Lot Compliance & Certificates of Analysis
If you make or sell food, supplements, cosmetics or chemicals, a batch is only as good as the evidence behind it. A marketplace suspends a listing and asks for documentation. An auditor names a batch number. A customer complains and you need to know what else went out from the same run.
These guides cover the whole chain: the standard a batch is tested against, filing the certificate that says it met that standard, entering the numbers so they're actually judged, holding physical samples, and getting any of it back later.
The organising idea is that compliance paperwork belongs to the lot, not to the purchase order that delivered it. One order can bring in several batches, one batch can arrive across several orders, and a recall is scoped by batch — so the lot is the only thing a certificate can be attached to that still makes sense a year later.
Start here
If you're setting this up for the first time, work in this order:
- Set a product quality spec — the acceptance limits every lot of a product is tested against. Nothing can be judged until this exists.
- Capture batch paperwork at receipt — attach the certificate while the stock is arriving, on a purchase-order receipt or when recording production.
- Record COA results — enter the lab's numbers and let them be judged against the spec.
Then read How the release gate works once, because it explains the one behaviour that surprises people: a failing result quarantines the stock automatically, and an incomplete one deliberately does not.
The rest
- File documents on a lot — adding paperwork after the fact, and applying one certificate across every lot in a batch
- Hold reserve samples — retaining physical samples, with the retention clock computed for you
- Find a compliance document — type a batch number, get the certificate back
- Track supplier certificates — NSF, GMP, insurance and audit reports, which belong to the supplier rather than to any batch
- Compliance reference — document types, verdicts, sample statuses and permissions
Related
- Set up lot and expiration tracking — batches and expiry dates in the first place, and tracing a batch to the customers who received it
- Place a stock hold — holding stock yourself, for reasons the release gate doesn't cover