Managing recipe versions

Every recipe in Crown is a series of versions of a product. You don't edit one recipe over time; you approve a version, produce against it, and create a new version when the recipe changes. This keeps each batch's record tied to exactly what was in effect when you made it, even as the recipe evolves.

Recipe version states

A recipe version is in one of three states:

• Draft: fully editable. You can change ingredients, stages, quantities, and yield freely. A draft can't be produced against.
• Approved: locked and read-only. Approving a version with your e-signature makes it eligible for production. You can't edit an approved version.
• Archived: a retired version. Crown hides archived versions from the recipe list by default (a "Show archived" toggle reveals them) and doesn't use them for new batches. Archive a version to retire one you no longer produce against. Archiving isn't permanent: open an archived version and select Restore to bring it back. It returns as a draft, whatever it was before it was archived, so a version that was previously approved needs approving again before you can produce against it. That re-approval is signed and recorded like any other, which is what gives you a clean account of why a retired recipe came back into use.

When you start a batch, Crown uses the product's latest approved version. A product can have more than one approved version, for example a trial recipe alongside the one you make every week. When it does, New batch lists each approved version under the product, latest first and already chosen, and you pick the one this batch runs on. Plan production offers the same choice for each product in a plan. Drafts and archived versions never appear in either.

Keeping an earlier version approved is how you keep it ready to fall back to. Archive a version only when you no longer want to make batches from it.

Revising an approved recipe

Because approved versions are locked, you revise a recipe by creating a new one.

1. Select Edit as new version

   Open the approved recipe and select Edit as new version, the highlighted button in the top right. Crown copies the recipe into a new draft as the next version number, carrying over every ingredient, stage, and piece of assigned equipment, and each stage's food safety analysis, then opens that draft for you.

2. Make your changes

   Edit the new draft: adjust quantities, add or remove stages, update measurements. The approved version it came from is untouched.

3. Approve the new version

   When the revision is correct, approve it with your e-signature. New batch chooses this version by default, and earlier approved versions stay available to choose until you archive them.

Duplicate sits next to it and does exactly the same thing: both buttons create the new draft and take you straight to it. A draft and an archived version each show only Duplicate, since there's no approved version underneath them to revise.

Crown QMSApproving a New Version: e-Signature Required

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Tagging a version

The Tags card, beside the recipe, holds short labels for a version, such as R&D, Trial or Fallback. Type a tag and press Enter, or separate several with commas; tags your company already uses are offered as you type, and typing one in a different case uses your company's spelling. A version can have up to six tags of up to 24 characters each.

Crown QMSTags on a Recipe Version

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Tags show as pills on the Recipes list and in New batch, and next to the version number in Plan production, and searching Recipes finds them. Tags are labels rather than part of the recipe, so you can change them on an approved or archived version without making a new one. A new version made with Edit as new version or Duplicate starts without tags.

Why versioning matters for traceability

When an inspector or a customer asks what went into a batch from three months ago, the answer has to reflect the recipe as it was then, not as it is now. Because each batch references a specific version, Crown can always show the exact ingredients, quantities, and process steps that batch actually used.

Seeing what changed on a version

Every version carries its own change history. Open the version and expand Audit trail in the right-hand column to see each edit in order: who made it, when, and which fields moved. It covers the version's own details along with the stages and steps inside it, so a quantity change on step four shows up here rather than being buried where nobody would look for it.

This is the record to reach for when someone asks why two versions differ, or when you want to confirm a draft was finished before it was approved. It is read-only and can't be edited or cleared, which is exactly what makes it worth citing in an audit.

What's next

Recipe yield is part of every version. See Understanding yield for how Crown compares each batch's output to the recipe's target.

• Starting a batch: a batch uses the latest approved version of the recipe unless you choose another.