Operating loop
- Set up locations, units, roles, and permissions.
- Load or create items, suppliers, customers, recipes, and open lots.
- Receive supplier lots and capture quantity, expiry, cost, supplier lot, and COA status.
- Keep inventory accurate by lot, status, location, unit, cost, and movement history.
- Build active recipe versions with ingredient, packaging, yield, and cost assumptions.
- Schedule and sign off production, consuming input lots and creating output lots.
- Reserve and ship finished lots against customer orders.
- Use traceability, reports, and QuickBooks handoff to answer QA, customer, and accounting questions.
System boundaries
| Area | Batchlane role | Connects to |
|---|---|---|
| Settings | Workspace setup, locations, roles, units, shelf-life rules | Implementation checklist, Imports |
| Address book | Customer and supplier master data | Receiving, Orders, QuickBooks setup |
| Inventory | Operational lot ledger and balances | Receiving, Production, Orders, Reports |
| Recipes | Versioned formula setup | Production, Traceability, Reports |
| Production | Batch record execution and signoff | Inventory, Documents and QA, Traceability |
| Orders | Finished lot reservation and shipment | Inventory, Traceability, QuickBooks handoff |
| Documents | QA files and evidence linked to source records | Receiving, Production, Reports |
| Reports | Summaries and export jobs based on source records | Common errors, QuickBooks handoff |
Data flow
The important rule is that source records come first. A report, export, or accounting handoff should summarize existing records instead of becoming the new source of truth.- A received lot creates an inventory lot, receive movement, balance, audit event, and often a missing COA task.
- Production signoff consumes input lots, creates output lots, writes consume and produce movements, and preserves the recipe version used.
- Shipping reduces reserved finished inventory, writes shipment allocation history, and gives traceability a customer endpoint.
- QuickBooks sync uses operational records and mappings. It should not be used as the plant-floor inventory ledger.
Current non-goals
- Replacing QuickBooks, payroll, HR, EDI, full MRP, or complex warehouse automation.
- Storing files without links to the operational record they support.
- Letting users silently edit completed batch or shipment history without an audit path.