Raw Materials

Raw materials is a catalog of what your farm buys and holds: grain, supplements, bags, anything you want to count. Each material keeps its stock on hand, and every change to that stock is an entry in its ledger: what came in, what went into which batch, and every correction with its reason.

Turn it on

Raw materials is an optional feature, off until your farm turns it on.

1. Open Settings in the sidebar.
2. In the Optional features card, turn on Raw materials.

Materials then appears in the sidebar under Logistics. Turning it off hides it again; nothing you entered is deleted.

Who can do what

Add a material

1. Open Materials and click New material.
2. Fill in:
   • Item code: your own code for it, such as RM-100. Each code can be used once; it is saved in capitals, so rm-100 and RM-100 are the same code.
   • Name (up to 80 characters) and Unit (lb, kg, bag, each). Once any stock has been received, used or adjusted, the unit can’t change, because every ledger entry was counted in it.
   • Supplier (up to 80 characters) and Standard cost per unit, if you want them.
   • Reorder point: when stock on hand falls below this, the material shows Below reorder.
   • Lot tracking required: tick it when every receipt must carry the supplier’s lot number.
3. Click Add material.

Receive

On the material’s page, click Receive. Enter the quantity, the received date and, if you have them, the supplier lot number, expiry date and cost per unit. Click Save. Stock on hand goes up by the quantity.

For a material with Lot tracking required, the supplier lot number is required. The shipment is also filed as an ingredient lot (the same lots you see under Supplier lots), and it becomes one of the lots you pick from when you use the material.

Use in a batch

Click Use in batch, type part of the batch’s lot code or name, and pick it. When the batch’s recipe lists this material as a catalog item, the quantity is filled in from the recipe, as long as the recipe uses the same unit as the material; change it if you used a different amount. If you type an amount before the recipe answers, your amount is kept and the note shows the recipe’s. If the recipe counts it in another unit (say g for a material counted in lb), nothing is filled in and a note shows the recipe’s amount, so enter what you used in the material’s unit. Click Save. Stock on hand goes down, and the ledger entry names the batch.

For a material with Lot tracking required, you also say which supplier lot the batch used. Supplier lot lists every lot this material was received under, newest first, with its received date and how much came in on it. Pick one, or click Scan or type a lot number and scan the bag’s label or type the number, then press Enter: the matching lot is picked for you (case, spaces and dashes don’t matter). Save stays off until a lot is picked. If a lot number arrived on two different dates, pick the right one from the list.

The lot is then listed under the batch’s Inputs, and a recall from that supplier lot (on Traceability, or from Supplier lots) lists the batch. The ledger entry shows the batch and the lot. A lot used this way stays under the batch’s Inputs: editing the inputs can add lots, but not remove it.

The list shows up to the newest 500 lots. When a material has more, scan or type the lot number and press Enter: Sporeline looks it up across every receipt of the material, not just the ones listed. If one receipt carries that number, it is picked for you. If two or more do (the same lot number arrived on different dates), Supplier lot offers just those receipts, with their received dates, so you can pick the one this batch used, even an older receipt the list leaves out.

A material without lot tracking has no supplier lots, so its use names the batch only. To recall by supplier lot, turn on Lot tracking required for the material before you receive it. Stock received before lot tracking was turned on has no lot to pick, so use it up first, or adjust it out and receive it again with its lot number.

You can’t use more than is on hand. If two people use the last units at the same moment, one save goes through and the other is told Only N on hand.

Adjust

Click Adjust to correct the stock: choose Remove or Add, enter the quantity and a reason (for example “Spilled bag” or “Counted 4 short”). The reason is required and is kept on the ledger entry.

Link a recipe ingredient

With Raw materials on, each ingredient row on a recipe has a Catalog item choice. Pick the material to link the ingredient to it; Use in batch then fills in the recipe’s amount. Choose None (free text) to keep an ingredient as plain text, as before.

Reorder points and the Below reorder view

The Materials page has three tabs:

• Active: every active material, with stock on hand and its reorder point.
• Below reorder: only the materials whose stock on hand is below their reorder point. A material exactly at its reorder point is not below it.
• Inactive: materials you deactivated.

The ledger and its CSV

The material’s page lists its ledger in the order the stock moved, newest first, so the top entry’s stock on hand is the stock on hand now. Each entry shows when, what kind (Received, Used, Adjusted), the quantity, stock on hand after the entry, and the batch, lot or reason. Click Load more for older entries. Download CSV saves the entries currently loaded, so load as many as you need first.

Deactivate or delete

Deactivate hides a material from the Active list and from the recipe picker, and stops receipts and use; you can still adjust it, and Reactivate brings it back. Delete works only for a material with no ledger entries. Once stock has moved, deactivate it instead, so the history stays.

Not yet

• Automatic drawdown when a batch is made. Use is entered by hand with Use in batch for now.
• Stock per supplier lot. Stock on hand is one number per material; the lot list shows how much came in on each lot, not how much of it is left.
• Purchase orders. Receipts are not tied to a purchase order.
• Accounting item codes. The item code is your own; it is not linked to an accounting system.
• Valuation. There is no month-end stock value or usage report yet.
• Stock by location. Stock on hand is one number per material.
• The new-recipe wizard has no catalog choice yet; link ingredients from the full recipe form or when you edit the recipe.

With an AI assistant

If you’ve connected an AI assistant and Raw materials is turned on, you can ask it to receive stock or use it on a batch. Workers, Managers and Owners can do both, the same as on the material’s page.

• Receive: say something like “we got 20 lb of RM-100 today, supplier lot 4471.” The assistant uses material_receive and shows you the material, what’s on hand now and what it will be after, and whether that takes it back over the reorder point. Nothing changes until you say yes. If you don’t give a received date, it uses today at your farm.
• Use in a batch: say how much went into which batch. The assistant uses material_use and shows you on hand before and after, the batch, and whether this use drops the material below its reorder point. A lot-tracked material still needs the supplier lot the batch used.

The same rules apply as in the app. You can’t use more than is on hand, so the assistant is told Only N on hand. and nothing is saved. If Raw materials is off for your farm, it’s told so and nothing is saved. If your farm has Approve every AI change turned on, the change waits on the approvals page until someone approves it.

When something goes wrong

• “Raw materials isn’t turned on for this farm.” A Manager can turn it on in Settings, under Optional features.
• “Only N on hand.” The use is more than the stock. Receive the stock first, or adjust it if the count is wrong.
• “Another material already uses the code …” Pick a different item code, or edit the existing material.
• “This material has stock history, so it can’t be deleted.” Deactivate it instead.
• “This material has stock history, so its unit can’t change.” Add a new material with the other unit, and deactivate the old one when its stock is used up.
• “This batch is voided, so stock can’t be used against it.” Pick the batch the material actually went into. A deleted batch isn’t offered at all (Batch not found.).
• “This material’s unit changed from … to …” A Manager changed the unit after you opened the form. Reload and enter the quantity in the new unit.
• “This material changed while you were editing it.” Someone else saved a change to it at the same moment. Reload the page, check their change, and make yours again.
• “No receipt of … has lot number …” No receipt of this material carries that lot number. Check the bag’s label, or receive the shipment first.
• “N receipts of … have lot number … Pick the one this batch used.” The same supplier lot number arrived on more than one date, so it names more than one receipt. Pick the right one under Supplier lot by its received date; Save stays off until you do.
• “Someone else changed this batch’s inputs just now.” Someone saved the batch’s inputs at the same moment. Nothing was used; click Save again.
• ”… was used from Raw materials stock on this batch, so it stays an input.” You edited a batch’s inputs and left out a lot that stock was used from. Keep it in the list; a recall from that lot has to find this batch.
• ”… isn’t lot tracked.” This material has no supplier lots, so a use doesn’t take one.

With an AI assistant

Once you’ve connected an AI assistant to Sporeline (see Connect an AI Assistant), you can ask it what you have on hand, like “what’s below its reorder point” or “when did we last receive millet, and on which supplier lot”. It reads the same catalog and stock ledger you see on the Raw materials page, so the numbers match.

It has three things to look at:

• material_list is the catalog: each material’s code, name, unit, stock on hand and reorder point. It can list only active materials, or only the ones below their reorder point.
• material_ledger is one material’s history, newest first: every receipt, use and adjustment with the stock it left.
• material_lots_list is the supplier lots a material came in under, with the received date and how much came in on each.

Anyone who can open Raw materials can ask, Viewers included. If your farm doesn’t have Raw materials turned on, the assistant is told that and which setting it is, and it can’t see any of it until a Manager turns it on in Settings, under Optional features. It only sees your own farm’s materials.