Green Coffee: Creating, Updating Inventory and Purchasing

Before you start you will need a full list of your green coffee components that are used within your roastery.  This list will feed into your list of products and blends.  Keeping this section up to date will ensure accuracy in cost reporting, helping you to get the most out of RoasterTools!  

**Note: RoasterTools allows for adding multiple users for your account.  Your company may find that the individual who is responsible for green buying and planning is the best person to add and maintain the green coffees.

 

Ok, Let's Get Rolling.

Step 1:

Under the menu bar, select "Green Coffees" from the "Inventory" drop down list.  

On the top right, find the "New Green Coffee" button.  

Step 2:  Adding The Basics

Under "Lot Name" create the identifying name for this green coffee.  You can be as simple as calling it "Brazil" or create a naming convention.  In this example, we've gone ahead and utilized a naming convention.  

This naming convention allows me to quickly have visibility to the origin, name, and crop year for this particular coffee.  As some roasters may have multiple contracts set at different prices, it can be helpful to keep the vital info visible throughout the production process.  

Under "Origin" select the origin country/region identified for the coffee.

Check "Is active" if this coffee is currently in roasting rotation.  When thinking about work flow, you may choose to add in coffee before it is in the warehouse or being used in production.  Simply leave this box unchecked if the coffee is not currently available for production.

Step 3:  Adding Cost

Under "Cost" add the cost per pound for your green.  This is a great moment to think about exactly what that cost really is.  The more information you add in, the more accurately your reports will reflect your cost of production.  

Here are a couple of factors that may be influencing your green cost per pound:

Contract Price:  The price per pound you bought the coffee for.

Carry:  Additional cost per pound added by importer as part of finance terms.  Typically covers the importers cost of insuring the coffee before it is formally in your possession.

Logistics:  Cost for importer to move coffee from one warehouse to the final destination warehouse where you take possession of it.  Such as moving coffee from Continental in NJ to the Annex in Oakland.

Warehouse:  Charges for warehousing coffee before it is at the roastery.

Delivery:  Cost for delivering coffee from the warehouse to your roastery door.  

Unloading:  Costs associated with temporary labor needed to unload full containers.

You may find that some or none of these additional costs are influencing your final cost of green coffee.  As your business grows, you may encounter more of these costs.  Some importers will include all of these costs into a contracted price, others will only contract for the base price of the coffee, then add additional charges later on.  

You may also find that an importer may sell you a coffee that is "all-in" with costs calculated to the roastery door, and another coffee that is forward contracted "FOB" with nothing added in.

For changing cost of green, see the bottom of this Help Doc for more information on Purchasing Green Coffee.

Step 4:  Adding Lot Details

Under "ICO" add in the identifying bag marks.  If the bag marks are not the same throughout the entire lot of coffee, check to ensure that it was all contracted together.  Different bag marks often indicate different contracts, which often means different prices. 

Under "Lot"  add in any independent importer reference numbers that may be associated with the coffee.  This is typically unique to the importer and references coffee within their own system.  This information may be found on the contract from the importer, or at times, also screened onto the bag itself.

Under "Year" add in the crop year associated with the coffee.  This is a great piece of information to keep visible for ensuring that you don't accidentally have some old coffee lurking in a corner somewhere.  Crop year typically runs October 1-September 31 (not January 1 - December 31).  It may be written as "2016-2017", often for Central American coffees that may be harvested during November-January season.  Where it is written "2016-2017", the associated crop year would be "2017".  

Under "Processing Method" add in any notes regarding processing.

Step 5: Adding Certifications

Check any boxes that are associated with verifiable certifications for the coffee.   Certifications are also screened onto the bags.  While roaming through your greens, you may find that your coffee has certifications that you were unaware of.  

This is a great spot to keep those certifications visible through the production process.  Certifications may create an added value for your customers.  Also, when producing certified coffees, it may be helpful to know which coffees can be substituted into a blend to maintain certification status for the blend.  

Step 6: Create Green Coffee

Simply click the "Create Green Coffee"  button to add the green coffee to your product list!  

Purchasing Green Coffee

To increase your inventory of green coffee, you will need to purchase green coffee. Purchasing green coffee will also allow you to record the cost of green. 

The cost of green may fluctuate year to year, so this will record the actual purchase amount. Meanwhile, the cost of green shown on your edit green coffee page will show an average of every purchase of the green coffee.

How to Purchase Green Coffee

To purchase green coffee, navigate to Inventory > Green Coffees.

For your chosen green coffee, select the drop down menu and choose purchase coffee.

From the purchase coffee page, you can purchase your desired amount of coffee at the current cost of green. Here we purchase two batches of green at different costs of green.

Since we purchased at two different costs of green, the cost of green shown for our coffee will be an average of those prices.

Each time you purchase green coffee, the price will factor in the cost of green to its average price

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