New Product release, introducing a new set of risk management modules. Risk Management made simple.

• What-If Analyzer – Create what-if analysis adjusting yield, price, basis and insurance levels to determine worst case/ best case opportunities.
  • Understand your risk exposer when yields and markets are volatile.
  • Realize estimated value on your unsold grain, futures, options and how it affects your bottom line.
  • Determine estimated “indemnity payment” on current crop insurance program.
• Offer Management Tools – Manage all offers from one secure site. Track offers in house with option to allow clients to send offers via the internet system. NO Transaction fees.

What-If Analyzer – Powerful tool to help the producer and the agribusiness understand potential risk exposure

Grain Procurement – Make procuring grain simple for all your originators or manage all from one location!

Ten years ago I switch our home phone service that Qwest provided to a VOIP service, which stands for “Voice Over Internet Protocol.” The VOIP service works the same as the old-fashion phone except it used high speed internet to carry the conversations vs. the traditional phone line. Five years ago I was so pleased with how the home phone VOIP service was working that I subscribed to the service in our offices. This new technology costs a fraction of what traditional phone services cost and comes with many amazing options to help you’re ag business communicate with clients and employees.

One of my favorite features are Answering ruleswhich route calls based on the time called, caller ID or the number called. Imagine having a system that routed calls based on the caller ID, let’s say your company has a grain broker that you communicate with often and when he calls, the system automatically routes his call to your desk and cellphone at the same time, this potentially saves your broker, the secretary and yourself time and money. How about that important farm client that you want routed directly to you; they would really be impressed?

Click here to read the rest of the article by Mark Frank

TODAY’S AGENDA

1. Meeting with John Doe in Waterloo to go over grain contracts
2. Meeting with Bob Doe in Valley to go over 2012 grain programs
3. Board meeting in Main Office to discuss new storage facility
4. All company safety meeting at Duncan location
5. Present 2013 Budget to General Manager in Main Office

Does this type of schedule look familiar to you? It’s hard to get much done in a day when you are running all over the country. Today, you can become more efficient if you utilize the new communication technologies that provide web meeting services.

A Web meeting will work great to conduct your meeting with John Doe, discuss his existing grain contracts by sharing the screen on your computer with him or let him take control and share his screen with you. If you really want to add the personal touch you can even activate the camera on your computer and show your face.

Click here to read the full article by Mark Frank

Photos: Drought Disaster 2012

http://www.weather.com/news/drought-disaster-photos-20120713

Today agricultural professionals spend more time than ever before on the computer reading email, searching the internet, working with software applications and entertaining themselves. Keeping your digital life organized continues to be a challenge with emails you want to keep, web pages you want to save and documents that need filed.

EVERNOTE is a software application that has made its way to the top of the digital organization industry. Evernote can be installed on your smart phone, tablet, laptop and desktop. Once installed you have access to all the digital information you have organized in one convenient place no matter what device you are using.

Click here to read the full article by Mark Frank

A very neat video on farming. Went viral with over 6.5 million views!!

New Manager Setting

A new Manager setting to manage marketing by individual crop profiles or merge to manage in a combined profile

In this example the client has chosen to manage his marketable bushels by individual crop profiles.

In this example the client has selected to “merge all like profiles” to manage the marketable bushels from a single “corn” profile.

Another minor change we made is relocating the insurance link to be a part of the Manager

Have you ever found yourself needing access to a particular document you had stored on a jump drive or work computer? If you use multiple computers and mobile devices such as phones or tablets there is no doubt this has happened to you.

Dropbox is brilliant technology that gives you secure access to all your work documents such as client invoices, grain contracts, pictures, marketing pieces and any other documents. These files can be accessed by any computer or mobile device and can be setup to automatically synchronize whenever an internet connection is detected

Read my article on the Feed & Grain blog

http://www.feedandgrain.com/blog/10730943/drop-the-complexity-of-document-management-with-dropbox

The GrainBridge Messenger allows you to manage your time more effectively by creating a message for a group or all your clients in a matter of seconds. Two options are available including text message or voice broadcast. Below is a snapshot of the Messenger and a few key points in creating a message.

Key components of the Messenger:

1. As you “Add Clients” to the system be sure to add a contact number and this client will be added as a recipient in the Messenger.
2. You can “Group” clients from the clients tab by geography, product use etc. to customize the message for a specific group.
3. A GrainBridge Phone number is created specifically for your business. Treat this as a new phone number and let your customers know you will be sending messages from this number.
4. Sending a “New Broadcast” is a simple two-step process;
• select text or voice message from the “New Broadcast” tab
• select the recipients or group you want to communicate with
• text message- create the message up to 160 characters then click submit
• voice message- select “announcement” or “survey”, choose a title for the message then submit. A toll free number is provided, follow the instructions and create a personalized message. Review and submit.
• The survey option allows you to poll clients on specific items you would like feedback on. They can respond by numeric page on their mobile phone and you will receive details of that survey as shown above in the table.
5. Details of all messages are provided on the Messenger Dashboard. You can sort messages via text, voice mail or by date created. Details of the message are available including a playback feature and charts for results of any survey created.

GrainBridge support can help you get started by uploading your client list and creating your first message. Take advantage of this innovative tool to help manage your TIME.

GrainBridge Team

With land prices as high as we have seen in our lifetime there are a few key factors that should be considered.
#1 Current financial position – Are you flush with cash or will you be taking out a loan?
#2 Land Valuations – Where do you think land values will go in the next 1-3-5 years?
#3 Interest Rates – Where are they headed and what is the prospect of borrowing today vs 2 years from now.

Read more on this subject in the April edition of Corn & Soybean Digest –

http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/issues/math-land-buys