Atlas Source to Pay for FMCG — shelf life, batch traceability and recall

Why general tools fall short

Three differences a general system ignores.

Once food is involved, none of them are subtle. Each decides whether your record stands up later, or quietly says something else.

A document's date is not the stock's date

Certificates expire. So does product. Atlas already tracked document expiry. A second date system for stock would give two answers to one question. So shelf life uses the same warning ladder, with shorter steps. Sixty days' notice on a 21-day chilled line is not notice.

"Where is it now" is not "what did we act on"

Re-run a trace a month after a withdrawal. The batch is used up and the locations are empty. Your record of what you withdrew now shows what is left, and nothing says it changed. So the trace is frozen when the recall is declared. The current position is shown separately, as a different question.

"We withdrew it" is not "we withdrew what we could find"

Some movements carry no batch, or no location. A recall over that ledger only searched what it could. Atlas records both gaps on the recall. It will not call the withdrawal complete while either remains. What was not searched is not cleared.

Minimum remaining shelf life

Measured at receipt. Judged against your policy, or not at all.

The date lives on the batch, not the movement. The same lot can arrive more than once. Two separately typed dates for one batch could both look right, and still set the issue order. Atlas records which kind of date it was given, use-by or best-before. It decides nothing from it.

Days remaining, shown as goods are booked in. Compared with the minimum life your contract sets.
No policy recorded, no judgement. Atlas shows the days and says nobody has set a minimum. It does not invent a fraction that sounds standard.
First-expired-first-out advises. It does not enforce. Enforcing it needs a balance per batch, and issues that name the batch. The ledger has neither. A hard block on data that thin would stop honest work. The way round it is to stop recording batches, which costs you the recall too.
Undated stock is listed separately, never sorted in. A batch with no date is neither first nor last.
Certificate of analysis, against the batch that arrived. Required per category, and off until you switch it on. Your supplier attaches it to the delivery note they already raise. The order page shows what is still missing. A missing certificate never stops you recording goods that are on the dock.

.../inventory

Dated stock on a chilled line: three batches in issue order, the nearest marked take first

Dated stockWhat to issue first, and what Atlas will not claim to know.

Recall & withdrawal

From a batch to everywhere it went. The picture kept.

Declaring a recall saves the trace at that moment. It stores what was found, who declared it, why, what was done and who closed it. Reopen it and you see what you acted on, not what happened since.

The evidence is frozen at declaration. The current position is a separate, clearly labelled question.
A blank batch is refused. Reading an empty box as "everything with no lot number" is the most dangerous reading possible.
A second open recall on one batch is refused. Two records would each hold half the story.
Closing it needs an account of what was done. A recall closed with nothing written looks like one nobody acted on. This is the record you will be asked for.
It moves no stock. Withdrawing or writing off goods is a movement a named person makes, on the screen that already exists.

.../recalls

A declared recall with the movements found at declaration and a warning that the picture is not complete

Not a complete pictureAtlas says so on the record, in the words you can see here.

When it stops you

What this pack refuses, and what to do about it.

Atlas refuses a lot here, on purpose, and every refusal carries its reason on the screen. These are the ones this industry meets, in the words the screen actually uses — so that meeting one is a thirty-second fix rather than a support call.

What Atlas will not do

What the screen says

What to do

A movement with no batch, treated as clear

It is not. Blank is recorded as not known: “a recall search will say it could not check this movement, rather than treating it as clear.”

Capture the batch at receiving. Two movements nobody recorded a batch for are not thereby the same batch.

A second, different date for one batch

Refused rather than silently overwriting. “A batch has one date — Atlas will not hold two, because whichever a screen happened to read would decide which stock is issued first.”

Correct the existing record if it is wrong, or check whether this is genuinely a different batch.

Judging short-dated stock with no policy recorded

Atlas reports the days remaining and declines to judge: “no minimum remaining shelf life has been recorded for this workspace, and the figure is a term you agree with a supplier rather than one Atlas can supply.”

Record your minimum. Even then Atlas reports the shortfall and does not refuse the goods — accepting or rejecting is a commercial decision with a name on it.

A recall on a blank batch

Refused outright. “Atlas will not withdraw everything with no lot number, which is the most dangerous possible reading of an empty box.”

Name the batch. If you do not know it, the trace is not the tool — find it first.

A second recall on a batch already under one

Refused while the first is open. “Two recalls on one batch would each hold half the account of what was done.”

Add to the open one, or close it first.

Describing a partial search as complete

Atlas will not, and it names both halves of what it could not see. Of movements carrying no batch: “Those could not have matched and are not evidence of absence.” Of movements that record no location: “An empty list of locations here means nobody recorded one — it does not mean the batch is nowhere.”

Improve the coverage at receiving. The recall still runs; it tells you what it could not see, and treats the withdrawal as partial until both are clean.

Closing a recall with nothing written

Refused. “A recall closed with nothing written is indistinguishable from one nobody acted on.”

Write what was actually done. That is the record you will be asked for.

Re-running the trace and calling it the recall

Atlas keeps the two apart. The stored evidence answers what you acted on; re-running it answers where the batch is now, which a month later may be nowhere at all.

Read the frozen one for the account of the withdrawal. Both are on the screen, labelled as the different questions they are.

Underneath all of it

Shared by every pack that converts or imports anything

What to do

A conversion that was never declared

Refused, and Atlas never returns the quantity unchanged. “Until it is declared, the two quantities are not comparable and Atlas will say so rather than return a figure that looks right.”

Declare the factor for that item. A factor is per item — a case of paper and a case of wine hold different numbers of things — so it is never guessed from a unit's name.

A blank unit read as “each”

It is not. Blank is nobody having said, and it refuses.

State the unit the stock is counted in. Nothing existing is re-expressed when you do: every quantity already recorded means exactly what it meant yesterday.

Spreading import costs with no basis chosen

Refused; there is no default. By value, by weight and by quantity give three different unit costs from one invoice: “all three look equally right on the screen.”

Choose the basis the consignment was actually costed on. A house default would be Atlas deciding which of your products looks profitable.

One line with no weight, on a by-weight split

Refuses the whole split, not just that line. “That would overstate every one of them and understate these to nothing, and the total would still foot exactly.”

Record the missing figures, or choose a basis every line can carry. A figure that foots is the most convincing kind of wrong.

A charge in another currency

Refused, not converted — a customs entry settled months ago at one rate is not today's fact: “What was paid is an amount in a currency, not a rate.”

Record it in the shipment's currency, or cost the shipment in the currency the charges were settled in.

Every one of these is also written into the guidance drawer on the screen it happens on, and into the process guides your own workspace generates — so a person who meets it at four o’clock on a Friday does not need us, or you.

Said plainly

Where this pack stops, and why.

Named so you can decide with them in view. One is a built feature that will not act on its own. Two are judgements Atlas will not make for you.

Where Atlas stops

What is true today

Posting a rebate accrual unattended

The agreement and the accrual are built. One threshold and one rate. The rebate is earned on the excess over the threshold, or on the whole base. It counts the volume received or invoiced. The accrual is calculated cumulatively over the window, then held for review. Posting is built too, with guards. It is off for each finance connection until an administrator switches it on. Only a reviewed accrual posts. It posts as a standing journal, not reversed next period, to two accounts an administrator chooses. Only the change since the last posting is sent. A line in another currency is refused, not converted. It posts to the six ledgers that take journals: QuickBooks Online, Xero, Business Central, Sage Accounting, Sage Intacct and NetSuite. The first four are proven live. Business Central receives it staged, for your finance team to post.

Deciding whether stock is safe

Atlas records the kind of date it was given and the days left. What may still be used is a food-safety and regulatory judgement. Atlas has neither the facts nor the standing to make it.

Notifying anyone outside your organisation

Atlas contacts no authority and emails no customer. It discharges no duty. The record has a field for what you did. Atlas says nothing about whether it was enough, or in time.

Declare a recall. Freeze the evidence.