Receiving produce
The gate is the cheapest place to catch a problem. Everything after this point is more expensive.
Setting up your suppliers first
There are two kinds of supplier, and the difference matters.
| Type | What you get |
|---|---|
| Linked farm also uses SoftFarm | Deliveries arrive with the crop, the full spray history, compliance results and residue tests already attached. Nothing to retype. |
| External supplier not on SoftFarm | You record the delivery yourself. It works fine — but you only know what they tell you, and that gap is real. |
To link a farm: open Suppliers, send them an invitation, and wait for them to accept. They keep their own account and their own data; you receive what comes with the produce they sell you.
Taking in a delivery
- Open Incoming to see what linked farms have dispatched to you.
- Turn it into a goods receipt. It gets a GRN number and a lot code — that code follows this produce all the way to the buyer.
- Weigh it in. Record the net weight received.
- Look at what came with it — the crop, the sprays, the residue tests. Read this before you accept, not after.
- Record the quality check.
- Decide: accept, quarantine or reject.
For an external supplier, create the goods receipt directly and enter the details yourself.
The quality check
Record the check even when everything is fine. A receipt with no quality record is indistinguishable from one nobody looked at, and that is the one your buyer will ask about.
Record what you actually assessed: condition, size and grade, defects, temperature on arrival, and anything about the paperwork that did not match.
Accept, quarantine or reject
| Decision | Use it when | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Accept | Quality is good and the compliance history is clean. | Goes into stock, available for packing. |
| Quarantine | You are not sure yet — awaiting a test result, or a query with the farmer. | Held. Cannot be packed until you decide. |
| Reject | Quality fails, or the compliance history is bad. | Not taken into stock. Record the weight and the reason. |
Always record the reason for a rejection. If the farmer is linked, they see it — which is how a supplier problem gets fixed instead of repeating next week.
Once produce from several farms is packed into one lot, you cannot separate them again. One farmer's banned chemical becomes a problem for every carton in that lot, and for every buyer who receives one. Quarantine is cheap. Recalling a shipment is not.
What to look at before accepting
- Was anything flagged risky in the spray history?
- Is there a residue test, and did it pass?
- Had the waiting period passed before they harvested?
- Does the quantity match the delivery note?
- Has this supplier had problems before? See supplier risk.