Most cold stores we talk to bill rent on some version of the same rule: take the highest number of pallets a customer held during the month, round it, and multiply by the rate. On paper it is one line. At month-end it is an argument.
Where the argument starts
Take Lot 50-A: 1,240 bags of chilli, received on the 1st. On the 9th, the customer sells 440 bags to a trader without moving them — an ownership transfer. On the 12th, 200 bags leave on a DC.
What was the peak? For the seller, it was 1,240 bags on the 1st, before the transfer. For the buyer, it was 440 bags from the 9th. The register shows one lot with crossings-out. The bill has to show two customers, two peaks, and a rounding rule both of them can check.
What the record needs
To bill peak pallets fairly, three things must be true:
- Every movement is dated. The inward, the transfer, and the outward each have a document and a date. No back-of-register edits.
- The split creates a new lot. The buyer’s 440 bags become Lot 50-B, linked to 50-A. Each customer’s peak is computed on their own lot.
- The rounding rule is written down. Whether you round each day up to whole pallets or bill the exact fraction, it is a policy — not a habit of whoever writes the bill.
How ColdVyapar handles it
Rent in ColdVyapar is selected by a calculation policy your organization sets. Monthly peak is one of six rent bases; the others include weekly peak, daily average, half-month splits, the lot’s own anniversary cycle, and a seasonal flat rate. Pallet rounding, grace days, and minimum billable days are parameters of the same policy.
Every bill stores the derivation — the quantities, the dates, the rate, and the policy version that produced each line. When a customer asks why the rent is what it is, the answer is already on the bill.
That is the whole idea of a fair ledger: the cold store earns what it earned, and the customer pays for what happened.