Incoming COA checks: every producer certificate read before the lot is allocated.

The certificate shows up by email ahead of the truck, in a sleeve taped to a drum, or in a producer's portal days later. Someone ties it to the purchase order and the receipt, reads every result against your item spec, then pulls up the open orders for that product and reads the same results against each customer's spec. A lot that suits one account and misses another has to be allocated with care, or held.

For the test, AI reads copies of those certificates with the POs, receiving records and specs behind them and writes one check sheet per lot: what matched, what didn't, which waiting customers the results fit and which they miss. It allocates nothing and clears nothing. A value it couldn't read or a document it couldn't match goes on the sheet for a person, with the reason.

Some customers can lean only on a certificate that shows its work. FDA's rule for dietary supplement makers lets them rely on a supplier's certificate of analysis to confirm a component other than a dietary ingredient only if the certificate describes the test methods, the limits and the actual results, the supplier was first qualified by confirming its results, the certificate is re-confirmed from time to time, and quality control approves the basis. Drug makers meet a similar bar in 21 CFR 211.84: a supplier's report of analysis stands in for full testing only with at least one specific identity test of their own and periodic validation of the supplier's results. A certificate that prints "conforms" beside a test, with no number and no method, gives those accounts nothing to lean on, so the sheet marks each such result and names the customers whose specs want numbers.

Dates are part of the result. A certificate may carry an expiry date, a retest date or only a date of manufacture. ICH Q7, the GMP guide for active pharmaceutical ingredients, says a retest date is the common practice there rather than an expiration date, and that a repacker moving material into a different type of container should run stability studies to support the date it assigns. Some products change on the shelf: one producer's published sheet for acrylic acid gives its dimer limit ex works, warns that dimer keeps forming in storage at room temperature, and says the product stays within specification for one month after delivery. The check sheet sets each lot's dates against the ship dates of the orders waiting on it and marks any lot that would age past a limit before it leaves.

A certificate you reissue carries the producer's with it. When you repack or retest a lot and issue your own certificate, the trail has to show where each number came from. ICH Q7 asks that a certificate reissued by a repacker, agent or broker give the name, address and phone number of the laboratory that ran the analysis, refer to the original manufacturer and its batch certificate, and attach a copy of that certificate. It also expects every certificate to be dated and signed by authorized quality staff. Its chapter for distributors has them keep the PO, bill of lading, receipt, manufacturer's batch number and every authentic certificate. The sheet keeps the producer's batch number beside your own lot number and marks any reissued certificate that has lost the link.

A grade on the PO is a spec of its own. An order for ACS reagent grade points at the American Chemical Society's Reagent Chemicals: a product may be labeled and sold as ACS Reagent Grade only when it meets those purity specifications by ACS-approved methods, ACS has said the monographs are updated twice a year, and the online edition is the version of record. A customer may also want an outside lab's result, and a lab accredited to ISO/IEC 17025, General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories, reports under that standard. The sheet compares the grade and the methods printed on the certificate with what the PO and each customer's spec name, and treats a near match as a miss.

What your reviewer watches for. Usually the quality manager or whoever releases lots today. They check that each sheet tied the certificate to the right PO, receipt and producer batch, that every limit came from the right spec revision, yours or a customer's, that a less-than value was judged honestly against its limit, and that no lot was shown as fit for a customer whose spec it misses.

When your reviewer says yes against the success criteria, every certificate that comes in gets a check sheet for about 30 days.

Your quality lead still releases every lot and makes every allocation, and a lot the sheet marks stays where your rules put it until a person clears it. A customer's revised spec joins the checks only after your team approves it.

Whatever comes after is a separate decision with a separate price.