Meeting Notes
Accounting for Cylinders
- Treat cylinders like fixed assets vs. inventory
- Argument is the useful life of being cylinders can be 100 years
- Feedback
- Certain cylinders as asset, but anything 100 cubic feet and below, small propane treated as inventory
- Some that we do as inventory (smaller, can take to anyone and get refilled)
- With auditors don’t look at the per cylinder price, batch them, depreciate the batch
- Counting as assets is helpful for loans
Cylinders utilization
- Always seem to have the wrong types of cylinders available
- What are we utilizing, when to reorder, when should we convert, etc
- Can never predict what’s going to happen, trying to figure out now that we have ACM/Tims
- Feedback
- Running a 3rd shift to help improve
- Buy as many as you can
- Built a custom report, cylinder locator – pulls the report for cradles (12 and 16 packs), 1x month
- On ACM
- Every 45 days, do a physical audit on all barcoded cylinders and cycle count off of that
- Do quantity control their cylinders, so they can trust inventory display
- Treat it just like a hard goods cycle count
- Cradles are the focus
- Use a tool for cylinder utilization and which types turnover through Trackabout
- A lot of customers keep cylinders and backup to their bulk tanks – makes utilization look bad but it’s a good problem to have because there’s no labor
AI Practical Usage
- Usage contained to exec team in closed environment, can’t use free one
- Claude – analysis ability
- Built an advisory team with a lot of personas – insurance risk, CPA, AI, CFO, Auditors
- Ask it a question
- Working on fire claim, what is the best way to present this
- Reports that are updated every month – raw data, go update my PowerPoint
- Created a set of instructions to follow – ask me questions if there’s something you don’t understand and tell it why you’re looking at certain things and what you’re trying to find out
- Not using it for anything recurring
- Heard about agents – but skeptical
- Selected Open order edit list – errors
- Not using a whole lot, using ChatGPT
- Thinking about using Claude, request to create menu boards in gas plant that can track production, coding for dumbies, simplify the activity
- Not operational because the people that requested weren’t ready to use it
- How many cylinders are in production, how many ready, what else is left
- Workers need something quick and easy so they can figure out what to go to next – could be on board vs wasting time waiting for an assignment
- Copilot, spreadsheets and comparisons, low on inventory, summarize the contract (offer letter, write this better)
- Tims is going to have an AI feature, spoke to Messer Distributing group
- David came and talked
- Introducing AI to our stores
- Tims is going to have an AI feature, spoke to Messer Distributing group
- Not using much, compose memos or policies for the auditors, converting pdf to excel
- Not using it for any sort of financial or Tims data just yet, standard form/policy or procedure (job description)
- More interesting aging employee issue
- Customers asking questions, testing it a lot – does this look right, not making as many mistakes, aren’t quite fully trusting
- Helpful tool to train young employees
- Use ChatGPT and Copilot
- Contracts
- Handbook – because it’s so long, specific GPT, types in a question
- Doesn’t use it for excel
- Tims – trying to get on the beta – want it all accessible from an AI perspective
- Had 6 people take the GAWDA AI class
- A few on our executive team using copilot, IT using Claude for coding – saved them a tremendous amount of time
- Monthly or quarterly reporting
- How our pay compares by job type and what’s being published – always ask to list a source (i.e. driver wages that another company is publishing)
- Random analysis is the time savers, how we’re doing compared to a benchmark, spits it out pretty quickly
- When should we replace a truck given 20 years worth of maintenance records, when it no longer makes sense – years 8 or 9 seemed to be the consensus
- Copilot need the paid version ($30/month for a license) – difference is night and day
- Copilot corporately, all agreed how to use AI appropriately
- $30 month sign a license for it – someone needs to ask for it before they’ll sign them up
- Drafts or roughs out a policy – spinning up word docs
- Excel analysis
- Was using service quotes – getting them back with confidence and found out there was errors
- IT department – added a monitor for copilot
Next potential topics (8/19 meeting)
- Ownership more with less
- Internal Controls
- AP/AR Automation
Upcoming Dates
As always, please don’t hesitate to send ideas for future discussions over to me.
Tony Hopkins
Tony Hopkins is a Senior Vice President of Horton’s Risk Advisory division, where he leads the M&A and Welding and Gas practice groups. He provides clients with comprehensive, cost-effective and innovative solutions to meet their most complex, risk-related challenges.
Material posted on this website is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a legal opinion or medical advice. Contact your legal representative or medical professional for information specific to your legal or medical needs.
