Operator’s manual
The operator's manual
There's one track for each job, in the order the season runs. Each lesson tells you what to do, what the app records when you do it, and what to look at afterward. Load the demo cellar first, so every exercise has real records to work with.
Read the philosophy once. Then read your own track from the top with the app open beside it, and do each lesson's exercise on the demo cellar as you go. The compliance chapter is for whoever keeps the books. The AI chapter is for anyone who uses the AI buttons.
By job
The owner
The person who signs: opens the account, sets up the premises, invites the team and is responsible for what's filed.
Signs in as Owner · 24 lessons
The winemaker
The person who decides what the wine should be and what's done to it: programs, pitches, moves and the bench.
Signs in as Winemaker · 15 lessons
The cellar hand
The person on the cellar floor, with a hydrometer in one hand and a phone in the other, who records what happened.
Signs in as Cellar hand · 10 lessons
The lab tech
The person who runs the bench and copies more figures than anyone else in the winery, where a wrong unit can go unnoticed for years.
Signs in as Cellar hand · 6 lessons
The vineyard
Whoever farms the vineyard or buys the fruit: blocks, samples, sprays and the weigh-in.
Signs in as Winemaker · 7 lessons
The books
Whoever keeps the ledger and prepares the return: the owner in a small winery, or someone the owner gives the owner's role.
Signs in as Owner · 10 lessons
The reader
The accountant, consultant or family member who reads the books but doesn't change anything.
Signs in as Accountant · 4 lessons
Two chapters for everyone
Becoming and staying compliant: what to record, when, and why the form asks
What to record, when, and why the form asks for it, in the form’s own words. 14 parts, and the form’s line for every kind of ledger entry.
The AI in the app, on one page
Only a handful of buttons ask an AI model. Nothing else in the app does, nothing runs when a page opens, and nothing uses a credit in the background. Every one of them is listed below, from the same list the app charges from.
The philosophy on one page
Read this once before you start. Every screen you’re about to see follows from one of these ideas.
The ledger is the record. Everything else is worked out from it.
A lot's volume, a vessel's fill, the cellar total and the return all come from the movements on the ledger. Wine arrives, leaves and changes hands only as ledger entries. Nothing else moves a gallon.
Records are added, never edited.
This covers movements, sprays, the journal, cost entries and filed returns. To correct one, you add a reversing entry with a reason. That's what makes the records trustworthy at an audit, and it's why some forms ask you for a reason you'd rather skip.
What's due is worked out from your records.
There's no separate reminder list. A feed is due because the plan includes a material and the gravity shows it's time. Recording the addition clears it on every screen at once. Every alert you see comes from a record.
The app says "we don't know" instead of showing zero.
A blank box stays blank. When the app can't work out a figure, it explains why instead of showing a zero that looks like a measurement.
Every figure shows where it came from.
A sample from the rows, a lab panel on the lot, the Weighmaster Certificate, a rate from your plan or from the maker's sheet, an interval checked by a named person on a date. Knowing where a figure came from is how you catch a wrong one.
The app warns you. It doesn't decide for you.
A killer strain beside a sensitive one, sulfur on a sensitive hybrid, a rack into a tank marked for a wash: the app points these out and never blocks them. The decision is yours, and the ledger needs to record what actually happened.
One unit stored, your units shown.
The app stores gallons and Fahrenheit, and shows whatever units you chose in Settings. Checks are always made on the stored figure, never on a converted one.
A wine program says what you intend. Lots follow the actual wine.
You write down what the wine is meant to be, and the fruit, the ferment, the finishing and the packaging are planned under it. Lots merge when you blend and split when you bottle.
AI answers are suggestions, and they're checked.
An AI answer carries less weight than a maker's sheet or the app's own arithmetic. It's labeled a suggestion wherever it appears, checked against the catalog and your records, and never allowed to do the math. The app works out every figure itself, for free. Asking an AI model is always a button you press.
Nothing is made up.
Everything the dashboard tells you comes from a record. If a document has a gap, the gap is explained in a sentence.
This manual describes what the software records. It isn't advice about what a winery has to file or keep. For that, ask someone who does compliance for a living. Questions that are still open are listed at the end of the compliance chapter.