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February 2010
 
Looking Forward to 2010
In April, Minotaur celebrates 25 years in business; we’ve got a goal to make 2010 our best year yet. From humble beginnings writing code for our first customer, a Toronto manufacturer, Minotaur has grown into a respected full service ERP provider with specialization in the Food and Chemical markets. Times have changed since 1985. Back then there was no Facebook, Linked In or internet for that matter. In addition to our website www.minotaursoftware.com where you can review past newsletters, watch videos on our handheld and touch screen modules as well as learn about bar code technologies, you can now join our user group community on the Minotaur Forum www.minotaurforums.com as well as join our corporate groups on Facebook and Linked In. The internet has allowed Minotaur to effectively service customers as far away as Hawaii to the west and England to the east.
As this is a special year for us, we’d like to ask for your help in spreading the word about Minotaur. In return, we’d like you to share in our success. We’ll be giving away 25 gift cards this year for $25 each with lots of ways for you to win.
If you refer us to a company that we aren’t already in an active sales process with and we sell them a system in 2010, you will win big. How big? We’ll give $250 to you or a non-profit of your choice as well as a $250 Minotaur credit for your company. If you act as a referral talking to a prospective customer, even if you didn’t refer them in the first place, we’ll immediately send you a $25 gift card and provide a $250 Minotaur credit if they buy.
We know our customers have tremendous experience doing what they do well. We encourage you to share that experience by joining one or more of our online communities to connect with other users and share what you know and ask for help in areas where you want to improve. Of course, while Minotaur will respond to your questions, other Minotaur users can also provide input as we all strive for a great year in 2010.
  
Minotaur Welcomes New Customer
Dure Foods Ltd is a HACCP Recognized manufacturer and distributor of Hot Chocolate, Teas and Flavored Cappuccino mixes for the food service industry including manufacturing for private label. So chances are you have enjoyed their products at the office or in local restaurants. They also produce a retail brand called Malcolm’s. Their head office is in Brantford, Ontario with another production facility in Columbus, Ohio. Visit them on the web at www.durefoods.com.
 
 Minotaur Welcomes Sam Diab
Minotaur welcomes Sam Diab to our Project Management staff. Sam is a Professional Project Manager and comes to Minotaur most recently from Maple Leaf Foods. He brings strong IT experience managing the implementation of several ERP systems in his previous roles. Now, he’ll use that experience to help our customers implement their Minotaur systems successfully. Besides holding progressively senior roles in software implementation, he holds a degree in Economics and Industrial Relations and has taken courses in Six Sigma as well as completing his Human Resources Professional certificate. Sam is married and lives with his wife in Etobicoke and is a classmate of Judith in the Executive MBA program at Queen’s University.
 
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Looking Forward to 2010
New Customer Welcome
New Employee Welcome
Sales Report Writing Course
Multi Location Draw for
Raw Materials
Did You Know?
Congratulations
Valentine’s Contest
  
User Generated Sales Reports —Level 1
If you aren’t already writing your own sales reports on a regular basis, then this course is for you. Start the year off right by learning how to create your own sales reports quickly and easily.
Minotaur will be offering a 3 hour course which will explore User Generated Sales Reports using Minotaur’s report writing wizard. This level 1 course will take you through using filters and subtotals to create sales reports sorted how you want and displaying only the columns of information you need.
The course will be held on Tuesday February 23rd from 9am to 12pm and is open to all Minotaur Users. The cost of the course is $100 per person. To register, please contact Toni Johnson at 905-458-7575 Ext. 101 or email toni@minotaursoftware.com.
Unable to attend in person? We are pleased to offer our out of province customers the option to take any of our training courses remotely. Minotaur customer Tileco Inc., located in Hawaii, has taken several training courses remotely. Melissa Singson of Tileco has found it to be “a cost effective way for those looking to take a course”.
In order to be able to take the course remotely you will need access to 2 computers, both with internet access. The first will be used to see the instructor’s screen and the second for the hands on portion which will allow you to do the activities in our demo system.
Remote connections are limited so if you are interested in taking this course remotely make sure to register early to ensure a spot.
  
Multi Location Draw For Raw Materials
Do you currently store a variety of raw materials or packaging for instance in different warehouse locations in your Minotaur system?
Before completing production runs in your system do you transfer raw materials, etc to a staging or production location from which to draw?
Whether your inventory is identified in Minotaur as being in a tanker, silo, freezer or dry goods area, you may want to consider a modification that will allow you to draw individual items on a single work order from different warehouse locations. Depending on your process, this modification will not only save time on the floor and in the office, it will also ensure that production costing and FIFO allocation are accurate regardless of how your production data gets into Minotaur. (production data can be keyed, scanned with hand held devices or loaded via a file produced by packaging equipment.)
Users can specify when entering a production work order, the locations of the materials to be used or the location can be set as a default using item attribute functionality. For more information on this functionality, please contact your project manager.
 
 Did You Know?
Comments on Aged Receivable Report Increase Effectiveness of Collection Calls
If you were unable to attend the user conference in November, you may not be aware of this new ability which was included with your latest upgrade of MBS7. Fields for Comment Start and End Date have been added to the middle of the CRA input screen. When running this report in detail mode (Print All Invoices checked), your report will display customer comments within the date range selected.
 
Comments must be in standard Minotaur date format. That is, Nov 19, 2009. TABS on the customer master are used for easy access to comments, contacts, etc. It is our plan to expand our use of tabs to incorporate additional information throughout the system.
Your system can also be set to allowing staff to drill down on invoice number to see the invoice on screen (forms must be MBS7ized). From there, staff can quickly create a PDF and email to those customers who have misplaced their invoice.
 
 
Are you entering comments correctly, running the report with the appropriate date range and still not seeing comments on your report?
 
If so, you may need the updated MBS7 generic CRA report or your CRA report is customized. In either case, give us a call and we can look into it. If your system runs the generic CRA, we will forward along the report. If your CRA report is customized, we can update the report on a time and materials basis.
 
 
 
 
Valentine’s Word Search
Solve our Valentine’s word search and be eligible for your chance to win a $25 gift card for Starbucks Coffee.

In celebration of our 25 years of excellence, we will have two winners each newsletter contest in 2010.
 
All entries must be received by February 9, 2010.
 
 
Fax your entries to 905-458-5585 or email to toni@minotaursoftware.com by
February 9, 2010.

Name:   _______________________  Company:   _____________________
 
Congratulations to Michelle and
Family
Michelle Stamper has been the office manager at Minotaur since 1994. In December, Michelle welcomed a new addition to her family; a beautiful little girl, Emma Alyssa.
Michelle is now on maternity leave and is working hard to keep up with her 3 children.

We wish Michelle, Ted and her family lots of happiness and special memories in the years to come.

Please direct any inquiries normally sent to Michelle to Wendy Pineo at wendy@minotaursoftware.com.
 
Congratulations to November’s Winner
Congratulations to Julia Newman from Halenda’s Fine Foods/ The Meat Depot for winning November’s Winter Maze contest. Julia has won a $50 gift card for Canadian Tire.
Halenda’s Fine Foods/The Meat Depot is a
supplier of Beef, Pork, Cold Cuts, Sausages and Kabobs to retail, food processors and distributors. They are the winner of 5 medals in the 2009 OIMP—Ontario Finest Meat Competition. Julia has been with the company for 7 months and works in receivables. In her spare time Julia enjoys playing golf.
We hope you enjoy your gift!
The information in this newsletter is provided to customers to use at their own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for professional advice.
 
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