Scanning documents and QR codes

The Scan button turns your phone into a plant-floor shortcut. Point the camera at a QR label to open that equipment's actions or that batch's record, or photograph a packing slip or certificate and send it into Crown already attached to the right record. Scanning, labels, and routing a document yourself are included on every plan; the AI reading and pre-fill described below are Pro features.

Where Scan lives

On a phone, Scan is the round gold button at the center of the bottom bar, between Production and Quality, and it works from any page. To make room for it, Ingredients moved into the More menu on phones.

On a desktop, use the Scan tile on your dashboard. The bottom bar only appears on phone-sized screens, so the dashboard tile is the desktop entry.

Both open the same panel, and the camera is the first thing you see. A QR code in frame opens its record immediately, the shutter photographs a document, and an Upload a document button below the viewfinder picks an existing photo or PDF. If your device has no camera, or camera access is blocked, the panel shows a code field instead: paste the link printed under the QR (or the equipment's ID) and select Go.

Scanning a code

An equipment label opens that equipment's action menu, built for one-handed use on the floor:

• Log check-in / Start hold: any active hold running on that vessel is listed with its batch number and, if the check-in has slipped, an overdue badge. One tap logs the check-in or starts the hold. See Keeping up with hold check-ins for what the overdue badge means.
• Assign to this hold: batches whose hold is still waiting for a vessel appear here, so you can bind this equipment to the hold on the spot. Binding the vessel also places the batch on your live plant floor.
• Record calibration: measurement instruments show their next calibration due date (with an Overdue badge when it has passed) and a button that jumps straight to the unit's record.

A batch slip's QR lands directly on that batch's record, where you can work the production floor or review the batch.

Actions follow your role. If your account is read-only, the menu shows the equipment's status but its action buttons are disabled. Every action you do take is recorded exactly as if you had entered it from the batch page.

Printing the labels

Equipment labels: open Facility, select the equipment to open its record, and select Print QR. A printable label opens showing the QR code, the equipment's name and code, and the link the code carries. Print it and attach it to the equipment. If the unit isn't registered yet, see Setting up your equipment.

Batch slips: every batch record slip printed with Print Batch Slip on the batch page carries a QR code captioned "Scan to open this batch."

Capturing a document

To bring paperwork in, photograph it with the shutter or select Upload a document. Photos and PDFs both work:

• Phone photos: compressed on your device before upload, so they send quickly even on plant WiFi.
• iPhone photos: HEIC images convert automatically; there is nothing to export or convert first.
• More pages: add another page with Add a photo or Add a file before routing.
• Changed your mind: Discard deletes the capture and its uploads.

Then choose where the document goes under Send to. You can start a new goods receipt with the document attached, or attach a certificate to an open lab test. Choosing the destination yourself works on every plan: the document simply arrives already attached to the record you picked.

Destination suggestions (Pro)

On Pro, Crown reads the document as soon as it uploads and grounds what it sees in your own records. A banner above the destination list tells you what it found: the kind of document (a packing slip or invoice, or a Certificate of Analysis), the supplier it matched from your supplier list, and how many line items match ingredients you actually stock. The destination it recommends is highlighted with a Suggested tag.

When you send a certificate to a lab test, the picker sorts the test whose batch number appears on the certificate to the top and tags it "Matches this certificate," so the right test is one tap away.

Pre-filling a receipt from a packing slip

Sending a document to Goods receipt opens a new draft receiving record with the file already attached. On Pro, a pre-fill card sits at the top of the form:

1. Select Extract with AI

   Crown reads the supplier, the received and order dates, the document reference, and the line items: quantities, pack sizes, supplier lot codes, expiry dates, and costs.

2. Review the flagged items

   Supplier and ingredient names are matched against your own records. A name that doesn't match confidently is not filled in; it's listed under "Review these before saving" so you can pick the right record or create a new one.

3. Confirm and save

   Everything lands in an ordinary draft receipt. Every field stays editable, and nothing is saved until you finalize the receipt the same way you would any other.

For the receiving form itself, see Receiving an ingredient shipment.

Pre-filling lab results from a certificate

A Certificate of Analysis attached to a lab test can pre-fill the test's results on Pro (see Lab testing a batch for the full lab-test flow). Open the test and select Extract from CoA:

• Censored readings keep their comparison. A value reported as < 10 cfu/g arrives as a less-than reading, not a plain number.
• Qualitative results carry over. Readings like "Not detected" map onto the parameters that expect an outcome rather than a number.
• Method-coded names match automatically. If your template names a parameter "Aerobic plate count, MFHPB-18" and the certificate prints just "Aerobic plate count" with the method in its own column, the two still match.

Every extracted value lands as an unsaved entry for you to review, and anything the reading wasn't sure about is flagged before you save. Crown judges each value against your spec when you save, the same as a hand-typed result.

Ready to try it? Print a QR label for your busiest vessel and stick it on: the next hold check-in is one scan away.