How to Track Fruit Sold During Harvest

Selling fruit? This process may take a few different paths, and the process of recording it in InnoVint depends on your desired outcome. 

If you sell some of your harvested fruit to another winery, you’ll still want the full weight you picked on record in InnoVint. You’ll also want the sold portion taken out of your inventory, so it never reaches a wine lot.  You may or may not need to consider how it reports on your TTB report. This article covers:

• How it works
• Which scenario are you in?
  • Scenario A: You know before harvest that some fruit will be sold
  • Scenario B: You decide after harvest to sell some fruit
• Recording the sale with a Fruit Weight Adjustment
• Finding sold fruit later
• How sold fruit appears on your TTB report

  • What if I do not want the sold fruit to report on my bond?

• Handling costs for sold fruit
• Frequently Asked Questions

How it works

Sold fruit is tracked in a fruit lot, the same way as the fruit you keep. The sold weight is received through a Receive Fruit action, so InnoVint has a record of everything you harvested. Then a Fruit Weight Adjustment brings that fruit lot’s tonnage down to zero. The adjustment records the sale and takes the fruit out of your inventory.

The only thing that changes between the two scenarios below is when you split the sold fruit from the kept fruit: before it’s received, or after.

You may also consider whether you are receiving this fruit into your bond before you sell it, and whether it should appear on your TTB Reporting.

All of the steps below start in Vineyard Explorer > Fruit Lot Explorer.

Which scenario are you in?

Scenario A: You know before harvest that some fruit will be sold

Keep the sold fruit separate from the start by giving it its own fruit lot. If you are processing some, and selling some, you will create two fruit lots. 

1. In the Fruit Lot Explorer, create two fruit lot codes for the block:
   
   * One for the fruit you’re keeping, for example FL-25-CH-CCV
   * One for the fruit you’re selling, for example FL-25-CH-CCV-SOLD
2. Receive weigh tags into each fruit lot as usual. Sold fruit goes to the -SOLD lot and kept fruit goes to the other one.
3. Process the kept fruit lot into your wine lot as you normally would.
4. When the sold fruit has left the winery, record the sale on the -SOLD fruit lot. See Recording the sale with a Fruit Weight Adjustment.

Tip: Adding “-SOLD” (or a similar suffix) to the lot code makes sold fruit easy to spot in the Fruit Lot Explorer and in reports.

Scenario B: You decide after harvest to sell some fruit 

Receive everything into one fruit lot, process the fruit you keep, and whatever is left over on the Fruit Lot is the sold fruit.

1. In the Fruit Lot Explorer, create one fruit lot code for the block, for example FL-21-CH-CCV.
2. Receive all weight into that fruit lot.
3. Process only the fruit you’re keeping into a new wine lot code. The fruit you don’t process stays in the original fruit lot. InnoVint shows it as the lot’s remaining weight.
   
4. The remaining weight is your sold fruit. Record the sale on this fruit lot. See Recording the sale with a Fruit Weight Adjustment.

Recording the sale with a Fruit Weight Adjustment 

Use this in both scenarios, on the fruit lot that holds the sold fruit.

1. In the Fruit Lot Explorer, click into the fruit lot you’re selling (the -SOLD lot in Scenario A, or the lot with remaining weight in Scenario B).
2. Click Record action > Fruit Weight Adjustment.
3. Set New Fruit Weight to 0.
4. In the notes, record the sale details, for example the buyer, the date, and any contract or invoice number. 
5. Record the action.
6. Recommended: Add a “Sold” tag to the fruit lot so you can filter for it later.
   
   

Finding sold fruit later 

InnoVint gives you three ways to find your sold fruit:

• Winery Activity Feed: Filter by the Fruit Weight Adjustment action type to see each sale and the tonnage removed.
• Fruit Intake Report: Shows every weigh tag and all weight received, both sold and kept. Export it and sort or filter by the Sold tag, or the -SOLD fruit lot code.
• Fruit Lot Explorer: If you tagged all Fruit lots as Sold, filter by the Sold tag to see every fruit lot you sold.

How sold fruit appears on your TTB report 

The weight you zero out with a Fruit Weight Adjustment is reported as Removed on the TTB 5120.17 Report of Wine Premises Operations, in Part IV, Line 8, Column (a).

What if I do not want the sold fruit to report on my bond?

If sold fruit should not appear on your TTB report at all, for example if it was never on your bonded premises, you can receive it under a second, “phantom” bond instead of your main bond. That keeps it out of your bond and off your TTB report, while InnoVint still has a record of the weight, and your vineyard block tracks the yield. 

If creating two fruit lots, create the sold fruit lot on this bond.  If you go this route, you will also be able to view all harvested weight from the Fruit Intake Report by searching for this bond.

To set up a "phantom" bond, reach out to InnoVint Support.

If you aren’t sure which option fits your situation, check with your compliance team or contact Customer Success.

Handling costs for sold fruit

When you sell part of your fruit, the sold weight leaves your inventory. When you use a fruit weight adjustment to set a sold fruit lot to zero weight, the cost will remain stranded on the empty fruit lot. Plan to check all fruit lots after each sale, or at the end of harvest, and move any remaining cost.

How to clean up cost after a fruit sale:

1. Run the Lot Cost Report with the Lot Type filter set to include Fruit lots, as of the day after the sale. Look for fruit lots with cost but no weight.
2. Go to COGS Tracking > Add/Remove Cost and choose Remove. Change the Lot Contents filter to include lots with no contents so the empty fruit lot appears.
3. Select the Fruit (direct) category and remove the stranded amount, dated just after the sale.
4. Decide where the cost belongs:
   • If the sold fruit's cost should leave the winery's COGS (for example, it's recorded as cost of fruit sold in your books), stop here and note the sale in the details field.
   • If some of the cost belongs on wine you kept, add it back to those Juice/Wine lots in the same category and on the same date.

Talk with your finance team before the sale about how they want sold fruit recorded, so the InnoVint entry matches the books.

Frequently Asked Questions 

Q: Why not just leave the sold fruit out of InnoVint?

A: Receiving it gives you a full record of everything harvested from each block, which helps with yield tracking, grower payments, and vineyard reporting. The Fruit Weight Adjustment then takes it out of your inventory.

Q: Can I sell part of a fruit lot instead of all of it?

A: Yes. In Scenario B, process the tons you’re keeping first, then you can sell what’s left. If you are selling it first, you can reduce the fruit lot by the sold amount, and enter the new, remaining weight to process in the Fruit Weight Adjustment instead of 0.