Implementing the California Wine Bottle-Bill Changes in AMS (SRV-State Redemption Value, CRV-California Redemption Value)

AMS has installed new versions of programs to support the changes to the California Bottle Bill, which now includes bottled wines purchased by consumers. You must perform steps to set up your system to add the new fee to orders. At a bare minimum, you must set up entries in the new table SRV, as described in item 2 under “For all orders, both PS and OE.” If you do nothing else, that will cause AMS to begin adding the bottle-bill fees to PS orders when appropriate on the 1^st of Jan, 2024. 

This document and all AMS screens and reports use “SRV,” meaning “State Redemption Value,” to refer to these fees. We have modified our system to handle the possibility that similar fees will be added to wines in other states.

Note on OE orders. Some of you only do wholesale orders within the OE subsystem, so references to it below won’t apply to you. Wholesale orders do NOT charge SRV fees by default.

 Instructions

For all orders, both PS and OE:

1. There is a new central table ZZZ entry for this feature. A screenshot from our TEST company appears below. We will load this ZZZ on your server exactly as shown before Jan 1st.  Note that if you do not want to charge these fees to your customers, but will consider it part of your costs, then you need simply change the date in “FREE FORM DATA” to the word “NO”, or any word you choose that begins with the letter “N”, since the first character being “N” indicates that AMS is not to add SRV fees to orders. If you choose to set this to N, you can ignore the rest of this document, as no further changes will be needed, and SRV fees will not be added to any AMS orders.

   Open

   

2. There is a new central table, SRV, where the fees are defined, screenshot below. The code is state + bottle-size, where “state” is a valid code in table STA, and “bottle size” is a code in table BSZ. The example below is for state CA, bottle size 1, which in our test company is a 1.5 liter bottle. You need to set up these codes for state CA and any bottle sizes you use for wine and for which the law will require these fees beginning on Jan 1, 2024. Note that you can set up this table before Jan 1^st since AMS will not begin adding SRV fees to orders until the date defined in item 1 above.

   Open

   

3. Note that if you use the same BSZ code for both wine and non-wine products, you may have to set up a new one for either the wine or non-wine so that you don’t have SRV fees added to orders for products that should not be charged these fees. Any products with a BSZ that is not set up in this table will not be charged SRV fees.

4. Also note that if Oregon, for example, adds wine to their bottle bill, you will need similar entries in the SRV table for state code  OR.

5. The screenshot below shows that the central table STA contains a new field to set the GL account to post SRV fees. For now, you need only change the entry for CA. Of course, you may want to set up a new account code in the General Ledger system for this purpose.

For PS orders only:

1. Central table TTX has a new switch at the bottom of the maintenance screen, indicating whether or not this type of transaction should generate SRV fees, the screenshot below. All TTX codes with no-charge Sales-Type codes have by default been set to “N”, and all others to “Y”. The law's wording is vague on whether or not CA intends free goods to have the fee added, so if you believe it should be charged for these TTX codes, simply change the “N” to “Y” for your no-charge TTX codes.

2. Note that wine consumed on-premise is not subject to the new fees in CA. This means that you may want to set up one or more new TTX codes for such sales, though your pours are likely already no-charge TTX codes, which should already have this new switch set to “N”.

For OE orders only:

1. You can set up a customer to default for SRV fees in OE orders. This is done in menu OECUM, option ACC, on screen 3 (screenshot below). By default, we set ALL OE customers to “N” meaning no SRV fees will be added to orders for these customers unless the switch is overridden during order entry.

2. When entering an OE order, the above “Y/N” switch from the customer is loaded into order “header screen 2”, but you can change the switch for any order when you create it, or later want to change it before shipping. Screenshot of order-entry header screen 2 below. Note that by default the switch is not “keyable”, and you must press or click the F5 key to “open the fields” which are protected by default. This was done before taking the screenshot.

This covers the basics of configuring AMS for the California wine bottle bill changes. Please contact the AMS Help Desk if you need any further clarification or assistance.  Other than exceptions noted above, the fees created in orders should print on any forms which will be given to your customers via print or email, and the AMS operator will see them on any screens and reports where one would expect them to be.  If you discover any problems with SRV fees, please contact the AMS Help Desk.

 Related articles