Production
Releasing a batch
Wrapping up a batch: recording yield and packaging, passing quality review, and releasing finished goods for sale.
Releasing is how a batch goes from finished production to sellable finished goods. Between the two sits a short, recorded path: record your output, pass quality review, and release. Until you release, the finished goods Crown creates are held back from inventory.
The release path
A batch moves through these stages:
- In progress → you complete the recipe's stages.
- Production complete → you record yield and packaging.
- Internal QC → you decide whether the batch needs lab testing.
- Released → finished goods become available. (Or released with deviation, or rejected; see below.)
Record yield and packaging
When every stage is complete, select Enter yield & complete.
- Confirm the packaging date
Crown starts with the day a completed step already anchors the best-before to, or the day the lot code encodes, or today if neither applies. Change it if packaging actually happened on a different day: the best-before date moves with whatever day you set here.
- Enter the production yield
Record how much the batch produced, in the product's unit. The Total yield field is optional: leave it blank if the total can't be measured and Crown uses what you packaged. When you do enter a total, Crown compares it to the recipe's expected output, shows the yield percentage, and itemizes any loss.
- Record packaging output
Enter how many of each SKU you filled. Crown turns those counts into finished-good lots. Anything not yet packaged goes in Left in bulk: Crown saves it as a finished-good lot too, and you can package it into SKUs later from the batch's Output section or from Inventory, under Finished Goods.
- Mark production complete
Confirm to create the finished-good lots and move the batch to Production Complete.
Quality review
From Production Complete, select Start internal QC to begin quality review. At internal QC, you choose how the batch clears:
- Release (no lab): if no lab testing is needed, release the batch directly.
- Send to lab: create a lab test and move the batch to pending lab. Record the results, then finalize each test as passed, passed with deviation, or failed. To finalize a test as passed, attach the lab's Certificate of Analysis to it, or record a reason of at least 20 characters for finalizing without one, so every lab release is backed by evidence or an explained gap.
Once the batch is at pending lab, the actions become Release batch, Release with deviation, and Reject batch.
Once your lab tests are finalized, Crown offers the matching action based on the results: a clean pass offers Release, a pass-with-deviation offers Release with deviation, and any failure offers Reject. A failed test doesn't force the decision on its own: select Retest to run a fresh linked test against the same spec and lab before you decide whether to reject the batch.
Release, release with deviation, or reject
- Release: finished goods flip to available and can be shipped, except a lot someone has placed on hold, which stays on hold.
- Release with deviation: same, with the deviation kept on the record.
- Reject: finished goods are quarantined, not sold.
Release, reject and in-place rework can't be undone, so each asks you to confirm before it goes through.
Release locks the batch's outputs, quantities, and lot codes; the finished goods are final. Two corrections stay open to you afterwards, and both keep your reason on the audit trail:
- Correct ingredient use: for a recording mistake in the lots consumed. Crown asks for a reason and updates inventory to match.
- Amend: for the batch's notes and its status reason. Available once a batch has left production review (released, released with deviation, rejected, in rework, or disposed).
A rejected batch has three routes: Create rework batch (re-run to correct the issue), Mark in-place rework (the correction happened on the same batch), or Dispose. A batch released with deviation can also go to Create rework batch if you decide it needs a re-run after all. Disposing asks you to confirm and to write a reason. Disposal is permanent: a disposed batch can't return to production or be released. Any stock left in the batch's finished-goods lots is written off as a quality reject in the same step, so nothing from a destroyed batch stays on hand. In Inventory, those lots stay in quarantine, and their quarantine reason says Batch disposed.
What's next
If a CCP reading or lab result opened a deviation, resolve it. See Logging a deviation. To follow a released lot, see How lot traceability works.