Vir-Clar Farms was featured in the March 24, 2018, Special Edition of Dairy Star magazine, the story: Establishing the Future of a Herd. The story is about the Dairy Calf and Heifer Association (DCHA) and emphasizing animal welfare. Vir-Clar Farms was also featured in another related story, in the same issue of the publication.

• Julie's (Sales Engineer) son, Joey, and niece, Carmen, became Godparents to Julie's great-nephew, Caleb.
• Katrina (Administrative Assistant) and daughter, Kyla, made some time for tea on Katrina’s birthday.
• Carole’s (Staff Accountant) daughter, Zoe, decided to accept the offer from the University of Wisconsin – Madison to attend their school in the Fall of 2018. She was accepted into the school of agricultural and life sciences and will be majoring in biochemistry with an emphasis on stem cell research. Zoe will be graduating from Red Wing High School in June with a 4.1 GPA and has already completed 60 college credits that will transfer to Madison.
• Jada’s (Technical Support Specialist) daughter, Ava, (holding the flowers) had a lead role in “The Ever After - A Musical.”

• Katrina (Administration Assistant) and her Best Pal Katie in NY! They went to two musicals (Chicago and Wicked), ate Cookie DO, explored Times Square, “navigated” through the subway system, visited the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, and went to Battery Park to view Lady Liberty under the stars.
• Connie’s (Communications and Technical Writer) daughter, Jenna, was selected to be on the MN All State Jazz Team. She performed with 30 other jazz dancers chosen from around the state by an independent judging panel.
• Matt’s (Sales Consultant) daughter, Lena, performed in the Winter Guard International Regional in St. Louis.
• Mike (Quality Assurance Manager) and his extended family took a trip to Hawaii.

Spring is here according to the calendar. Although, with snow on the ground in many parts of the country, it may not feel like it. The arrival of spring prompts many of us to start thinking about doing some spring cleaning. Included in your spring cleaning should be a review of your financial information. Here are a few things to think about cleaning up.

When entering transactions, it’s easy to enter, as new, the name of a customer or vendor that may already exist in your database. This creates a duplicate of that name and may make it difficult to find transactions related to that name. Having duplicate names also skews the numbers, when performing analysis of the business you’ve conducted with that person or company. In CenterPoint, you can easily go into setup and combine duplicate entries, making it easier to find transactions for that name.

Another example is one that I recently completed with my own personal data. Since I started keeping my personal records in our software (November 1987), I have had separate accounts (subaccounts) for electricity and gas under a utilities account. After over thirty years, (apparently, I’m a slow learner) I realized I have never looked at my utility costs at that level, so I combined the two accounts into a single utilities account I called “gas and electric”. Not a big deal, but it makes my data a little cleaner.

Of course, it’s also the end of a calendar quarter, and that’s always a good time to take a look at how your actual business is doing compared to the budget you created for the year. (You did create a budget, didn’t you?) Also, it’s good timing to check inventory that you have on hand against the information in your accounting program.

I’m sure you can think of a number of other things that can be done as part of your spring (data) cleaning.