Food & pharma manufacturing: how the screens work

Your first ten minutes

Start with Business and GST details. The FSSAI number is kept on the business profile, not as a pack field, and the invoice PDF prints it from there.

Enter the NPPA ceiling price only for a price-controlled drug, and only the number a person reads from an NPPA notification. Nothing in Finocket checks it for you.

• Your administrator reviews and approves the pack's changes. Nothing from the pack is applied on its own.
• On each Items record, fill in the product facts the pack adds as custom fields: product type (food, drug formulation, Ayurvedic or AYUSH, nutraceutical or other), ingredients, allergens, nutrition per 100 g, shelf life in days, storage condition, net quantity, MRP, EPR plastic category and plastic weight per unit.
• Create every raw material and every finished product as an item before you build a bill of materials. The raw material needs a rate, so its cost per unit can be worked out.

The daily loop: make a product

The Manufacturing screen opens on its Bills of materials tab. The core loop is that tab and Production.

Where the manufacturer pack's batch, manufacturing-date and expiry fields are on the sale line, they travel with the invoice. The food-pharma pack does not add them a second time.

• Bills of materials: pick the finished product, the output quantity per run and the components, which are the raw materials it uses. The cost per unit is worked out from the raw materials' rates.
• Production: record a run against a bill of materials. Finished stock goes up and raw-material stock comes down automatically, valued at a rolled-up standard cost.
• Give each run a batch number. A batch appears only after a production run is saved with a batch number.

Work orders and work centers

Work orders plan production as work orders: schedule a routed bill of materials, tick off each step as the shop floor finishes it, and watch the work-in-progress value build up. Completing the order moves stock.

• A work order runs only on a routed bill of materials. A bill with no routing steps keeps the simple one-step production run.
• Work centers are the machines, benches or teams your routing steps run through. Set an hourly cost on each one, so labour rolls into the finished-goods value.

Batches, quality hold and recall

The batch tools sit on the Manufacturing screen as Batches & job cards, QC hold and release and Mock recall: who received a batch, next to Job work. They appear only when the manufacturing v3 switch is on and this workspace has its grant. Until then they are not on the screen. Ask your administrator.

• QC hold and release: put a batch on hold or reject it, and release it again. Each change records the reason and who made it. A batch on hold or rejected is skipped when stock is picked automatically.
• Mock recall: who received a batch: type a batch number to list every invoice and credit note that carried it, with the customer and the quantity. A trace is a lookup of your records, not a recall notice.
• Job work shows what is lying with a job worker and how many days it has been out. Goods past the return limit can have a draft invoice prepared for your review.
• The ITC-04 list for job work is prepared from these records. It is not filed. Your CA checks it and files it on the GST portal.

Product facts the pack records but does not check

Each fact below is typed in by a person and stored on the item or the invoice. The pack does not verify any of them.

Nothing in the pack refuses a sale because a batch is on hold, checks a price against a ceiling, or files a return. Confirm each declaration with your CA or your regulatory adviser before you rely on it.

• Ingredients, allergens and nutrition per 100 g are recorded on the item. They do not print on a label. The label template is your own.
• Net quantity and MRP are your declarations. Nothing compares them with the Legal Metrology rules.
• An NPPA ceiling price is kept as a typed number. Nothing compares an MRP with it.
• The EPR plastic category and the plastic weight per unit are recorded. Nothing files a CPCB return from them.
• A recall is a lookup of documents, not a full trace. A production run does not record its raw-material lots by itself, so a lot appears only where someone recorded it.
• Brand owner on an invoice records who the goods are made for, for loan-licence supply.

Money and GST

Invoices, purchases and GST returns are the screens that carry the money. This guide gives no GST or tax advice. Your CA decides those questions.

• Invoices carry the sale lines. Each line can carry the batch details described above, and the invoice PDF prints your business details from Business and GST details.
• Purchases is the screen for buying in raw materials.
• GST returns is where the return figures are prepared. Your CA reviews them and decides what is filed.

Who to ask

• Your administrator: the pack, the switches for this workspace, the team's access and the approval of the pack's changes.
• Your CA: every GST, TDS and filing question, including the HSN and export treatment of an invoice.
• Your quality or regulatory adviser: whether a label, a declaration, a hold or a recall meets the rules. The software records the facts. It does not decide them.