Set your rates
- Go to Site Config and pick the grain in Commodity.
- Under Site Options, enter the Storage Charge: the rate per bushel for each month billed.
- Choose Charge Timing: First of Month or End of Month (see below).
- Under Pricing & Drying, enter the Minimum Storage Charge ($/bu), or 0 to waive it.
- Click Save Configuration.
There are no free days and no per-load start date. A month is charged on everything the farmer holds on the counting day, whenever it came in.
How a month is charged
For each farmer, the app adds up the bushels on hand on the counting day: starting balance, plus closed deliveries, plus contract overage moved to storage, minus sales and closed haul-outs. That total times Storage Charge is the invoice. Grain delivered on a contract belongs to the elevator and is never charged storage.
- End of Month: the invoice is dated the last day of the month you pick and counts what’s on hand that day.
- First of Month: the invoice is dated the 1st of the month you pick and counts what was on hand at the end of the month before.
A month ends at midnight in your site’s time zone, so a load closed late on the last day counts in that month.
Example: Storage Charge $0.04, End of Month. A farmer holds 5,000 bu of corn on October 31. Calculating October gives a $200.00 invoice dated October 31.
Calculate storage invoices
- Go to Site Summary and click Calculate Storage Invoices.
- Pick the Month and Year.
- Click Calculate. Every grain with a Site Config is billed at once, and Site Summary reloads when it’s done.
You can run a month again at any time, for example after fixing a delivery. Each run replaces that month’s unpaid storage invoices. Paid ones are left alone, and a farmer already paid for that month isn’t charged again.
The minimum charge on early sales
When a farmer sells grain that hasn’t been through a month-end yet, the sale charges one month at Minimum Storage Charge on those bushels, never more than were sold. It shows as Minimum Storage on the sell form, comes off the payment, and appears as its own storage invoice. Grain on hand at a month-end is billed by the monthly run instead, never both. Sales applied to a contract skip it. Closing a customer haul-out charges it the same way. To waive it on one sale, click Edit on the unpaid sale and untick Minimum Storage under Already Applied.
Example: a farmer held 2,000 bu on September 30, delivers 1,000 bu in October, and sells 1,500 bu on October 20. The minimum applies to 1,000 bu.
View, print and mark paid
- Go to Customer Balances, click View Details, and open the Invoices tab.
- Under Storage Invoices, click the bushel number to see the Storage Invoice Detail: starting balance, deliveries, sales, a - Hauled Out line if grain was hauled out for them, Net Bushels Stored and the rate.
- When the farmer pays, click Close and confirm. The badge changes to Paid. Re-open undoes it.
You can also take storage off a grain check: tick it under Deduct Unpaid Drying & Storage when selling or editing an unpaid sales invoice.
To print a storage invoice, click Print at the top of its Storage Invoice Detail. It opens in a new tab with the print dialog.
Common problems
- A farmer got no invoice. They had nothing on hand on the counting day, or already have a paid invoice for that month.
- You fixed a delivery but the invoice didn’t change. Run Calculate again for each month since the delivery.
- A paid invoice is wrong. Click Re-open, then run the month again. An invoice paid by a deduction on a sale can’t be re-opened. Its row shows On sale and the sale’s date instead of Re-open. Click it to jump to that sale (it switches to all grain years if the sale is in another one), then click Edit (re-open the sale first if it’s paid) and untick the invoice under Already Applied. It goes back to unpaid.