General News

Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) is an approach to food safety that is systematic and preventive. It is recommended by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the United Nations international standards organization for food safety. HACCP is used by most countries around the world. It has been in use since the 1960s.

In the early 1960s, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) asked US food-product giant Pillsbury to develop food for astronauts. They wanted food that was not only tasty, but safe to eat in zero gravity. HACCP was originally developed for this project.

HACCP goes beyond inspecting finished food products. It helps to find, correct, and prevent hazards throughout the production process. These include physical, chemical, and biological hazards.

HACCP is not just used in food production. It’s applied in other industries around the world, such as cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

There are seven universally-accepted HACCP principles. Every country that uses HACCP follows […]

Amity Insulation Group Inc. (Amity) has grown to be one of the larger 'one stop shop' distributors in the industrial insulation industry, but its owners and management team have not rested on those laurels. To generate savings and speed up Amity’s workflow, the company began an upgrade of its accounting system several years ago. Working directly with Jon Mainwaring, the co-founder and vice president of Oneir Solutions, Amity has put Oneir’s remarkably nimble, Linux-driven, accounting, sales, and inventory controls to profitable work.

Frank Van Gelder has bigger things in mind these days for his building supplies company, Dwight Lumber, and that’s very fitting. Tiny though Dwight, Ontario, the village where Frank founded the family business may be, its Lake of Bays surroundings have a huge reputation. Encompassed by Canadian Shield forest, anchored on ancient granite bedrock, and refreshed with pristine waters all around, Lake of Bays has been named by National Geographic Traveler magazine, as the top destination among its world-wide “Ten Best Trips of Summer” rankings. But that’s no surprise to Dwight locals, nor Frank.

Overview
Many aspects of businesses can now be automated to streamline many processes, including accounts receivables (AR). By automating these financial processes, you can make a huge difference to both your business and its clients. Accounts receivables can often be challenging for many firms that are still doing their accounting the manual way. Even those companies that are computerized, but do not have all the tools at their fingertips to effectively manage their accounts receivable may require more control.

Here are a few reasons why automating your AR can be beneficial for your company.

1. Standardize Your Collection Processes
Each member of your accounting team may have a different process for handling accounts receivables that come in. Your business can easily suffer from inefficient processing of payments if there is no adequate coordination in place. Having an automatic process for your records through your business’s ERP system can streamline the whole plan, and make […]

These important considerations can help keep you profitable in the face of shrinking profit margins and burgeoning recalls and regulations.

The reality of the day is that food producers must not only maintain a strong defense against recalls, but also against increasing regulations, food sensitivities in the population, environmental consciousness and PETA agendas. All this squeezed against tighter operating margins brought on by extreme weather changes and ever-mounting business fees and taxes. Many famous food industry names populate the FDA and USDA’s “rap sheet” of food producers who have been required to issue a recall of possibly contaminated foods.

Surviving and prospering now requires excruciatingly tight control of all aspects of food production from the acquisition of ingredients all the way to delivery of the food product to the consumer. Legacy stand-alone systems for processing, inventory control, sales and accounting simply cannot keep up.

“What’s been done in the past is no longer […]