Managing Grower Contracts (Contracts Management)

The cost of fruit coming into the winery can be tracked with or without grower contracts.

Where grower contracts have been set up they will automatically be assigned to fruit when it is booked, based on the block and vintage. 

Managing grower contracts within the Contract Management module

1. Creating a grower contract
2. Adding fruit to grower contract
3. Adding bonus and penalty rules
4. Creating an instalment plan for grower payments
5. Assigning levies

Creating a grower contract

To create a grower contract:

1. Click Contracts in the sidebar.

The Contract page displays.

2. Click the ‘Add’ button in the top right.

The ‘New contract’ page displays:

3. Specify the high level, non-vintage details for the contract in the Details section, including the contract name, the grower, and the contract start date. Once these have been saved, fruit details can be entered.

4. Click Save. Fruit contract details page displays:

Adding fruit to a grower contract

Block details need to be added to contracts each year with the expected tonnes (tons) and price.

To add block details to the contract:

1. Click the Add button at the top right of the Fruit section

The Add fruit window displays

2. Select the vineyard, block, and vintage. Other fields on the left hand side will be automatically populated where there is data available.
3. Enter how much fruit is expected to be received in tonnes, or in areas 

If the contract is based on areas, the expected tonnes also need to be entered

4. Enter the Base price for the fruit, and the expected cost will be calculated.
5. If no bonus or penalty rules are required, click Save.

Adding bonus and penalty rules

Optionally, you can define bonus and/or penalty rules that can be applied to the fruit cost. These can be based on:

• the grade of the fruit, 
• how it was harvested (machine or hand), 
• MOG, 
• or metric value rules. E.g. You can select a pre-defined metric threshold policy for a brix reading between 18-22 that adds a bonus cost of 10%.

1. Click the add icon in the Value rules section of the Fruit window and select the type of rule you want to add.

2. Select the Condition for the rule to be applied

3. Enter the price change and type of change, i.e. % or $/tn.
4. Enter a positive value for bonuses, or a negative value for penalties. The ‘type’ can be a dollar figure (e.g. an additional price per tonne) or a percentage.

5. If the price change should always be automatically applied when the condition is met, then check the ‘Auto apply condition’ checkbox.

   If unchecked, you will need to review these rules and apply or waive each rule for each intake where the condition has been met before any grower payments can be processed. 

6. To add another rule of the same type, click ‘Add another’.
7. To add another rule of a different type click the ‘Add’ drop down button again.

8. Once all rules have been defined, click Save.

Once the fruit records have been saved they are listed in the Fruit section of the contract page.

These records can be viewed/maintained via the ellipse button at the end of each row. There are also options to add and view fruit bookings that navigate to the Fruit Intake console.

Creating an instalment plan for grower payments

An instalment plan can be created for the contract by clicking the Manage Instalments button in the Payments section.

1. Select the vintage you want to add (or update) an instalment plan for.
2. Click the Add dropdown button on the right to select the type of payment to be added

3. Repeat this for each instalment required.

4. For ‘Fixed amount’ and ‘Fixed date’ type instalments you will need to select the date when this is expected to be paid.
5. By default, the cost of the fruit will be split evenly across the instalments. You can adjust the percentage that will be paid in each instalment as required, with the ‘remaining’ percentage covered by the last instalment.
6. Select which levies (aka fruit assessments) should be deducted from each grower payment (if any).

7. Click Save.

Once the instalment plan has been saved the payments are listed in the Payments section of the contract page.

Initially all $ columns will be $0 except the ‘Forecast payment’ which is calculated based on the expected tonnes multiplied by the base cost of the fruit.

Once payments are processed each column will be populated with values based on the actual cost of the fruit taken in.

Assigning levies

One or more levies (also known as fruit assessments) may be assigned to one or more contracted fruit records so that they can be deducted from grower payments.

1. Click Add button at the top right of the Levies section for the contract

The Add levy window displays

2. Select the vintage the levy is to be applied for
3. Select which levy you want to apply
4. Select which contracted fruit records (blocks) you want to the levy to be applied to

5. Click Save.

Once the levy records have been saved they are listed in the Levies section of the contract page. You can expand each row to list the fruit records linked to the levy.

Alternatively levies can be applied to multiple contracted fruit records for multiple contracts at once.

1. In the main contracts list page, select the Fruit tab

2. Use the search filters to locate the contracted fruit records you want to link a levy to, e.g. using the Region/Sub AVA search field. Multiple regions can be selected.
3. Select the contracted fruit records you want in the main table. You can select individual records, or select all, or a page of records via the Multi select button at the top left of the table

4. Select ‘Add levies’ from the bulk action menu at the bottom left of the table 

A validation window is displayed

5. Select the levies you want to link to the selected contracted blocks
6. Click Update

If the selected levies have already been linked to the selected fruit records then duplicate records will not be created.

If you want to calculate the cost of levies without processing grower payments within vintrace, see Calculating Levies for Grower Contracts without Grower Payments