The Power of the ASI Program: Growing with Your Operation
Every business, as it grows and
develops, needs an accounting program that can be customized to fit its
changing needs. John Fiscalini, dairy farmer and award-winning cheese producer
in California,
has found AgManager® and the entire AgriSolutions® package, to be both powerful
and adaptable.
John represents the 3rd generation
of his family to farm at their present location and the 4th
generation in California. The family-owned
and run Fiscalini dairy operation includes 1500 Holstein
dairy cows and 1300 replacement animals as well as a thriving cheese-making
enterprise. In addition, 530 acres are farmed with crops to feed the cows.
Previously their crops included walnuts and grapes, but state regulations have
forced the Fiscalinis to simplify.
The Fiscalini dairy operation is
exceptional in two important ways:
1) Award-winning
management and high production: Theirs is the first dairy in the U.S. to be
certified by Validus for excellent management practices, including animal
welfare and environmental compliance.
2) Award-winning farmstead
cheese: Instead of producing only the commodity (milk), the Fiscalini
operation produces cheese as a "value-added." Their cheese is world-renowned, having won extraordinary awards for
its exceptional quality. In London recently, their
cheddar was ranked the best, the first time that award has ever been given to any
dairy outside Britain.
The Fiscalinis' cheese has also been named Best Farmhouse Cheese in America four
out of the last five years.
AgManager® Power
The
Fiscalini dairy has been with AgriSolutions Inc. (ASI) since the early 90's. John
first became acquainted with ASI through his work
as a member of the Board of the National Dairy Herd Improvement Assoc. The
association was trying to collect milk and reproduction records of dairy cows across the U.S. to be
combined with financial data in an effort
to help managers improve milk efficiency. Looking at potential vendors of programs to track financial information, John found AgriSolutions Inc.
For three years John traveled frequently between California and
Illinois, working with Allen Lash
and the AgriSolutions team in an effort
to develop a prototype software combining ASI and DHIA programs. In those three
years, John recognized the power of the AgriSolutions Inc. program and saw its
potential for his operation. He decided
to make the change from California
Frontier Accounting, the bookkeeping program he used at that time, to
AgriSolutions Inc. and AgManager® .
"It Was a Good Move"
In 1997, the Fiscalini dairy began
to use AgManager®. Transition from one software program to something new is
always difficult. Un-learning the old and learning the new requires effort, but
John is quick to assure us that "it was a good move and I am glad I did it. We
love the program now."
Customer service is an important
part of the ASI package. The Fiscalinis use support often. When they make
mistakes, they call for help and have found support to be "really good." Although
it would be handy to have customer service open 24/7 (especially to cover the
time zone difference), John has found ASI customer service available and eager
to help, even "after hours." At her invitation, John has called service rep
Carolyn at her home in emergency situations, such as when facing a problem with
payroll late on a Friday afternoon. John reports that "ASI support is excellent
and they get us up and running in no time."
Reporting is now easy. Unlike the
accounting program they used previously, AgManager® generates reports that bankers will accept.
For the Fiscalinis, an important feature of the AgManager® program is its
ability to produce customized reports. The Fiscalini family is in the process
of building a new cheese facility and also a methane digester. In approaching
banks for loans, John doesn't want to spend a lot of time and money hiring an
accountant to report on the operation's current financial situation. Bankers
require up-to-date information and AgManager® can easily generate an accurate
report for any specified date range.
While the program they used
previously did have the capability of tracking repair costs of each individual piece
of equipment, that program did not break down costs of goods and expenses by
categories. AgManager® does that and so much more.
Unlimited Potential
John admits that there is still a
lot about the program for him to
learn. He recognizes there are many kinds of information
needed by dairy farmers which the program can provide: replacement cow costs,
parlor costs, weight gain, breeding
size, herd growth, benchmarking, and more.
John plans to use the program more
extensively in the future to gather more
of this vital information.
To be honest, the AgManager®
program is generating more data than
John has time to analyze. Because he is so busy with managing their dairy and
cheese operations, John has turned over the bookkeeping role, including data
input, to his daughter. Both look forward
to the day when John's son, now a senior
at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, will have completed his MBA and will be ready to join
the dairy.
John learned a lot in AS 101, a
financial analysis class offered by AgriSolutions. His dream is to return for an entire week of training, attending a number of
classes and learning as much as possible. That dream is not only for himself; he wants both his son and daughter to
join him in the training. John expounds, "The amount of information available through ASI and all their classes
is huge and it would certainly make a lot of sense for us to become educated.
In the Meantime...
John has
access to the vital information
available through AgManager® even while waiting for
further training and for his son to
join him in managing the operation. Roger Booth,
the Fiscalinis' consultant at AgriSolutions Inc., steps in to fill that need,
downloading their program information
4 times each year, "massaging" it and sending it back to John in the form of management reports.
John finds this kind of customer service very helpful. While he wishes that his
daughter had the time and ability to produce those reports,
John rejoices that the ASI personnel have the expertise to do it for them. As John explains, "It is worth paying them to do what we cannot at this time.
Those reports are valuable information and worth
the cost."
An Expanding
Operation
When the Fiscalinis expanded into
cheese production, they did not foresee its rapid popularity and the great demand
for their products. At present, they produce English-style cheddar, San Joaquin
Gold (their own unique cheese which must be aged 16 months before being sold)
and Lionza (named for the town in Switzerland where John's
grandfather lived and where this type of cheese has been produced for many
years). The Fiscalinis plan to add other types of cheese after a new facility
is built. Construction of that new cheese facility is slated to start in July
of ‘07 and should be operational by the end of the year.
At present,
the Fiscalini operation produces 300,000 lbs. of cheese per year, using only 8%
of their milk. They expect that production will double immediately, possibly
even triple when the new facility is ready for use. John is planning now with
his family for the new growth phase of their cheese-making enterprise. Growth
is certain; because of the high quality of their cheese and the many awards it has
received, the Fiscalinis cannot produce enough cheese to meet the demand today.
Cheese production has greatly
changed the bookkeeping needs of the Fiscalini dairy operation. John has found
that AgManager® can easily be customized to meet their needs, to handle
purchasing, billing, reporting and
all aspects of this added enterprise. As they look to the future, planning
growth and expansion, they do so with confidence that AgriSolutions Inc. and
AgManager® will continue to meet their needs with power to spare.