Tobacco ERP for leaf buying, processing and export.

Reference data used by every other module.

• Crop seasons with the statutory dates of the Tobacco Industry Act 2024
• Crop types and the Commission grade schedule, held by version
• Indicative, government minimum and buying price lists, with dual-entry verification before publication
• Region, district, EPA and area hierarchy, with yield norms
• Buying floors and stations, reason codes, and document and certificate types

A grower is held as a person, an estate, a registration per crop type, a licence per season and a contract per season.

• Estates and fields with GPS-walked boundaries, compared against the declared area
• Registrations, licences, undertakings and the certificate of compliance
• A clear-to-sell check that controls whether leaf can be accepted from a grower
• A review queue for possible duplicate growers; records are never merged automatically
• Two-person approval of changes to grower bank and mobile money details
• Clubs and registered growers associations

Contract registration and the controls the Act places on it.

• Quota confirmed with the Commission before a contract leaves draft
• Contracting deadline enforced; a late contract requires a recorded waiver
• One active contract per grower, season and crop type
• Inputs cannot be released until the Commission registration number is recorded
• Contracted kilograms and a tolerance band set the delivery ceiling; over-delivery is routed for decision

Management of input loans to contracted growers.

• Loan products with their Commission authorisation reference
• Input packs that set the entitlement per contracted hectare
• Distribution runs in which stock issue and loan debit are posted together
• Loan accounts with a full movement history, interest accrual and arrears carried between seasons
• Authorised deduction schedules with a priority order
• Loan portfolio reporting and loan-to-delivery analysis as an early indicator of side-selling

Field officer activity, recorded on a mobile device that works offline.

• Visit plans by season stage, and visits verified by GPS against the field boundary
• Checklists for good agricultural practice, labour and crop protection, held by version
• Findings with severity, due date and remediation; a labour finding cannot be closed by the officer who raised it
• Crop protection records with pre-harvest intervals
• A sustainability record per grower for customer assurance programmes

Estimates of the crop and records of curing.

• Three estimating rounds: area-based, plant count and barn-based, compared with each other and with the yield norm
• Differences beyond a set threshold are raised as exceptions for review
• Barn registry with capacity checked against contracted kilograms
• Curing batches that link source fields to cured kilograms
• Fuel type, quantity and source per batch

Each bale has a unique identity that cannot be changed after creation.

• Bale number, grower registration number and grader stamp
• Weight, tare and moisture recorded as observations; a correction is a new observation with a reason
• Weights are taken from registered instruments; an instrument with an expired calibration certificate cannot post
• Bale number blocks issued to each device, so offline devices cannot issue the same number

Sale-day operations on the buying floor.

• Sale days per floor, with bale limits enforced
• Intake with weighbridge in and out, reconciled against accepted bale weights
• A line priced below the published government minimum for its grade cannot be validated
• Intake is blocked when the grower has no certificate of compliance
• Commission grade and internal class recorded separately, with classer, time and location
• Blind re-classification of a sample of bales, with agreement rates per classer and station
• Rejection reason codes, re-offer limits and grade disputes

Payment to growers after sale.

• Settlements assembled from accepted bales and the approved deduction schedule, in priority order
• Remittance tracked against the 24-hour requirement, with an exceptions list
• Leaf purchase orders generated from accepted bales, without re-entry

Lot building and threshing.

• Lots built to a target grade mix and moisture
• Composition records for every contributing bale, carried through each processing stage
• Threshing outputs recorded as strip, stem and scrap
• Yield measured on a dry-weight basis
• Lot cost built up in layers: green leaf, buying, landed, storage and processing

Customer contracts, shipments and trade documents.

• Customer contracts with quality specifications held by version
• Allocation of lots to shipments, with a conformance check against the specification
• A document checklist per destination; a shipment cannot be dispatched without the export permit, phytosanitary certificate and sanitary certificate
• A traceability declaration generated from lot composition records

Floor and field work linked to the employee who performed it.

• Weighing, classing, acceptance and field visits recorded against the employee
• A Work by Employee report by day, floor and area
• Piece-rate pay and monthly target bonuses calculated in payroll from recorded work
• PAYE, pension and TEVET applied through the Malawi payroll structure

Field and floor devices continue to work without a network connection.

• Records are captured offline and uploaded when a connection is available
• A repeated upload is recognised and not duplicated
• Conflicts are placed in a register for review
• A report of devices that have not synchronised

Roles supplied with the edition.

• Weighing clerk, classer, buying clerk and buying manager
• Field officer and agronomist
• Credit, compliance, store, factory and export
• Finance, HR, audit and administrator

Controls built into the roles.

• Weighing, classing and accepting are separate roles
• Prices and deduction schedules are entered by one role and published by another
• Finance does not hold a buying role, and the buying manager does not hold an accounting role