Basis and HTA contracts, priced later

Two contracts, one open number.

You know the difference. A basis contract fixes the basis and leaves the futures price open; an HTA fixes the futures and leaves the basis open. Either way, one leg gets set on a later day, and until it is, the contract is unpriced.

What goes wrong on paper.

A farmer calls in October to price “the March corn.” He has two basis contracts on file, both March, different basis. Which one did he mean?
The futures price gets written on the paper contract in the drawer, and the settlement gets figured off the sticky note on the monitor. They do not match.
Twelve loads come in against a contract that later falls through. Now twelve loads sit in the farmer’s storage account at no price, accruing storage charges he was never supposed to owe.

The contract price is not one number. It is two numbers set on two different days, and the grain does not wait for either one.

How Horizon Grain handles it.

When you create a contract, pick the type: Flat Price, Basis, or Hedge-to-Arrive. The form asks only for what the paper fixes at signing. A basis contract needs the basis and the futures month; the futures price is optional until the farmer sets it. An HTA needs the futures price and month; the basis can wait. The type is fixed once the contract exists.

From there it works the same as a flat-price contract: activate it when the paper is signed, tag loads against it as they come in, and the contracted, delivered, and remaining counts stay current from the tickets.

The difference is on the contract card. An unpriced contract shows an Unpriced badge and a Price button where Settle would be. Price asks for the one missing leg and nothing else. Once both legs are in, the card shows the cash price per bushel and the Settle button appears. The cash price is rounded to the cent before it is multiplied against the bushels, so the settlement foots to the penny the same way a printed sheet would.

Two contract cards in Horizon Grain: a basis contract marked Unpriced with a Price button, beside a hedge-to-arrive contract already priced at $4.22 per bushel with a Settle button — A basis contract still waiting on its futures price, next to an HTA that is fully priced. Price sits where Settle would be until every leg is in.

The Price Contract window asking only for the futures price on a basis contract whose basis and month are already fixed — Pricing asks for the one leg the paper left open — here the futures price on a DEC-2026 basis contract — and nothing else.

Settlement shows a preview before anything is written: bushels delivered, price, gross, in-fee and checkoff deductions, and the net payment. If the farmer came up short, the preview says by how much. Confirm, and the customer invoice is generated and ready to print.

Who owns the grain in the bin.

This is the part we changed for flat-price contracts too, and it is worth being explicit about.

Contract grain is the elevator’s from the moment a tagged load closes. It leaves the farmer’s storage balance right then, so no storage charges accrue on it and it does not show on his balance while the contract waits to be priced.
Settlement pays every delivered bushel at the contract price, overage included. If the overage should go at spot, that is a decision to make before you settle, not something the software decides for you.
A contract with grain against it cannot be cancelled. Settle it short instead, and the undelivered balance closes out. Cancelling after delivery would flip those loads back into farmer storage with no price and no history, which is exactly the paper problem above.
Buying from a farmer’s storage skips contract grain. If 1,500 of his bushels are delivered against an open contract, the sell-to-site form says so and leaves them out. The same bushel cannot be paid for twice.

How to use it: a quick walkthrough.

Create the contract. Contracts → new contract. Pick Basis or Hedge-to-Arrive, enter what the paper fixes, and give it the contract number from your copy.
Activate it once the paper is signed. Only active contracts show up on the delivery form.
Tag loads as they come in, the same as any contract. Delivered and remaining update from the tickets.
Price it when the farmer calls. Press Price on the card and enter the leg he set. The cash price shows immediately.
Settle when the grain is in. Read the preview, confirm, print the invoice.
If he came up short, settle short. Do not look for a cancel button on a contract with grain against it. There is not one.

There is nothing to turn on. Basis and HTA are available on every site.

Why this matters at small elevators.

Basis contracts are how a lot of farmers manage price risk now. An elevator whose software only knows flat price either turns that business away or tracks it on paper next to a system that thinks the grain is still the farmer’s.

The contract, the grain, and the price belong in one place, even when the price arrives last.

Basis and HTA contracts: the price that gets set later.