Quick start
Your first vintage
Nine steps, in the order a season takes them. You don’t have to do them all at once. You can skip any part of setup, and anything missing shows on the dashboard instead of getting in your way.
There are two ways to start, depending on where you are.
Enter where the wine is made
Enter your premises address and, if you're bonded, your registry and bond numbers. Add the other bonded premises you move wine to or from, each with its registry number. The app won't record a transfer in bond without one. You can skip any of this and fill it in later. Anything missing shows on the dashboard, and nothing stops you from getting started.
RecordsYour winery record. The return is built from it, and each filed return keeps its own copy, which never changes.
Add your vessels
Add your tanks, barrels and carboys with their capacities. Get the capacities right: they're what stops a move from putting 400 gallons into a 300-gallon tank.
RecordsVessels. How full each one is comes from the ledger. You never type it in.
Set up the vineyard, or add your growers
Add blocks and plantings for fruit you farm, and a grower for fruit you buy. They're kept separate because a block has a ripeness window and a spray log, and those belong to whoever farms the ground.
RecordsBlocks, plantings and fruit sources.
Plan the vintage
Press + New vintage and choose its house style, its year and its name. That saves a draft and opens its page at Plan. Then write down what this wine is meant to be: which fruit goes into it and in what share, the yeast, the nutrients, and the target you're aiming for on eight sensory axes. One vintage can hold several ferments. A free run and a press fraction are two ferments of one wine, not two wines. Your wine program is everything you make. Each vintage sits under a house style, which is the same wine from year to year and holds the house target each new vintage starts from. Next vintage, on a vintage's page, opens the planner filled in from it for the following year.
RecordsA vintage under a house style. Almost everything the app later shows as due comes from the vintage: the nutrient feeds, the ferment steps, the finishing and the packaging run. The house style holds the house target, and nothing comes due from it.
Weigh the fruit in
Record the tons on the day they come in. Weigh in fruit from your own vines on Vineyard, under the planting, and fruit you buy on Purchased Fruit, under the grower. Tons are the one figure the app doesn't take from the ledger, so they can be used to check it later. They're also checked against the shares in your plan, which is why it's worth writing the plan before the fruit arrives.
RecordsA harvest. Nothing is posted to the books yet.
Create the lot
Choose where the fruit came from, and the lot picks up any harvests of it that aren't tied to a lot yet. Or start the lot from the pick itself. On the block card, under Picks recorded, the list for tying a pick to a lot ends with Start a new lot with this pick. That opens this form filled in from the ticket, and ties only that pick to the lot. Choose the wine program too, so the lot follows it. That's what gives the lot its feeds and its steps. A lot going into a fermenter starts with an estimated volume. A bin of skins has no gauge marks, and the TTB form's own In fermenters line calls what's in them an estimate. The form works the estimate out: the tons the lot takes times the house yield in Settings for how it will be pressed. You can accept it or enter your own, with a reason if yours is more than twenty percent off. Nothing goes on the bulk book until the wine is gauged. For a wine fermented on its skins, red or white, that happens at the press, and the gallons that land in the tank are posted as produced. For a white or a rosé pressed before its ferment, the press moves juice into the tank and posts nothing. You gauge it from the lot's gauge card once the ferment is complete, and the same goes for a wine that fermented where it was measured. Wine that's already past its ferment is posted as produced the day you create the lot.
RecordsA lot with its estimate, keeping each figure you enter and what it was based on. Then, at the gauge, a Produced by fermentation entry: the first entry in your ledger, at the volume the wine actually measured.
Record what happens to it
Record gravity, temperature, pH and TA as you measure them. Record cap work as it's done, and any off-odor you notice over the tank. Record additions with the weighed dose. The app works out what's due from these records, so there are no reminders for you to check off. Next season's planner reads back the off-odors you record from the list, showing what the same grape on the same strains was actually fed, beside what its plan called for.
RecordsLot readings, steps and additions.
Move the wine
Rack, press, filter, blend and package. Every move goes from one vessel to one vessel and writes its own entry, including the loss. That's what makes the ledger trustworthy later.
RecordsMovements. They can't be edited. To fix a mistake, you add a reversing entry.
Check the books and file the return
The operations report compares what the ledger says with what your lots add up to. A gap is useful information, not an error: wine evaporates and gets mis-measured. You file TTB F 5120.17 from this report. You can enter a removal from the cased book as a number of containers of one size instead of gallons, and the form shows the arithmetic. The entry still stores gallons, because the report counts only gallons, so put the count in the note if you want to keep it. Packaging asks for the container size and keeps it. That way the move, the packaging page and the ledger all count those gallons back the same way: as containers of that size, beside the nine-liter case equivalent, which is the same whatever the container. Packaging recorded before the app asked for the size shows that no size was recorded, instead of being counted as 750 mL.
RecordsA filed return, kept exactly as filed. An amendment takes its place, and the original is kept. Also any standing decision about where a figure goes on the return: your samples, a reclassification, glass a count found above the book figure, or destroyed bulk wine. You record each decision once, with your name and the date. It carries onto every return filed after it and is printed beside the figure it places. On a write-in line, the caption is chosen on the form from the list the blank form offers there.
Already making wine?
The guide above starts from an empty account. If you’re moving to Fermata partway through, with wine in barrel, cases in the library and a year of paper records, start with these steps. If you followed the first guide instead, your account would open at zero and report a real cellar as a loss.
Enter who files, and how often
Start with four cards on Settings, because every later step uses them. The Winery card's time zone decides which day each record is dated. The Bonded premises card holds your registry number, your bond number and the address on your bond, which go at the top of the return. The reporting cadence decides when the physical inventory is due. The excise cadence sets the excise periods. Also enter this year's share of the credit ladder: the excise working paper applies the credit against it, and applies no credit until you enter it.
RecordsYour time zone, the premises, both cadences and this year's credit share, saved on the winery. Nothing on the ledger.
Enter the return you last filed
On Reports, enter the last Report of Wine Premises Operations you filed before Fermata. Type it into the form's own grid exactly as it was filed, with its heading and its signer as the paper shows them. Its closing figures, column by column, become the opening of the first report you file here, and the days it covered are closed to late entries. If you file quarterly, enter the return that closed last year and each quarter you've filed this year, so the next period opens on the last of them. If you have no return to enter, because you've never filed or you file monthly (which Fermata's report doesn't support yet), enter the gallons on hand on Settings instead, in bulk and in bottle, with the year they're for. Either way, the wine already here isn't a movement. The ledger records wine arriving, leaving and changing hands, and this wine did none of those. Your books open in Fermata on the day after the last day covered by the return you entered. If you have no return to enter, they open on January 1 of the year your opening balance is for. Every step below describes the cellar as it stood that day.
RecordsA filed return, kept exactly as filed and marked as filed outside Fermata, with the statement you check. Or, if you have no return to enter, an opening balance and its year, saved on the winery. Nothing on the ledger.
Enter your vessels
Enter every tank, open-top, barrel, carboy and bottle stack by the code it carries, with its kind, what it's made of, its capacity, its top (for a tank) and how its temperature is controlled. Enter them empty. The wine goes in when you carry the lots in. To enter many at once, use the vessel sheet: download it from Bring your records in, fill it in and upload it, or type a few rows into the grid there. To add them one at a time, use the Cellar page.
RecordsA vessel for each one. A new vessel shows as needing a wash until it's marked clean or wine is carried into it.
Stock the shelf you work from
Stock the yeast, additives and spray products you use. Take them from the shared shelves, or add your own entry for a product that isn't there. List them by name on the supplies sheet, or stock them one at a time on Supplies. A lot's pitch is chosen from the strains on your shelf, so stock them before you carry the lots in. Enter the sugar and acid you had on hand the day your books open on the additives shelf's Deliveries and removals card, as On hand when the books opened. Use the figure your old records closed on, a count, or both. Don't enter it as a delivery: how it arrived stays in your old records.
RecordsWhat's on your shelves, your own entry for any product the shared shelves don't carry, and the opening balance of each sugar and acid, dated the day your books open.
Enter your blocks, your growers and the other bonded premises
Enter the blocks you farm and what's planted in them, the growers you buy fruit from, and every other bonded premises you move wine to or from, with its registry number. Each has a sheet under Bring your records in. The block sheet takes one row per grape and clone, the grower sheet one row per grower and vineyard, and the premises sheet one row per premises. Or enter them one at a time on the Vineyard's Blocks and Purchased fruit pages and on Settings. Each pick records its block or its grower, and Fermata refuses a transfer in bond until the other premises has its registry number.
RecordsA block with its plantings, a grower, and a card for each other premises. Nothing on the ledger.
Carry in the wine already in your vessels
To carry in many lots at once, use the lots sheet under Bring your records in, one row per vessel, after you've entered this season's picks on the picks sheet. To carry in one at a time, choose Carried in on the new-lot form. Give each lot the code you already use, and Fermata keeps that code as you type it. Describe the wine as it stood on the day your books open: its stage, the gallons in each vessel, and any of it already in glass. Add its pitch and its last lab panel if you have them. A wine made before your books open has no pick recorded in Fermata, so enter where it came from as your records state it: in words on the form, or in the Origin columns on the sheet (the grape, year, state, county and AVA). The labeling card counts that origin and shows it was stated when the lot was brought in. The lot's page says that nothing about how the wine was made before that day is recorded here. Don't carry in wine received in bond or made from fruit after that day; the form tells you where to enter it instead. Don't carry in a lot that's still fermenting either. Weigh in this season's picks, on the vineyard page or the picks sheet, and make the lot from them: on the form as Fruit you picked, or on the lots sheet in Primary ferment, with the block or grower in Fruit from. Nothing is posted until the press or the gauge. A red that's been partly pressed, with bins of must and tanks of wine at the same time, is two lots.
RecordsA lot carried in, with its gallons in each vessel. Nothing on the ledger. Those gallons are already in the opening balance, so a production entry would count them twice.
Enter the wines already in bottle
To enter many at once, use the wines sheet under Bring your records in, after the lots sheet. To enter one at a time, use the Wines page. Name each wine the way its label does (the wine, the vintage or NV, and the cuvée), and list the lots it was bottled from. For a wine that's all in bottle and has no lot here yet, give one lot code. The sheet carries that lot in at Packaged, with what was on hand the day your books open, either in case equivalents or as a count of containers at their size. Nothing is posted. Include the lot's grape, tax class and kind of wine, because Fermata refuses a taxpaid removal without the kind of wine. For a wine made from several lots, or a non-vintage wine, carry its lots in first, on the lots sheet or the new-lot form, each at Packaged with its glass. Sales, the glass check, a physical count and the Wines page all use that glass. The count off the line is kept alongside it but never compared with it, because nothing here records what left between the bottling day and the day your books open.
RecordsA wine, and the glass on hand on the lot it came in with, which the Wines page counts down from. Nothing on the ledger.
Catch the ledger up to today
On the ledger panel, enter every movement from the day your books open to today: removals, transfers and losses, each dated the day it happened. Each one is listed as written late. None asks for the reason a filed period would, because those days come after the last return you entered. Don't leave them for the first count to pick up. A taxpaid removal counted as a loss lands on the inventory loss line instead of line 8, and the excise working paper's base comes up short. If your books began after January 1, enter the taxpaid gallons your old books removed earlier that year beside the credit share on Settings. Fermata fills that in from the returns you entered.
RecordsMovements on the ledger, which can't be edited, each dated the day it happened and listed as written late.
Invite the people
Invite each person who works in the records by email address, with their role. Use the people sheet under Bring your records in, or invite them one at a time on Settings under Team. Either way, each person gets an invitation by email and accepts it themselves.
RecordsA team membership for each person, with their role, and an invitation until they accept it.
Check that it adds up
The Does it add up? card on the operations report sets your records side by side as of the day your books open. It compares the return you entered with the wine carried in, column by column, in bulk and in glass. It also shows the opening balance typed on Settings (if no return is entered), each vessel beside its lot, the ledger entries since, and what wasn't brought in, and why. Each gap is listed in gallons, and the card closes none of them. A gap is a measurement difference, an entry still to make, or wine entered twice. The first count resolves a measurement difference.
RecordsNothing. It reads what the steps above recorded.
Take the first physical inventory
Count every container against the book figure and sign the count. Each difference is posted as its own entry, dated the day of the count, and the count can't be changed once it's signed. If you have no return filed and no earlier count, your first count can serve as the opening balance itself, worked back to January 1, instead of the figure typed above.
RecordsA signed count, which can't be changed, and a ledger entry for each difference it finds.
Keep the records Fermata doesn't hold
The operations reports you filed before switching stay in your own records. You enter only the last one, on Reports, exactly as it was filed, and its closing figures open your first report here. You don't need to enter the earlier ones. The excise returns and payments from your old books stay in your records. On the excise page, record each excise return you filed outside Fermata, without a working paper, so the schedule stops asking for it. Your COLA approvals and label files stay where they are. Fermata doesn't keep a copy of either. These aren't brought across. Each record is dated the day it's entered in Fermata, and a spray carries the attestation the applicator made that day, which no one can make later. Until the longest interval on your shelf has passed since a block was entered, the block's card warns that a spray applied before then could still be running. While that window is open, you can enter a spray like that from your own log on Spray ops, with its intervals read off the label today and no applicator's attestation, so the pick waits for it. Your log stays your record of that spray. If you have cases at a place you've stated is your own taxpaid wine premises, enter them on that place's page as On hand when the books opened. This is a balance from your old records, with the kind of wine and the tax class taken from the cases. It isn't a receipt. Where the cases came from stays in your own records. A place someone else runs, or one not stated as taxpaid premises, can't take this entry. Inventory Management expects nothing there until cases move out of bond in Fermata, and a count finds the rest. You can export everything Fermata does hold to CSV at any time.
RecordsNothing. This step is about what stays outside the app.
Then plan the next vintage with the first guide
By now your vessels, vineyard and supplies are in. The first guide is the same from "Plan the vintage" on, whether it's your first vintage or your ninth, so pick it up there.
RecordsThe same records as the first guide.
Then what
The reference goes through the app section by section. It explains what each part won’t do and why, which answers most of the questions people send us.