Production & TTB: getting started
Production & TTB keeps a distillery's records from mash to bottle in proof gallons, and fills the monthly TTB operations reports and the excise return from those same records. You find it under Production in the dashboard.
The page has eight tabs: Floor, Barrels, Bottling, Lots, Clients, Reports, Ledger and Setup. A checklist at the top walks you through setup and ticks each step off once the records behind it exist.
One plant per DSP permit
A DSP permit is issued per plant, and each plant files its own reports. So DISTRYB treats each DSP permit as its own plant, with its own tanks, barrels, lots and reports.
- Add your DSP permit number on Federal Permits, exactly as it is printed (for example NY-S-20287).
- Open Warehouses, find the location where the plant operates, and choose the permit under DSP permit at this location.
The permit on the location decides whose report every record lands on. If you hold more than one DSP permit, a plant picker appears above the tabs, and everything below it is that plant's. Spirits moved between your own plants are a transfer in bond, recorded at both ends.
An importer, wholesaler, winery or brewery permit can stay on file, but it is never a plant and files no 5110 reports.
The setup checklist
- Add your DSP permit.
- Assign each DSP permit to its location.
- Confirm the time zone and operations (Setup → Settings).
- Add at least one tank, still or barrel (Setup → Equipment).
- Enter opening balances, or tick Starting fresh (Setup → Opening balances).
- Make your first record on the Floor.
Settings
Under Setup → Settings:
- Time zone. Lot marks and report months follow the plant's own day. A suggestion is made from your plant's state, but it is not saved until you save it.
- Operations on the registration. This decides which 5110 reports are due. A plant with no production operations is not asked for a 5110.40.
- Excise return period. Semimonthly, quarterly or annual. It decides which excise return each removal belongs to and when it is due. See Excise tax and the CBMA reduced rate.
- Required EFT payer. Tick it only if you are required to pay excise by electronic funds transfer. It changes the September return dates.
- Controlled group. If your company shares more than 50% ownership with other companies that make or bottle spirits, enter its share of the reduced-rate tiers, for each calendar year.
- Tax-paid storeroom. Where each plant's tax-paid cases are counted as stock.
- Costs. Labour and overhead per proof gallon, labour per bottle, and cooperage per barrel, if you want lot costs on the Lots tab.
A plant that holds a New York farm distillery licence (Class D) can turn on the farm licence settings for that plant here.
Equipment and recipes
Setup → Equipment holds three registers:
- Vessels. Fermenters, mash tuns, stills, tanks and totes. Use the serial or tank number your records cite. Each one becomes a card on the Floor.
- Barrels. Each barrel once, by its serial. Fill date, contents and the lot mark are recorded when you fill it.
- Materials. Grain, sugar, fruit, botanicals, purchased spirits and packaging, entered by delivery (supplier lot). Mash in and bottling draw these down.
Setup → Recipes holds your mash bills. On the Floor, Mash in → Use recipe fills in the kind and the materials, oldest lots first, for any number of batches. You can still change every line before recording.
Opening balances
If the plant already holds spirits, carry in the closing balances from your last filed 5110 reports under Setup → Opening balances:
- As of is the last day of the last month you filed.
- Fill from your last filed reports (PDF). Upload one month's filed 5110.11, 5110.28 and 5110.40 (up to 4 PDFs, 3 MB in all). DISTRYB reads the on-hand lines and fills in the form. Nothing is recorded until you press Record, so check every line against your filed reports first.
- Where did these spirits come from? Every storage and processing line must say whether the spirits were distilled or processed here, or bought in bond and only stored or bottled here. It decides the excise rate, so it is never assumed.
- This form records domestic spirits only. Imported, Puerto Rico or Virgin Islands spirits read off a 5110.11 are listed but not filled in: carry them in through the barrel import's origin column, or ask PLUG.
A plant that holds no spirits yet ticks Starting fresh instead.
Setup → Import brings barrels in from a CSV file (download the template there). Columns are matched by name: serial, size, cooperage, fill date, proof, proof gallons or wine gallons, spirit type, lot, rack and fills. The import asks whether the barrels were bought, for the same excise reason.
Switching from another system
On the Setup tab, Switching from another system? walks one plant through seven steps:
- Choose the cut-over month: the last month you filed from your old system.
- Enter the figures from the last filed reports (typed, or read from the PDFs).
- Import the barrels in storage.
- Enter bulk tanks and cases on hand.
- Add materials on hand (products and recipes are optional).
- Reconcile against the last filed reports. Each account must match within 0.1 proof gallons.
- File your first month here.
A figure nobody entered is unknown, never zero. A plant with nothing on hand types 0. Steps are ticked from your data, not from having opened a screen. Months up to the cut-over are filed from your old system as before.
History (before DISTRYB)
Setup → History (before DISTRYB) keeps the transactions exported from your previous system, searchable beside your records here. Upload a CSV, map the columns (date is required), and check the preview. Every original column is kept on every row, mapped or not.
The archive never counts toward a report, a balance, a filing, the CBMA rate or the farm cap. Rows dated after your cut-over are refused, because those months are kept here and would otherwise be counted twice. Files stay until you delete them. TTB requires a distilled spirits plant to keep its records for at least three years from the record's date or its last required entry, whichever is later, and longer if TTB asks (27 CFR 19.575).
Clients
The Clients tab lists brand owners you make spirits for. Choose one and the next records are marked as made for them, with a banner so nobody records a client's barrels on their own account by mistake. The TTB reporting stays yours, because the spirits are made under your permit.
No signal on the floor
If the connection drops, records you make on the Floor are kept on that device and sent when it is back. A banner shows how many are waiting. If the server refuses one, the banner says why.