Keep every paddy lot, milling yield and bag count on record per batch.

Paddy arrives from farmers and agents at different moisture levels and grain types, and the price paid depends on the reading taken at the gate. A clerk takes it with a handheld meter and a sample tray, often with a queue of trucks waiting behind. What the mill earns depends on how much whole grain comes out of each tonne.

Intake and milling records for rice mills tie the two together. Each paddy lot is followed through drying, husking and polishing to the graded bags. Tell us how a lot moves from the weighbridge to the bag, and we start there.

Trucks and carts bring paddy to the weighbridge, where moisture and foreign matter are checked before the price is agreed. The lot goes to the drying yard or the dryer, and parboiling plants soak, steam and dry it again. Pre-cleaners remove stones and chaff. Huskers split the hull from the grain, separators take out the brown rice, and polishers whiten it. Sorters then remove discoloured and broken kernels, and graders sort what remains by length into whole, head rice and brokens.

Bran, husk and broken grain go out as separate by-products, each to its own buyer at its own rate. Finished rice is filled into bags of fixed weight, stitched and stacked by variety and grade. Millers sell to wholesalers, retail brands and institutional buyers, often on credit. At month end the owner wants the yield, the broken share and the by-products for each lot. Without batch records, those figures are rough guesses.