| On September 27, 2003 Minotaur will be
hosting the second annual chess tournament. Fortinos has
generously donated use of their location at Hwy 7 & Brisdale
in Brampton. The event is open to all players, beginners
to advanced, ages 4 to 18, the entry fee is $20, with
all profits donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Peel.
This tournament will be ranked by The Canadian Chess'n
Math Association, this is the only rated chess tournament
in Brampton for children. A trophy or medal will be given
to the top three competitors in each category, as well
as medals for the school with the top scores. |
 |
| We could not have organized this event
without the generous help from Fortinos, Zellers and Hal
Bond from The Canadian Chess'n Math Association. Although
we have been proud to regularly sponsor local sports teams,
we at Minotaur feel that supporting events that encourage
children to challenge their minds is a worthwhile compliment
to our other sponsorships. We are presently seeking donations
for the tournament, whether it be in prize or monetary
form. Having consolation prize draws for those who challenge
themselves to enter helps to make it fun for everyone
even if they don't go home with a trophy or medal. |
If you would like more information on this event please
contact Jennifer or Judith at 905-458-7575. |
| The Women in Food Industry Management Association
(WFIM) finished another successful year of networking
and professional development with their Annual Dinner
Meeting at the Vaughn Estates in June. Minotaur's Judith
Kirkness, who has been a member for two years, answered
the organizations request for table top giveaways, with
some help from our customers. The tables were beautifully
adorned with Minotaur mugs filled with donated items from
customers that use the Minotaur system--specialty coffee
from Mister Coffee, customized gourmet sugar packets from
Brand Management, European Palm Leaf pastries from Sweet
Creations and Fashion Offers from Optionelle clothing
for women. |
 |
| The speaker for the evening was Gail MacIntyre,
the VP of Business Transformation for Parmalat Canada.
Gail told the story of her own career and in doing so
encouraged everyone to step back and take a look at their
own strengths to guide them in making big career changes.
Not everyone was lucky enough to win a prize, but thanks
to the support of our Minotaur customers, everyone there
left with a "Coffee break to go". To learn more about
WFIM, go to www.wfim.on.ca. Events start up again in September
and all events are open to non-members. If you'd like
to attend one of the events, as Judith's guest, just give
her a call at 905-458-7575. |
| Since 1986, Alfresh Beverages (formally
known as Fairlee Fruit Juice) has been using the Minotaur
Business System to manage their day to day business operations.
Alfresh Beverages is a manufacturer and distributor of
fruit juices and some carbonated beverages. Alfresh is
known for their brands Sunlike, Everfresh, and Fairlee.
Alfresh distributes and co-packs various brands such as
Stewarts, Arizona, C-Plus and Orangina. They distribute
their products across North America and internationally
and enjoy creating beverages that will quench the thirst
of every age group. Alfresh's fully automated manufacturing
plant located in Etobicoke, Ontario has the ability to
produce over a million bottles of juices of various sizes
daily. |
Alfresh chose to implement the Minotaur Business System
based on a referral. Before the Minotaur Business System,
they were running their business manually by using spreadsheets
to track their inventory, orders, manufacturing and accounting.
As the Minotaur Business System can be implemented incrementally,
Alfresh took advantage of this and first implemented Minotaur's
Accounting, Order Entry and Purchasing modules. Eventually
Alfresh needed tighter control over their inventory tracking
and they also required automated control on their manufacturing
process. They moved forward to utilize Minotaur's Inventory
Control and Manufacturing modules. |
With the configurability of the Minotaur Business System,
Alfresh has requested some distinctive requirements that
Minotaur has developed for them over the years. Minotaur
has created two unique sales reports that give Alfresh
a hierarchly structured 'snap shot' of their sales for
a given month. This allows them to print various levels
of detail for the executives and sales representatives.
These reports have reduced a large amount of time when
proceeding to do month ends and have provided Alfresh
employee's with information that is applicable to their
position. |
In the mid 1990's Alfresh decided to implement Minotaur's
EDI module which is fully integrated and has saved them
both money and time as they were previously executing
EDI manually. |
Over the next couple of years, Alfresh has plans to implement
Minotaur's Lot Control and Bar-coding modules for tighter
control in their manufacturing plant. With this in place
Alfresh will have a well-organized software solution that
will manage both their front-end office needs and manufacturing
floor requirements. |
| www.alfreshbeverages.com |
As long-time Minotaur users are aware, the Minotaur Flexible
Sales Reports are an extremely powerful tool for reviewing
sales data in a variety of formats. Some of you, particularly
when you were first implementing the Minotaur system,
pointed out that there were a few features of the module
which were somewhat frustrating. |
- While the screen which allows the user to select
the data records to be included in the report and
allows the user to select the order in which the report
will print is extremely powerful, it is also quite
complex and perhaps somewhat less than intuitive.
- While there is a large selection of data layout
options, these options are essentially hard coded
and the user has little control over the order or
format of the data.
|
| In order to address these concerns, Minotaur
has recently developed a User Definable Sales Reporting
module. |
This module breaks up the data record selection and data
sorting selection onto two separate screens. The data
record selection has been expanded to allow selection
of multiple groups of data. (For example allowing you
to select parts in categories A through F and parts in
category Z to appear on the report). The data sorting
mechanisms allow the user to provide specific definitions
of how data should be grouped and how to present group
totals. Both sorting and data selection can be identified
based on any combination of the following characteristics
of the sales data: |
Bill To Salesperson, Ship To Salesperson, Invoice Salesperson,
Part Category 1, Part Category 2, Part Category 3, Part
Category 4, Part Category 5, Part Category 6, Part Category
7, Part Category 8, Part Category 9, Bill To Customer
Type 1, Bill To Customer Type 2, Bill To Customer Type
3, Bill To Customer Type 4, Bill To Customer Type 5, Bill
To Customer Type 6, Bill To Customer Type 7, Bill To Customer
Type 8, Bill To Customer Type 9, Ship To Customer Type
1, Ship To Customer Type 2, Ship To Customer Type 3, Ship
To Customer Type 4, Ship To Customer Type 5, Ship To Customer
Type 6, Ship To Customer Type 7, Ship To Customer Type
8, Ship To Customer Type 9, Part, Bill To Customer, Ship
To Customer, and Invoice Location. |
The user can now also specifically define the columns
of data that should be printed on the report. The information
that can be printed includes Quantity, Weight, Sales Dollars,
Material Cost (if costing implemented), Landing Factor
Cost (if landing factors implemented), Marketing Program
Cost (if marketing programs implemented), Total Cost,
Margin and Margin Percentage. In addition to defining
the types of data to print, the user can select to print
the information for the current period, year to date,
last year current period, last year to date or last year
total. Of course the report can have separate columns
for each period of interest. The user can select up to
20 columns of data to appear on a report. |
The user can also select from a range of column headings
to be used. They can specify whether the report should
print in landscape or portrait mode and the size of print
to use. The user can also select how wide each column
of data should be and whether or not numbers should be
formatted [eg. (1,234.56)] or not [eg. -1234.56]. Of course,
the user needs to ensure that the various options they
select will provide a readable report. |
The module also allows the user to select whether they
wish to format the report for printed output or for copying
to other programs such as Excel. They can select whether
or not to print lines of data which consist entirely of
zero data. They can select whether or not to print shipment
data as well as invoice data. They can also optionally
print an audit list of the invoices related to a particular
line of data on the report. |
Once a user definable sales report has been set up, the
selection information can be saved for later re-use. There
is a mechanism to run saved reports without editing the
selection criteria. This will allow a report designer
to set up reports which can be run by other users. |
As an example, consider a user that would like to run
a report by salesman, product category and product showing
unit sales, dollar sales and percentage gross margin for
the current period, year to date, last year current period
and last year to date. Data was selected only for Invoice
Salesman 001 and Part Categories 01 and 02. Column sizes
were selected as 6, 7 and 5 characters for quantity, sales
dollars and gross margin percentage respectively. The
labels at the left of the report were limited to 40 characters
so the report would print on a portrait page at 18 characters
per inch. |
The user would select all the above parameters to generate
a report similar to the following. |
| Lot Number: 10/15/03
Item: CC-BLUEBRY, Cheesecake - Blueberry
Current Stock of this Lot: 0
Inactive Skipped |
| Part Code - Name |
CP Qty |
CP Sales |
CP GM% |
LY Qty |
LY Sales |
LY GM% |
YTD Qty |
YTD Sales |
YTD GM% |
LYTD Qty |
LYTD Sales |
LYTD GM% |
| ----------- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
| Invoice Salesman : 001 - Fred Jones |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Part Category 1: 01 - Feed Ingredient |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ALCU014TIM50LB - Alfalfa Cubes |
80 |
734 |
9.9 |
0 |
0 |
0.0 |
160 |
144 |
19.4 |
0 |
0 |
0.0 |
| ALCU01500050LB - Alfalfa Cubes |
631 |
5505 |
5.9 |
2185 |
18498 |
5.8 |
8022 |
68321 |
7.4 |
8129 |
65242 |
5.9 |
| |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
| Total Part Category 1 : 01 Feed Ingred |
711 |
6239 |
6.1 |
2185 |
18498 |
5.8 |
8182 |
69762 |
7.6 |
8129 |
65242 |
5.9 |
| Part Category 1 : 02 - Other Ingredient |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| XYCU014TIM50LB - XY Cubes |
80 |
734 |
9.9 |
0 |
0 |
0.0 |
160 |
1441 |
9.4 |
0 |
0 |
0.0 |
| XYCU01500050LB - XY Cubes |
631 |
5505 |
5.9 |
2185 |
18498 |
5.8 |
8022 |
68321 |
7.4 |
8129 |
65242 |
5.9 |
| |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
| Total Part Category 1:02 Other Ingre |
711 |
6239 |
6.1 |
2185 |
18498 |
5.8 |
8182 |
69762 |
7.6 |
8129 |
65242 |
5.9 |
| |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
Total Invoice Salesman :001-Fred Jone
|
1422 |
12478 |
6.1 |
4370 |
36996 |
5.8 |
16364 |
139524 |
7.6 |
16258 |
130484 |
5.9 |
|
| It is our belief that the User Definable
Sales Reporting module will be an excellent tool for Minotaur
users to access specific sales information. It should
be particularly beneficial when new or ad-hoc sales reporting
requirements are identified. Please contact us if you
would like to know more about this new module. |
| |
|
| |
