Wednesday, October 26, 2022. This conference offers great networking and educational opportunities to agricultural professionals. Join us for the chart topping professional development with stellar speakers, affirming camaraderie and educational (and fun) ag tours!  Click here for more information or to register.

Read Our Latest Blog Posts

Blog September

HOW ERP SOFTWARE CAN IMPROVE FARM PROFITABILITY

Prior to the arrival of drones, farmers relied on aerial footage from manned aircraft or satellite images to provide a valuable view from above when...

HOW ERP SOFTWARE CAN SUPPORT FARM VENDOR MANAGEMENT

While pastoral images and pictures of farmland often suggest a kind of quiet peace, anyone who’s worked a farm or ranch knows that, most days, it’s...

MANAGING THE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION CYCLE WITH FARM SOFTWARE

There are quite a few aspects of farming that are unpredictable. The best we can do is be prepared and ride out those challenges. We’re used to...

 

Q&A:  Back to the Backups

Lately I've been getting a lot of calls about people’s computers crashing and them needing to move to a new computer. Unfortunately many of those customers did not have a good data backup.
Sarah 2019

Sarah Dixon, FBS Support Coordinator
sarah@fbssystems.com (800.437.7638/extension 100). 

Those are the phone calls I hate! It hurts to hear that a customer has lost all of their historical data. Even more concerning is when customers think they are making a backup but are not doing it correctly. 

I've had 3 phone calls in the last two weeks from customers who are checking the box for Accounting and Save all years but not Setup files when they make a backup. Without Setup files their data is nearly unusable. So make sure you check the box for Setup, all modules that you use and Save all years.

Also I often get a call about the IT/computer guy moving the software to a new computer or they are trying to retrieve data off of a bad computer but "Where is my data?"  Sometimes I can help with this, as we encourage users to have their data under their program directory so C:/FBSWINxxx/data (where xxx is the version number), but that is not always the case. I always encourage users to make a note of where they are saving their live data. This short video reviews how to tell where your live data is and how to make a good backup!
Data Directory and Saving Data Title YouTube
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