Grain contract confirmations, checked against the trader's record and the bushels delivered.

A cash sale, a basis contract and a deferred price agreement each leave the same three records: what the trader wrote down at the moment of the trade, the confirmation that went to the grower or buyer, and the deliveries applied against it afterward. Someone in your office checks that those agree on contract type, commodity and crop year, quantity, futures month, basis, delivery period, and how many bushels are still owed or still unpriced.

In the test, AI reads copies of all three and builds a check sheet for each contract: every term as the trader's record has it, that term as the confirmation states it, delivered bushels applied, quantity remaining and unpriced balance, with each mismatch marked. It sets no price and contacts nobody. Your reviewer compares that sheet with what your office caught the first time.

The contract type decides which number is still open. University of Tennessee Extension and Southern Ag Today describe the set the same way. A forward contract fixes the whole price. A basis contract locks the basis and leaves futures open. A hedge-to-arrive locks futures and leaves basis to be set before delivery. A price later contract passes title at delivery and sets the price afterward, less service charges. A confirmation showing a firm basis on a hedge-to-arrive nobody has finished pricing, or a firm price on a deferred contract, is wrong in a way no arithmetic would catch, so the check sheet reads each field against what that contract type can have open.

The futures month comes from a short list, different for each grain. The Chicago Board of Trade's rulebook lists corn futures in five months, March, May, July, September and December, and soybeans in seven: January, March, May, July, August, September and November. Both trade in 5,000 bushel units. A confirmation naming an August corn month is wrong on its face. A hedge-to-arrive can often be rolled to a later month, and after a roll the new month and any charge have to show up in every record that follows.

Between firms, the trade's rules set the clock. Under the National Grain and Feed Association's Grain Trade Rules, buyer and seller each send a written confirmation by the close of the next business day, and each must check every specification and speak up at once about a difference. If one side never confirms, the other's confirmation binds both unless it is disputed right away. An alteration needs both parties' express consent and its own written confirmation. Rule 9 stops an unpriced contract from being priced past the contracted shipment, the actual shipment or the day before first notice day of the futures month, whichever comes first. Those rules govern trades made under them; anything else follows its own contract and state law.

One state's deferred contract is not another's. Iowa limits a credit-sale contract to fifteen months, wants it signed and dated by both sides and made in duplicate, requires consecutively numbered forms with a record of what became of each, and passes title to the dealer on delivery. Indiana requires a risk notice above the seller's signature with a line saying the contract must be priced by a date, and since July 2022 a deferred pricing agreement can't run past the crop year, which it sets at September 1 to August 31 for corn and soybeans and June 1 to May 31 for wheat. Illinois says a price later contract not signed by everyone within 30 days of the last delivery gets priced on the next business day, and an appellate court held in Miller v. Department of Agriculture in 2022 that the grain dealer has to find that price. Minnesota's form carries a boxed, all-capital statement that the contract is a voluntary extension of credit, and a deal missing those requirements counts as a cash sale.

Delivered bushels keep changing the answer. Quantity remaining is the contract less every delivery applied to it, and a load posted to the wrong contract throws off two balances at once. Deferred payment adds a tax question growers will raise: IRS Publication 225 for 2025 says a cash-method grower who sells grain in December under a bona fide contract calling for payment next year reports it the year paid, unless the contract gives a right to the proceeds any time after delivery. The check sheet shows the payment terms as written and leaves that question alone. None of this is legal or tax advice; your counsel and each grower's tax preparer read the rules that apply.

Once your reviewer signs off, newly written contracts get the same check for roughly 30 days.

A person clears every check sheet, and any correction goes through your merchandiser and your usual channel, never through us.

If you want a second job after that, it is scoped and priced separately.