Cal Software Limited

Grain Trading

Through Cal Software's commitment to Agriculture, over 14 years product investment has been on Grain Trading and following the launch of Compac Gold in 1995 it has been continually developed into the market leading product it is today, so creating a world class enterprise product with an international customer base.

Its breadth of functionality makes it ideally suitable for companies with grain, oilseed and commodity activities. From commodity and ingredient procurement, through analysis, storage and sales, to merchandising and distribution the product is unparalleled.

Its open systems design and easy to use Windows interface ensures it is an easily maintainable software package, which is quick to implement and flexible when integrated to 3rd party products. A customer base that range from single trader operations to companies approaching 100 users demonstrates the scaleability of the product.

The trading functionality available in the Compac Gold package is extensively used by a variety of trading companies both in the UK and Continental Europe who trade and export tonnage ranging from 100,000 to 2 million annually.

The package is designed to operate across the full range of trading functions providing a sample analysis database, storage management and logistic support at the operational end and full forward book and risk management features at the other.

With Cal Software's Commodity Trading software package in terms of ease of usage you can count on:

Easy search features through the samples database to aid the identification of specification ’fit’.
The software design conforms to industry recognised standards to ensure menus, features and keystrokes operate in a consistent manner.
Speed of data entry for contracts and instant access for data retrieval.
Icon and tool bar led menus, which are individually configurable for the user.
Comprehensive security features at database, program and field levels determine what functions are available to each user.

Risk Management

This module provides management reporting for a trading desk. It also enables ’what if’ analysis, to enable the user to record expected events in the software and reflect them. An example of this would be in valuations, where the user can determine the affect on the trading book of changes in pricing and quality as the market places change.

In addition, the user is offered management tools such as the ability to view contracts along with the net expected price, which accounts for base prices, standard charges, brokerage, haulage and claims. Claims are calculated based upon expected quality information held at either a contract or commodity level. The net expected price is used throughout the software package to provide an accurate projection of both average prices and forward book valuations.

Changes may be made to either stock or contract information to enable the user to reflect information which is not contained within Compac Gold, to allow for valuation of the long/short position against expected net prices. A comprehensive auditing facility records all such changes and provides an audit trail for review by management.

Expectations regarding the movement of stock are recorded in the system, thereby enabling a detailed costing for the holding and movement of stock. This is incorporated into the forward book valuation. Storage, rental and interest charges may be varied to mirror expectations.

With Compac Gold’s Forward Book Module the Trader can count on:

The ability to analyse his or her position on a wide range of criteria.
Being able to utilise "what if" criteria to get an impression of how differing market factors such as market price and quality analysis which will affect an individual trade or whole book.
Open and Closed book analysis.
The ability to trade and exercise options.
Comprehensive reporting and audit functionality.

On line Position

Forward Cover

The Forward Cover module within Compac Gold enables the trader to have an on line, up to date view of his or her commodity position, both in terms of the spot month and future trading months. It further enables the trader to have a dynamic view of an individual trading position by commodity, selected commodity groups, or as a total position for each respective future month.

With comprehensive drill down facilities and reports the trader has ultimate flexibility, being able to tailor his or her view of the forward position using the wide ranging filter options that are available.

Trader can count on:

Daily Trade Sheets that provide an on-line contract management enquiry that lists all contracts entered and amended for a specific period of time, with the ability to drill into the contracts themselves.
Forward cover providing comprehensive selection criteria to allow the trader to tailor his or her view of the forward position in terms of commodity, trading location, area and contract type.
A comprehensive on line valuation of a trader’s forward book based on current stock level, market price and price of contract.
The ability to view average prices as part of the position basis, delivered or ex-farm depending upon the trader’s preference.
The ability to enter market prices easily at the commodity group level or at the commodity level for both purchases and sales. Furthermore an adjustment for area can also be included as part of the forward book valuation if desired.
Comprehensive reporting facilities to ensure management information can easily be produced on any view of the data depending upon the trader’s selections.

Contract Management

Compac Gold enables simple contract entry by using product defaults that can then be changed by exception to suit the specification of the individual contracts. The contracts, once entered can be viewed through a variety of on line enquiry windows and contracts reports, which are also available to print if desired.

With Compac Gold’s Contract Management facilities the user can count on:

Being able to link a collection or delivery address at the individual contract level together with a haulier and haulage rate where applicable.
The ability at the contract entry stage to link contracts, which can be recorded against the spot month or forward months. The user is also able to multi-create contracts for a run of forward months.
Templates that can be predefined to the requirements of the commodity product specification. They can be used to define charge tables, contract terms, contract comments, tolerance levels and standard charges such as the HGCA levy and weighbridge charges.
Being able to define the contract type that can be fixed price, sliding scale or base price at the contract entry stage. Where the contract is base price it is possible to re-price all contracts based on the published weekly HGCA prices.
A multitude of on line enquiry options and reports to allow the trader to view his contracts by month, commodity and area along with the ability to drill down through the menus to a number of other options.

Logistics and Transport Management

As an integral part of physical commodity trading Compac Gold offers a comprehensive transport management module to enable the trader to match contract deliveries based on geographical locations.

The concept of an allocation within Compac Gold enables a one-to-many or many-to-one relationship for either directly matching contracts, or a mixture of stock and direct delivery allocations. A fixing can then be used to generate the physical instruction for the haulier to move a consignment of grain from one location to another for a specific date at a specific haulage rate.

Within Logistics and Transport Management the Forwarder can count on:

Allocations enabling a one-to-many and many-to-one relationship where contracts are matched together for stock and direct movements.
The ability to change delivery and or collection addresses where a parcel of grain may be coming straight from farm against an allocation.
Being able to raise haulage instructions for specific hauliers at a specific rate for a given period of time. The instruction can be for a number of movements or for an individual load and the instruction can then be faxed directly to the haulier from Compac Gold.
The ability to hold a booking reference and intake reference against an individual fixing that will also appear on the haulage instruction sent to the haulier.
Being able to historically enquire on the details of the fixing including the weighbridge number the collection and delivery locations and any applicable claim.
A Shipping Charge facility that provides the ability to self bill and accrue third party shipping costs such as insurance and spreading charges.
Automated fax integration to hauliers, customer/suppliers and stores.

Management Reports

In addition to the online enquiries, Compac Gold and Generation offer extensive management information written in Crystal Reports that are available as part of each standard package. The product databases are comprehensive and provide a source for marketing, costing, financial and quality related information. As part of Cal Software's standard management report set, there are groups of reports targeted at the different market verticals like Grain, Feed, Flour Seed and Supplements for example. Crystal Reports Developer can also be used by specifically trained IT staff, to enable a company to write bespoke reports using the Progress open interface broker to fit the requirements of the individual business. Alternatively, it is possible to use a data warehouse solution called CorVu supplied by Cal Software, where extracts are run against the Compac Gold database and reports are then written against the extracted data.

With Compac Gold Management Information targeted at Grain the user can count on:

Numerous system reports being available from Compac Gold as part of the standard package specifically written for a grain trading business.
The ability to utilise Crystal reports developer in conjunction with the Progress open interface broker enabling direct access to the database tables for bespoke customer reports.
A data warehouse solution called CorVu that can be used to extract large volumes of data and then report against it. This enables non-technical people to write reports based on the definitions of the extracted data.

Stocks (Rental and Storage)

Compac Gold allows for a wide ranging number of stock scenarios, including dealing with third party owned stores, whilst maintaining records of movements which can be comprehensively audited, both into and out of each stock location. The stock system is entirely user definable dealing with bulk and bagged products, where grain can be measured right down to the individual bin in which it is stored with full traceablitity of movements in and out. Movements can be viewed as a whole for each store by commodity, with a drill down option to the individual loads and haulier details.

With Compac Gold’s Stock Module you can count on:

The stocking locations being entirely user definable, with each store being able to facilitate a full audit of movements in and out of stock, with drill-down facilities on each movement.
Charges such as rent and handling can be automatically applied to grain consignments that can be invoiced out, or accrued for.
Full valuations of stock costs being maintained for stock locations together with average cost calculations.
A monthly stock position allowing for forward planning and the ability to resource material requirements.
The ability to adjust stock, so it can be easily transferred from one store to another using all haulage elements of the system.

Groups and Pools

With the changing agricultural market place, farmers and merchants are leaning more towards the co-operative marketing of grain and commodities. Compac Gold’s extensive customer base has ensured that the product has moved with the times and an integrated Groups and Pools module is available to deal with the physical movement, storage and handling, together with the financial cycle of interim payments, premiums, deductions and final payments. The Groups and Pools functionality is fully integrated with commercial trading position, to enable the trader to achieve his or her optimal selling price and best returns for the Grain Group members.

With Compac Gold’s Groups and Pools Module you can count on:

Fully integrated Groups and Pools functionality to allow for multiple grain group and pool combinations.
Comprehensive features to fully deal with all financial requirements of Groups and Pools from interim payments based on user defined payment schemes, through to the final payment calculation based on the revenue earned from each respective Pool.
The ability to record Members and their commitments against Pools, against sales from the Pool and have the ability to drill down into the contracts, together with information about movements into and out of the Pool.
The ability to define Pools for a particular period of time and associate user definable payment schemes, which are recorded against each Pool where payments can either be value or percentage based depending upon the requirements of the Pool.
The final payment calculation enables the trader to make final payments to the members of the Pool, based on the total sales from the pool against any charges incurred and the accumulation of the payments made to each member.

Laboratory Sampling Module

Compac Gold offers a fully integrated sampling system that can record any number of user definable analysis test results. As the samples are taken off farm, they can be quickly and easily recorded into the package’s lab sampling module. Based on the analysis test sample results the trader can easily convert the sample into a contract. A summary report can then easily be produced for sending to the farmer as confirmation of the sample results.

With Compac Gold’s Laboratory Module you can count on:

Comprehensive selection criteria to allow the trader to search and filter the analysis results including the ability to filter on analysis test results for a particular range.
Reports that allow for a detailed print of the analysis tests for each recorded sample result, or a summary of analysis results based on the commodity and farmer combination.
Features, which in addition to analysis test results, provide the ability to record a buyer, area, description, farmer’s reference and quantity against each sample.
The ability to record an analysis test method, which can identify where a lab is undertaking tests for third party.
Easy conversion of a sample into a contract where is also possible to record the test results against the contract.
The lab system having the flexibility to be used for recording grain samples over a weighbridge both in terms of intake and despatch. This can then be used to automatically calculate charge deductions or premiums based on pre-defined charge table calculations.