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Sap Business One Consultants Transportation Industry Implementation Example

SAP B1 increases the number of installations and implementations across the US and, having pretty modern design and flexibility, it offers alternative ways to traditional ERP rich modular functionality and add-ons by simply adopting SB1 standard logic and placing certain procedures to implement industry specific verticals. In this publication we would like to introduce cargo shipping or transportation industry setup example. The proposed logic is available out of the box and could be improved by SB1 queries, including additional fields into standard reports as well as adding some custom Crystal Reports or Excel reports

1.Agent Settlement Report. It is often the case that you work with agents and these agents are both customers and vendors. At the end of the month, or on the timely base you are setting their customer and vendor invoices and either send them the payment or cut the check or create credit memo if balance is negative. You should be able to decide which transactions are ready for settlement and which should wait the next settlement time. The result of the settlement is so-called agent settlement report, plus you would like to have historical settlement querying functionality
2.Agent Settlement as Internal Reconciliation for multiple business partners. This feature is new and introduced in SB1 version 2007. What you do here is select two business partners: one is Agent as Customer and another one is Agent as Vendor. Internal reconciliation for multiple partners then goes into the history and becomes the construction, linking customer and vendor docs matching, you can create either SB1 query or use existing reconciliation reports with added fields to provide required info
3.Sales and Purchasing Invoice details on Agent Settlement report. If you need additional details, such as invoice lines or items, then simple way is creation Agent Settlement Report in Crystal Reports
4.Bill of Lading Report. We recommend you to review pick and pack functionality in SB1 to check in items into containers and consolidated shipment with House and Master Numbers. Items packed in boxes could be good prototypes for Bills of Lading. As Bill of Lading may vary in its form and information required, please prepare your formalized version for further discussion with SB1 consultant

Origin of Welland Canals Top Hat Ceremony

One only needs to have a slight idea of how Canadas geography takes shape in order to understand the perhaps fanatical emphasis Canadians and their governments have always placed on transportation. Canada and many other “New World” countries (including the United States) have traditionally placed a great value on the importance of transportation, largely due to the fact that in order for these huge countries to stay cohesive both politically and economically, there has to be a great transportation infrastructure in place. For Old World countries, size usually wasnt a factor, but when it comes to the sprawling expanses of North America and the unique geographical challenge within it; any construction of a major transportation system was and is a big endeavour.

In Canada, one of the great historical challenges was to provide a way for goods to move from the Great Lakes to the open ocean, thus avoiding the high costs (and sometimes impossibility) of transport overland. The answer was to build canals that ran from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.

One of the most celebrated of these canals is the Welland Canal. Located in Ontario, the canal runs from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It is part of a series of canals that allows shipping to avoid the Niagara Falls region of the St. Lawrence River. Today, over forty million tonnes of cargo is carried through this canal by ships each year!

One can only imagine the new opportunities that were opened up with the completion of the first Welland Canal in 1829. In fact, compared to the Canal today, this operation might well be considered small time.

The Second Welland Canal opened in 1854, and was a much larger investment both of public and private money. After seeing how a canal could open up the trade possibilities of the interior, many interests became involved. The giants of industry in those days specialized in transportation (the railroad developers and so on) and shipping was no exception, thus the opening of the canal was a very formalized event. It included a ceremonial recognition of the first trip up the canal by hanging a top hat (indicative of wealth and power) on both the hull of the ship and the first bridge on the canal.

Today, the Top Hat Ceremony has continued, both as a demonstration of prestige and for reasons of good luck. Each year, the first up bound ship going through the canal is honoured with a ceremony and the presentation of the lucky Top Hat.

Cilento Park, Nambour, Sunshine Coast, Qld

Historic but near forgotten

Cilento Park is a small and fairly overlooked park in Nambour, Sunshine Coast, QLD. It is situated behind the Nambour Hospital and whilst small is certainly worth a visit if you are in the area.

Cilento Park is located on land formrly owned, then donated by the Cilento family Sir Ralph and Dame Phyllis parents of Diane Cilento, the actress born in Mooloolaba who starred in the British films, Tom Jones and alongside Paul Newman in Hombre, as well as marrying actor Sean Connery, one of three husbands, whom she had a child with.

According to the sign at the entrance, it is also of historical value as a memorial for World War II where it was occupied by the 7th Battery 2/4th field artillery.

Getting to Cilento Park was very easy. Much as the directions say, find your way to Nambour hospital and it’s a right down Waterfall Road.

On arrival it looks just like a large park with a children’s play ground and toilet block. It has a bushland back drop and on second look we found a small track on either side of the park leading into the bush.

The walking track is clear underfoot, but not paved. Surprisingly after so much rain, it wasn’t muddy, if a little damp.

A tall canopy meant it felt light and the kids were happy to find sticks and charge forth in search of adventures untold. However, a couple of minutes down the track we came across some slippery rocks and a small stream and thought this was the end of the path. Turns out it was the top of the waterfall.

The fortunate thing about having children on a walk is they tend to be more curious and with a small leap over the stream to the other side, we found the path that continues on around and down to the waterfall.

There were a variety of different bird calls and the bushland was green and lush. It would be well worthwhile taking a bird book, binoculars and a camera to identify the different species. The track winds down and around the waterfall which has been renamed Robinson Falls by the QLD Department of Environmental Resource Management

The waterhole was brown and muddy , but that could have been from all the rain. In Summer if the waters were clear it would be quite a lovely swimming spot.

The track then winds up and at a very small gradient back into a loop to the park.

Cilento Park is perfect if you are in the area enjoying the hinterland towns of Yandina or Nambour and want to take the kids for a play or get some fresh air.

There’s also a free BBQ area, but remember to take some cleaning liquid to give it a wash before hand

Nearby is the Ginger Factory with it’s cooking school, rides and tasty food and plant displays, Pioneer Coffee, offering some of the best freshly roasted coffee beans on the Sunshine Coast and boasting Australias #1 Barista (2009) or Nut Works, the delicious Macadamia Factory, which is excellent value at free entry and lots of yummy treats to sample. Further down the road is The Spirit House, one of the ‘must do’ restaurants and cooking schools on the Coast.

“”The walk is easy and would be perfect for any age or fitness level and is really easy access and unlike many parks on the Sunshine Coast we didn’t see any signs restricting dogs either.

A Brief History Of The Master Limited Partnership

In recent times, Master Limited Partnerships or MLPs have started to gain popularity owing to their steady returns, even during recessionary times. Even as the stock markets tanked in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, MLPs continued to deliver healthy returns. This is owing to the commodity nature of their business, dealing primarily with oil and gas and not subject to short-term variations. In other words, even during times of recession, people will buy gas and that ensures MLPs will deliver returns. And then there are the tax incentives.

Before embarking on the history of the Master Limited Partnership, lets first define what it is. As its name suggests, it is a limited partnership. It combines the tax benefits of a limited partnership with the liquidity value of the tradable stock. In order to qualify for an enterprise to issue Master Limited Partnerships it needs to earn 90% of its profits through activities related to natural assets, real estate or commodities.

The first MLP to be launched was one by the Apache Oil Company in 1981. Its aim was to tap smaller investors for capital while allowing them to become partners. This was soon followed by other oil and gas companies following suit, with real estate companies joining in as well. Legislators became concerned with the meteoric rise in MLPs, with restaurants, hotels, amusement parks and even the Boston Celtics going down this route in order to save on corporate tax.

As a result, new tax laws were formulated. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 and Revenue Act of 1987 put in place restrictions that adequately eliminated preferential tax treatment for all MLPs except those with 90% of their incomes derived from various natural resource activities, such as oil and gas exploration, production, transportation, and so on.

Consequently, many of the earlier MLPs ceased to exist, transforming themselves back to corporations. As of today, there are around 55 MLPs trading on American markets. Most of them deal with midstream energy distribution, transportation, and terminal assets. Some of the newer ones deal with industrial source carbon dioxide (include in the tax code in 2008), and the transportation and storage of ethanol, biodiesel and other alternative fuels (also added in 2008).

Like the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average that track stock performance, MLP performances are tracked by the Alerian MLP index or AMZ. Alerian was founded in 2004 by Gabriel Hammond as an MLP asset manager. The AMZ was born on June 6, 2006, when JP Morgan formally announced its operation. The index is distributed everyday through ticker AMZX and is present on Alerians website. In addition, S&P calculates 10 years of historical index data on both a charge and total return basis.

Some of the larger MLPs, by market capitalization, are Enterprise Product Partners (Ticker: EPD), Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP), Williams Partners (WPZ), Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) and Plains All American Pipeline (PAA). The last year has also seen the launch of MLP mutual funds that have further opened up this sector.

First Home Buyer Needs Self Education

Any first home buyer is at a great disadvantage seeking a mortgage if time is not taken to understand all the necessary aspects toward obtaining a loan successfully. To find the most favourable deal possible, it is important for a first home buyer to do a good deal of investigation and research that will provide them with the necessary knowledge to make an informed decision. Although a first home buyer can call upon the experience and knowledge a professional broker provides, it is still dependent upon the consumer to do some self educating as well.

Preparation in Advance Securing a mortgage for a first home buyer starts many years before actually needing to buy a home. A first home buyer has to be as attractive a prospect as possible to make sure that this very important loan is approved. In order to be as attractive to lenders as possible, a first home buyer must establish and maintain a positive credit rating in the mid 700s, or higher, to even be considered by a mortgage lender. Establishing rotating credit accounts such as credit card, petrol and retail store accounts and paying these on time will help to establish credit worthiness. Living a product life as an ideal credit consumer will prepare a first home buyer for mortgage approval when the time arrives to buy a home.

Down Payment Always Needed Unless you have financed, sold and financed a home more than once, expect to be required to make a down payment anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of the total home purchase. While preparing for that time to come, conducting positive personal finance management will provide a first home buyer with the necessary history mortgage lenders seek.

Deciding What Can Be Affordable Mortgage lending decisi0ons for first home buyers take into consideration examination of all personal finances to determine the amount of monthly repayments a consumer can afford. A good rule of thumb is a monthly mortgage repayment, insurance and taxes should not be more than what a first home buyer experiences paying rent. Since other monthly expenses such as utility, food, transportation and other living expenses may not change drastically, assuming a mortgage repayment should be possible if it does not exceed a current rent payment.

Seek Pre-Approval All first home buyers should seek mortgage pre-approval prior to searching for a house. This allows a consumer the opportunity to start a process toward home purchase by allowing the lender to examine personal credit worthiness establishing a pre-approved purchase amount. Let the amount the lending institution is willing to “risk” on a first home buyer direct the house search. If that number is not sufficient, certain actions such as coming up with an additional down payment may be necessary to qualify for a larger amount.

Motivation for Action Any first home buyer that has a pre-approval from a lending institution can engage the services of a real estate professional who has a firm understanding off the financial limits that will direct what properties are show, Buying a house is an important step so spending time looking at properties that a first home buyer cannot afford is wasteful.

Although many first home buyers are looking for that “dream” home, choice may be limited in reference to size, type and place for that very first real estate purchase.