Five contracts, three merchants and a haulier on the phone
Over the past year you have sold wheat in pieces. A forward sale in the spring for harvest movement. Another for November to December. A pool contract with a co-operative. A spot sale when the price looked good in October. Some barley to a local feed mill. Each was agreed on the phone and followed by a contract note by email, and each has a tonnage, a movement period, a spec and a price.
Now the haulier is ringing to ask which contract the next three loads are for, and the merchant's trader wants to know when the November tonnage will move. The answer is in a spreadsheet, a pile of contract notes and the weighbridge tickets from loads already gone, and none of them quite agree.
Why contract tracking goes wrong
The trouble is not the selling. It is that a sale is one event and a delivery is many, spread over months, and the loads do not arrive labelled with the contract they belong to.
- The contract note says tonnes and a movement period, but loads are booked by the merchant's logistics team, who may call them against a different contract reference.
- Weights on the merchant's ticket differ from the farm's weight, and it is their weight that counts for the contract.
- Loads that fail spec are rejected, diverted or accepted with a deduction, which may change which contract they count against.
- Tolerances allow a little over or under the contract tonnage, so 'finished' is not a simple number.
- Invoices or self-billed statements arrive later still and need matching back to loads.
If you sell through a merchant, a co-op pool and a local buyer, each one tracks your deliveries in its own system, and you are the only person who needs to see all of them together.
What a muddled ledger costs
Delivering against the wrong contract can mean selling grain at the lower of two prices without meaning to. Missing a movement period can cause arguments with a merchant. Over-selling, when contract tonnage adds up to more than you have in store, is the one everybody worries about. The contract terms and what they mean for you are between you and your buyers and advisers, not us. The admin problem is that you cannot see where you stand.
Unpaid loads are the quieter cost. When loads, tickets and statements are not matched, a payment short by one load can go unnoticed for months.
A contract ledger that fills itself from loads
What we build is a contract ledger with one line per sale and every load matched against it.
- Contract notes are forwarded by email and read automatically: buyer, reference, crop, tonnage, tolerance, movement period, spec and price. A person confirms each contract before it goes into the ledger.
- Loads out are recorded from your store record or from the merchant's weighbridge ticket, with the buyer's contract reference if they give it.
- Each load is matched to a contract, by reference where there is one and by buyer, crop and date where there is not. Unmatched loads go into a list for a person to assign.
- Each contract shows tonnage contracted, delivered by buyer's weight, still to deliver, and whether it is inside its movement period.
- Rejected and diverted loads are recorded with what happened to them, so the figures do not assume every load counted.
- Payments and self-billed statements are matched to loads, and anything delivered but unpaid after the terms you set is flagged.
| Contract | Contracted | Delivered | Left to move | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Merchant A, harvest | As per note | From tickets | Calculated | Movement period ended |
| Merchant A, Nov to Dec | As per note | From tickets | Calculated | In period |
| Co-op pool | As per note | From tickets | Calculated | Open |
| Feed mill | As per note | From tickets | Calculated | One load unpaid |
Next to the ledger sits your grain in store, so the difference between what is left to deliver and what is left in the bins is always in view.
The haulier rings again
The haulier asks which contract tomorrow's three loads are for. You open the ledger, see the November contract is in period with tonnage left, and the harvest contract is complete within tolerance. You tell him. When the tickets come back, each load is matched to the November contract automatically, and the remaining tonnage updates.
A month later, the merchant's statement arrives. The ledger shows one load delivered in November that is not on it, with the ticket number, and you have what you need to ask about it.
Could this be your grain ledger?
- Contract notes, weighbridge tickets and statements are in different places.
- You are not always sure which contract a load counted against.
- Working out tonnage left to deliver means adding up tickets by hand.
- You have worried about selling more grain than is in store.
- Unpaid loads are found late, if at all.