Steps to Review When Bushels Do Not Balance

During Month End, a Bushel Balance process should be done to ensure all activity has been accounted for.  If you find your Grain P & L seems off, it’s especially important to Balance out Bushels.  If your Bushels do not Balance out, here are some steps to start looking for the difference.

1. Ensure all Beg Balances are correct.  Check what carried over as ending balances from the prior month.  This includes:

   1. Inventory (Prior Month’s Ending Inventory Valuation)

   2. Unpaid Delivery Sheets – Purchase from prior month

   3. Unpaid Delivery Sheets – Sale from prior month

2. Ensure all Ending Balance are correct.  Verify the following reports are run as of cutoff date of your month end.  This includes:

   1. Inventory (Current Month’s Ending Inventory Valuation)

   2. Unpaid Delivery Sheets – Purchase from current month

   3. Unpaid Delivery Sheets – Sales from Current month

   4. SJI Commodity Settlement System Entries (Find the total Bushels Purchased & Sold)

   5. Verify all tickets are on Delivery Sheets.  If you have Applied Tickets to Contracts & you did not put them on a Delivery Sheet, you should run a Tickets Not on Delivery Sheet Report & include those Bushels with your Unpaid Delivery Sheets in steps B & C above.

3. Ensure all Miscellaneous Adjustments have been accounted for that may have happened during the month.  Examples here

   1. Book Shrink

   2. Inventory Usage

   3. InterCo Transfers Inbound & Outbound Match

   4. Inventory Adjustment
      
      

Once you have verified all numbers on your Bushel Balance are correct & you still have differences, you need to start checking details.  This can be a time-consuming task.

1. Take your Unpaid Delivery Sheet Reports, Purchase & Sales & verify that any Bushels on the prior month’s report, either are still on the current month’s report, or they are on the SJI Settlements Reports.  You will need:

   1. The Month End Settlement Summary Report – This report will list every Settlement done all month.  Look at each Unpaid Delivery Sheet from prior & see if you can find where those Bushels got settled on this report.

   2. If you do not find the Bushels in the Month End Settlement Report, double check they should be on the Current month’s Unpaid Delivery Sheets.

2. Now verify that all Unloads & Loadout are accounted for.  You should find every unload and loadout in 1 of 2 places.

   1. Compare a Ticket Report for all Unloads & Loadouts, (it would be helpful to have Delivery Sheet & Settlement Info on this Ticket Report, so you might have to create a User Defined Report), to the Month End Settlement Report from SJI.  This is the same report used in 4A above.  Find out if everything Unloaded & Loaded out got Settled or not.  If not on the Settlement Report next check here:

   2. Now Compare the remaining Unloads & Loadout that you couldn’t find on the Settlement Report, ensure they are on the Ending Delivery Sheet Reports from Step 2 B & C.  If not Settled they should be on the Current Month Ending Unpaid Delivery Sheet Report.

3. You now have accounted for all Prior Month Ending Balances are either still on Unpaid Delivery Sheet Reports or on the Settlement Report.  You have verified that all Unloads & Loadout are either Settled, & show on the Settlement Report, or not Settled yet & they should be on the Ending Unpaid Delivery Sheet Report.

4. Now do you have items left on Prior Month’s Unpaid Delivery Sheet Reports not accounted for?  Do you have Current Month Unpaid Delivery Sheet items that have not yet been accounted for?  These will all need to be further investigated to see which side is missing or extra.  Some thoughts on why there might be items left over:

   1. Did a Ticket get enter as Direct & should be Regular, or Vise Versa?

   2. Do your Inbound & Outbound Direct Shipments match?

   3. Did a Contract get Cancelled & Produced a Delivery Sheet, that either, did not get Settled, or it should never have had a Delivery Sheet created?  So, the item does not belong in Unpaid Delivery Sheets?

There may be other reasons why your bushels don’t match, these are just the most common and a place to start. If after going through these steps you still can’t find the difference, open a case with support and we will have our experts take a look.