Weigh, test and pay every supplier from one pass book, shift after shift.

A collection centre is a short, busy window. Suppliers queue with cans, the pan scale reads, a sample goes to the tester, and a slip is written for a person who has walked four kilometres at dawn. Seconds per supplier. Errors here are paid for later.

Software for milk collection centres begins at the platform and works toward the pay day. Each reading is stored against a supplier and a shift. Slip, plant statement and bank transfer then come from one entry. Whatever a supplier, a plant chemist or an auditor asks about later, the answer is in that line, with the shift, the tester and the rate chart in force on that day.

Suppliers arrive before dawn and again in the evening. A helper tips each can into the weighing pan, a tester draws a sample, and a fat and solids-not-fat reading comes from the analyser or a hand test. Sour or adulterated milk is rejected on the spot after a clot test or an alcohol test, and the supplier is told why. The clerk writes the figures twice.

Milk is chilled in a bulk cooler and held until the tanker arrives from the dairy plant. A seal number goes on the hatch. The plant sends back its own reading. The two seldom match. Payment to suppliers runs by the ten-day or fortnightly cycle, with deductions for cattle feed, mineral mix and advances taken in between. Disputes start when a supplier asks how a figure was reached, and the clerk has only a column of pencil marks to show him.