Recording on the Floor
The Floor is the home screen. Every vessel is a card, grouped as fermenters and mash, stills, and tanks and totes. Tap one and the menu offers only what its contents allow. A record is checked on the server against the same rules every time, whether it comes from the Floor, the Barrels or Bottling tab, or PLUG.
Every action takes a date and time. A date with no time is recorded at noon, plant time, so it never slips into the previous day or month. A record dated in a month that is already filed is refused until you open an amendment for that month.
The three accounts
Spirits sit in one of three accounts, and the totals for each are shown above the tabs:
- Production: unfinished spirits, from the still until the production gauge.
- Storage: spirits held or aged in tanks and barrels.
- Processing: spirits being blended, treated, proofed and bottled, then cases still in bond.
Fermenters
- Mash in. Choose an empty fermenter or mash tun, the kind of spirits it is for, and the grain, sugar or fruit that went in, from your materials register. The materials are drawn down. A mash has no proof gallons yet.
- Log a reading. Gravity, Brix, pH and temperature. A reading is for your own tracking, not a TTB record.
- Charge the still. Moves the batch from the fermenter into a still. Only open production-account spirits can be charged. To redistill spirits from storage or processing, a transfer to production is needed first, and DISTRYB has no action for that yet.
- Dump. Pours away a stuck or infected mash. Say why and how many gallons were poured away: 27 CFR 19.584(e) requires a record of distilling material destroyed before distillation. The materials stay drawn down. A fermenter holding proof gallons is not a mash: use Destroy.
Stills
- Collect. Choose the cut (heads, hearts, tails, feints, low wines or whole run), the receiving tank or tote, and gauge what came off. Then say More cuts to come or Last cut — still is empty. A whole run is always the last cut.
Heads, hearts and tails can go into one receiving tank. The report column (whisky over or under 160°, alcohol over or under 190°, and so on) is settled at the production gauge, from the distillation proof.
On the last cut, any measured proof gallons that were charged and did not come across, such as returned feints, are recorded as the distillation loss. A wash or mash charge was never gauged, so it has nothing measured to lose.
A still holding returned feints gives its spirits up only by a cut. Until you collect, every other action that would take spirits off it is refused, except a loss, a destruction or a count.
Tanks and totes
On a tank holding production spirits:
- Gauge & enter. The production gauge. Moves the tank into storage or processing, at the gauge you enter. The whole source tank goes. If the books and the gauge disagree, you are asked whether to record the difference as a loss or a gain.
- Fill barrels, Proof down and Return to still (send feints back to a still).
On a tank holding storage spirits: Fill barrels, Enter processing, Proof down and Blend into….
On a bulk processing tank: Bottle, Proof down, Blend into…, Add ingredient (with alcohol)…, Process (filter / flavor / color)… and Destroy.
Every tank holding spirits also offers Sample, Loss and Count. An empty tank offers Receive in bond.
What each one does:
- Proof down. Enter the gallons of water added. The Floor estimates the water for a target proof, or the proof after a given amount of water, from the Table 4 weights. It is only an estimate: the record is the water you added, and the Floor then prompts you to gauge the tank.
- Fill barrels. From a production or storage tank (never processing). Scan or pick the barrels, enter one true proof, and each barrel's net weight or an average. Each fill is issued a lot identification number in the form 27 CFR 19.485 sets out: year, month letter A to L, day, and a letter suffix for the second and later lots filled that day. If the tank is not emptied, add a tank gauge after filling.
- Blend into… Choose the source lots and how many proof gallons of each, into an empty tank. In storage only spirits of one kind are mingled. A blend of different kinds goes into processing, and you say what the blend is. Bottled spirits are not blended.
- Enter processing. Spirits in processing may not go back to storage (27 CFR 19.351(c)). Bottle them, transfer them in bond, return them to production for redistillation (no button for this yet), or destroy them.
- Add ingredient (with alcohol)… For an alcohol-bearing flavor, or wine, in a bulk processing tank. Choose it from your materials register, and give its proof, the proof gallons it carries, and whether its alcohol was produced in the U.S. If you don't say, its proof gallons are treated as produced abroad and pay the full excise rate.
- Process (filter / flavor / color)… Filtering (plain, chill or carbon), a non-alcoholic flavor, a sweetener, or caramel coloring, in a bulk processing tank. It moves no proof gallons. Anything that carries alcohol, wine included, is Add ingredient instead.
- Receive in bond. Spirits shipped to you in bond. Enter the shipping plant's DSP permit, the kind, the account, and the receiving gauge. If the shipment came from one of your own plants, pick it from the list. Without that, the receipt is recorded as bought in bond and pays the full excise rate.
Barrels tab
- Dump. Pick or scan the barrels, weigh each one (gross minus tare) or weigh them together, enter the true proof now, and choose the destination tank and account. The difference from what went in at the fill (the soak and the angels' share) is recorded on the lot as a loss or a gain. Barrels of different kinds dump only as a blend, into an empty processing tank.
- Move barrels. Scan the rack label, then each barrel's head label.
- Labels. Print barrel-head labels with the producer, DSP number, kind, package ID and rated capacity, and a QR code of the serial. A barrel treated with caramel or oak chips must still be marked BSA or OC by hand.
Bottling tab
- Bottle (from the processing tank on the Floor). Choose the product and size from your catalog, gauge the tank, and enter bottles filled and bottles per case. The tank gauge must be within 0.6° of the label proof. Under 27 CFR 19.353 the tank is gauged at label proof after all treatment and before bottling, and 27 CFR 19.356(c) allows 0.3% alcohol by volume either side of the label. Case serial numbers are issued. The difference between what left the tank and what went into cases is recorded as the bottling loss or gain. If the tank is not finished, add a tank gauge after bottling.
- Ship tax-paid. Cases leaving bond. The proof gallons come from the label: bottles × size × label proof. Enter the invoice or shipping document number, or leave it blank and the plant's own series (TD-000001, TD-000002 …) issues one. Under 27 CFR 19.611(b), a serially numbered invoice or shipping document is the record of tax determination. The bottles become stock in your tax-paid storeroom, and the removal is what the excise return taxes.
- In bond. Bottled spirits may move in bond only between plants of the same owner or controlled group, or to a co-packer and back. Enter the receiving plant's DSP permit, and its TTB F 5100.16 reference if you keep one on the record.
Bulk spirits shipped out in bond have no button yet. Ask PLUG to propose the transfer, then confirm it.
Samples, losses, destruction and counts
- Sample. For a laboratory, a customer or research and development. Give the size in mL and how many. A customer sample may not exceed 1 liter (27 CFR 19.434(b)). Bottled spirits are sampled by the whole bottle.
- Loss. Spirits lost, in proof gallons, or in bottles for cases in bond. Say what happened.
- Destroy. A voluntary destruction. Under 27 CFR 19.617 the record must identify the spirits and gauge, the date, time, place and manner, and who did or supervised it, so give the reason and details.
- Count. A physical inventory. Enter what the tape or the scale said. DISTRYB compares it with the books as of that moment and records any difference as a gain or a loss. Each day's counts make a record of physical inventory (27 CFR 19.623) on the Ledger tab, listing the containers, the kind and quantity, and the gains and losses. It must be signed by the proprietor or the person who took the inventory, with their title, under the penalties of perjury (27 CFR 19.45). Sign it there, and print it for your files. A count recorded or undone after signing marks the record as changed, and it must be signed again.
Undo and correct
The Ledger tab lists every record from the last 60 days. Open a lot from the Lots tab to see every event behind its balance.
- Undo adds a reversal of every row the record wrote, dated as the original was, and puts the tanks, barrels and lots back. Both rows stay on the ledger.
- Correct is an undo followed by the same record's fields, prefilled, to enter again.
Every undo needs a reason (5 to 500 characters), which goes on the record. You can undo your own records. Undoing someone else's needs the Correct production records permission. An API key can never undo.
Some undos are refused, or need a confirmation first:
- A record changed by a later one: undo the later one first.
- A record that would change a filed month: open an amendment for that month on the Reports tab first.
- A tax-paid removal: only for an entry error. Tick that the cases never left bond, and that any excise already on a filed or paid 5000.24 is yours to adjust on a later return. Cases that left and came back are a return, which is recorded differently.
- A transfer to another proprietor's plant: confirm the receiver has not received it and that you will tell them.
- Records made before undo existed: record a correcting entry instead (a loss, a gain or a count).
Serial numbers are never reused. Case and tax document serials from undone records are voided and listed under Ledger → Voided serials.