Cold Storage Management
Chamber-wise lots held for parties, partial releases tracked, and rent billed on weight and duration without a day in the register.
A cold store is not really in the storage business. It is in the custody business. The potatoes in chamber three belong to eleven different parties, each lot went in on a different date, each party takes out a few hundred bags at a time whenever the market suits them, and the rent is owed on what was stored for how long. The physical job is refrigeration; the business job is keeping that ledger straight.
What gets built here is the lot: whose goods, how many bags, what weight, which chamber, in on what date, and what has gone out since. Rent calculated by weight and duration or by season depending on how you charge, labour charges for loading and unloading, and the gate pass that controls what actually leaves the premises. Advances against stored goods and bank-pledged lots are both common and both need to be on the same record.
What it fixes
- A chamber holding lots for a dozen parties, with the position per party reconstructed from the inward register whenever someone asks
- Partial releases taken against a lot over several weeks, so bags remaining against a party is a running subtraction done by hand
- Rent calculated at the end from the inward date and the outward dates, with the party arguing about the duration
- Loading, unloading and labour charges agreed at the gate and recorded loosely, so they are often never recovered
- Goods released before the rent is settled, because the gate had no way to know what was outstanding
- Lots pledged to a bank or held against an advance, with nothing in the record to stop them being released
What gets built
A starting point, not a fixed list. The build is scoped to your own process before anything is written.
Lot inward
Goods received against a party with lot number, commodity, variety, number of bags, weight, chamber and rack, date of entry and the rate agreed — the single record everything else is calculated from.
Chamber and space position
What is in each chamber and rack, by party and lot, with occupied and available capacity, so space can be committed honestly during the intake season.
Partial release and gate pass
Bags released against a lot on a dated gate pass with the balance updated, so the position per lot is current rather than calculated on request. Release blocked where rent is outstanding or the lot is pledged, unless a named person overrides it.
Rent calculation
Rent on weight and duration, per bag per month, or per season — whichever basis you use — calculated per lot with partial releases accounted for at the date they went out.
Party accounts and advances
A running account per party covering rent, labour and handling charges, advances given against stored goods, and what is recoverable before release.
Temperature and pledge records
Chamber temperature readings logged for the record, and lots marked as pledged to a bank or held against an advance so they are visible as encumbered.
Who this is for
Cold stores holding goods on behalf of parties — potato, onion, apple, dates, fruit and vegetables — from a single store with a few chambers upwards. The more parties per chamber and the more partial releases, the more this saves, because that is exactly the arithmetic currently being done by hand. A store used entirely for a company's own stock, with no third-party custody and no rent to bill, is a much simpler inventory problem and does not need the lot and rent machinery. The same applies if you fill once a season and release once at the end: the register handles that honestly.
Questions
Can it monitor and alert on chamber temperature automatically?
Logging readings entered by staff is straightforward. Reading sensors automatically and alerting on a deviation depends entirely on whether your plant has sensors with an output that can be read, and on their make. Some installations do, many do not, and retrofitting sensors is its own cost. We would want to see what is installed before saying whether it can be integrated, and we would not include it in a quote on the assumption that it can.
Our rent is charged per bag for the season, not by weight and month.
That is common and it is fine, but it has to be specified precisely because every store charges differently — per bag per season, per weight per month, a minimum period, a different rate for an early release. Whatever the basis, it needs to be written down as a rule before building. Half-defined rent rules are the single biggest cause of disputes after a store goes live.
Can parties check their own stock position?
A party portal or a position sent by message is a reasonable addition and it does cut down the phone calls during release season. It is separate work with its own cost, and messaging carries a per-message charge. Worth deciding after the main system has run through one season, when you know what parties actually ask for.
Tell us how your store runs.
We scope it first — what it takes, how long, what it costs. No obligation.