Managing Fruit Intakes and Fruit Intake Bookings

You can create a single fruit intake booking for each block from which you expect to receive fruit. Ideally these should be created ahead of time as part of your general vintage planning.

A booking groups related parcels of fruit together and can be used across multiple deliveries. For example, if you’re expecting to receive fruit in more than one delivery from the same block, you would use the same booking for each delivery. If you’re expecting deliveries from more than one block, you’d create a booking for each.

You can assign a winery specific prefix to your fruit dockets.

Creating a New Booking

To create a new booking from the Fruit Intake Console, click New > Scheduled Booking. 

The Create Scale Booking window displays.

The booking number can be auto-generated by the system, or entered manually. Refer to our Using Auto-Codes article to learn more. To streamline the intake of fruit and help your staff find it in the system, we recommend that your growers provide this reference on the consignment note for the fruit.

The Quality/Notes tab lets you record quality information about the fruit along with any additional notes you require.

After you save the booking, a new booking receipt is printed that’s designed to be sent to the grower or owner of the fruit. We recommend that you ask the grower to ensure that a copy of the booking receipt is sent to your winery with the fruit. You can scan the receipt’s barcode at the scale to quickly locate the booking in the system.

Copying a Fruit Booking

You can create a new booking using similar details to a previously added booking. To copy a booking from the Fruit Intake Console:

1. Click the down arrow beside the fruit intake that you’d like to copy.
2. Select Booking > Copy.

The Create Scale Booking window displays.

3. Edit the booking’s details as needed.

Receiving Fruit

To receive fruit from a booking, click Arrive beside the booking.

If you receive a load of fruit at the scale without a prior booking, it’s not necessary to create a booking. To receive an unplanned arrival of fruit, click New > Unplanned Arrival.

In either case, specify the details in the Intake Details window, then confirm the delivery’s information in the Intake Delivery window.

Intake Details Window

The Intake Details window is used to submit the details for each unique load of fruit brought in as a delivery to your scales and has the following tabs:

• Fruit 
• Bins
• QA/Cost/Analysis
• Photos

Fruit Tab

If you’ve set a default vintage — if in the Winery Setup window, under Setup Options > Work-flow > Defaults — it’ll display in the Vintage field of the Fruit tab.

If this is the last load of fruit for the booking, check the Last Load checkbox. This updates the booking status to Completed upon save.

Bins Tab

The Bins tab lets you enter the weight of individual bins to calculate the total gross and tare weight.

To add a new entry, click Add Line.

You can also add several lines at once by clicking Quick Load. The Quick Load button eliminates having to click Add Line multiples times and is useful if you only have a handful of standard-sized fruit bins configured in vintrace and don’t have them uniquely numbered/labeled. You can use one bin type by entering the gross/nett (net) weight as required.

From the Quick Load Bins window, you’ll be able to select bins already configured in the system, add new bins, and specify the number of bins used. After selecting a bin, any tare weight set on the bin will automatically display in the tare weight.

To recalculate the total weight on the Fruit tab, click Update.

To ensure that all mandatory fields are set, click Verify. Any missing information will be highlighted in pink.

QA/Cost/Analysis Tab

Below are some of the fields on the QA/Cost/Analysis tab:

• Harvest Method - select HAND or MACHINE.
• MOG - the level of Material Other than Grape. There isn’t a standard for this so you can set your own value.
• Cost Details - The raid paid per tonne/ton for the fruit and freight. This can be entered as a total amount, or a rate per tonne/kg/ton/pound.
• Grading - An optional grading/rating for the quality of the fruit. You can configure grading scales in the Winery Setup window, under Setup Options > Work-flow > Grading Scales.
• Analysis Template - The analysis template to use to record fruit sample analysis on arrival.

Photos Tab

You can add photos in the Photos tab of the Intake Details window when you’re processing a delivery. Multiple photos can be added, then viewed when you open the intake details after the delivery is saved. The most common use for this is for quality control/MOG validation.

Intake Delivery Window

After you’ve confirmed the individual load of fruit, you can confirm the delivery’s information in the Intake Delivery window.

General Tab

In the General tab you can enter in the Weighmaster field. You can specify a default in the Winery Setup window, under Setup Options > Work-flow > Defaults. This is generally used if 3rd party certified scales are being used.

If you want to record a separate parcel of fruit (different fruit source), that’s contained on the same truck delivery, click Add Load.

Documents Tab

If you have a 3rd party weigh tag, pick map, or grower’s field tag that you want saved with this fruit intake, you can save the scanned file, and upload it from the Documents tab.

Weigh Tag/Docket

Depending on your locale, a docket will be printed after the fruit intake data is entered. This contains details about the owner, carrier and grower of the fruit, and a comprehensive breakdown of the weight. If bins are used in the intake, the gross/tare of each bin is also printed. If fruit sample readings were taken on delivery, they’ll be displayed.

The docket sequence is represented as a Unique delivery number/Sequence of the intake. The delivery number increments for each new delivery of fruit, and the load sequence number will only increment - per delivery - if there’s more than one load (fruit from a different fruit source) on the truck.

For example, suppose a truck arrives with fruit from two different growers. Each load of fruit from a different source should be entered as a separate load on the delivery. The first load will have the docket number of 1/1 and the second load will be 1/2. The next fruit truck has fruit from one grower. The docket number for that load will be 2/1, and so on.

The number of decimal places shown in the docket can be configured by updating the Scale Precision field for your scales in the Winery Setup window under Setup Options > Equipment > Scales.