Documentation

# Shipping and Deposits

When product leaves a facility for a customer or a wholesaler, it leaves as a transfer (a movement in Inventory → Movements). This page covers the paperwork that goes with it, the bill of lading, and the keg deposits charged and refunded along the way.

# Bills of lading

A bill of lading (BOL) documents a shipment: what was loaded, who carried it, and which empty kegs came back.

# Add a bill of lading to a movement

Open the movement and choose Add Bill of Lading in the Shipping / BOL section. Then fill in:

  • Load Date, Pickup Facility, Customer and Carrier.
  • The customer's PO number and any notes. A PO entered here prints on the BOL, even before the order exists.
  • Kegs and pallets: kegs loaded with a deposit, kegs loaded without one, kegs returned, and pallets.
  • Photos of the load, and the Carrier Signature.

The section shows the BOL's status. The movement list can show BOL Status and BOL Last Sent columns.

# Send it

  • Email: the BOL PDF goes to the recipients listed on it. People on the customer's contact record who have Email BOLs turned on are added automatically. You can add other addresses for a single shipment. Each send is recorded with its date and recipients.
  • Slack: Post to Slack sends the PDF to one or more channels, with an optional comment. Choose which channels are offered in Settings → Integrations → Slack → Bill of Lading. See Slack.

# From shipment to invoice

A movement can create its order for you: Create / Link Order on the movement creates the sales order for what shipped, or links an existing one. Pricing and keg deposits are filled in as described below.

# Keg deposits

Keg deposits are set up in Settings → Sales & Invoices.

  1. Under Invoice Items, create a Deposit item for each keg size you charge a deposit on, for example Keg Deposit 1/2 BBL. Turn on Use for automatic deposits, and choose the Package Formats it applies to and its rate.
  2. Under Automatically Apply Keg Deposits To, choose Wholesale, Retail or both.

From then on, an order in those channels gets a deposit line for each keg format on it, at that format's rate. Deposit lines are calculated from the order, so they update when the order's kegs change.

# Customer-specific rates

When a customer pays a different deposit, open their contact record and turn on Override the default keg deposit policy for this customer. Then set which deposits apply to them and at what rate.

# QuickBooks

If you use QuickBooks, link each deposit item to the QuickBooks item that posts to your deposit liability account. Deposits then sync with the invoice like any other line.

# Keg returns

Empty kegs coming back are recorded on the movement that collected them. Choose Add Keg Returns on the movement, or enter them on its bill of lading.

Only kegs whose Keg Source is Brewery Owned earn a deposit refund. Leased kegs are tracked but not credited. When a movement has refundable returns, Create Keg Return Credit creates a financial-only credit memo, typed Keg Return. The credit doesn't change inventory, since an empty keg is not product. Use View Keg Return Credit to open it from the movement.

If you later remove all the refundable returns from the movement, you are asked whether to delete the linked credit memo or keep it as a canceled record.

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