Where is the Colombian?
You bought three origins for the year from two importers back in the spring. One is sitting in the importer's UK warehouse waiting for you to call bags off. One is on the water with an arrival date that has moved twice. One is a spot purchase you forgot was only partly delivered. The details are in email threads, contract PDFs and the importer's online portal, each with its own format.
Then the house blend runs low, and the question "do we have more of this coming?" takes half an hour to answer.
Contracts live in someone's inbox
Green buying is a long cycle, and the information arrives in pieces over months: the offer, the contract, the shipping advice, the arrival notice, the release, the invoice. Each importer sends these in their own way. A small roastery has no system for this, because the volume never seemed to justify one, so it sits in the inbox of whoever does the buying.
- Contract terms, prices and bag counts are in PDFs.
- Shipment and arrival dates change and the update is an email.
- Bags held at the importer are not visible alongside your own stock.
- Warehouse storage periods and release lead times are remembered, not recorded.
- The person who buys green is the only one who knows the position.
Surprises in the roast plan
When contracts are invisible, the roast plan gets surprises. A blend component runs out because nobody called off more bags in time. A lot sits at the importer longer than planned and picks up extra storage charges. Two contracts of similar coffees overlap and one ages in the warehouse. And the business depends on one person's inbox, which is a real problem when they are away during harvest season or at a trade show.
How the tracker works
- Each contract is recorded with importer, origin, lot, bag count, bag weight, price and terms. Contract PDFs are read by an extraction step and a person checks the fields before saving.
- Contracts carry a status: offered, contracted, shipped, landed, at importer, released, delivered.
- Importer emails such as shipping advice and arrival notices are forwarded to a tracker address and matched to the right contract, updating dates without retyping.
- Bags held at the importer are shown next to the green stock on your own floor, so the total position per coffee is one view.
- Using the roast plan's usage rate, the tracker estimates when each coffee will run low on your floor and prompts a call off with enough time for the importer's release and delivery lead time.
- Delivered bags pass straight into the green stock ledger by lot, so the contract, the arrival and the stock are the same record.
| Stage | Where the detail sits now | In the tracker |
|---|---|---|
| Contract | PDF in email | Fields extracted and checked |
| Shipment | Shipping advice email | Status and dates updated |
| At importer | Importer portal or memory | Shown with your own stock |
| Call off | When someone notices | Prompted from usage and lead time |
| Delivery | Delivery note | Booked into stock by lot |
A buying position you can see
Anyone in the business can see what green is owned, where it is and when it is expected. The buyer spends less time chasing and more time cupping offers. Call offs happen on time. Planning next year's buying starts from a clear record of what was bought, how much was used and when it arrived, rather than a reconstruction from old emails.
Does this sound familiar?
- Green contracts are PDFs in one person's inbox.
- You have run low because a call off was late.
- You are not sure how many bags you still have at each importer.
- Arrival dates change and the roast plan finds out late.
- Storage charges have surprised you.