Short answer
Rice mill software follows rice in kilograms from the truck weighbridge, through the dryer and the storage piles, to the milled rice, brokens, bran and husk that leave in jumbo bags or sacks, so you can see what each paddy lot yielded and where weight went. For many mills a weighbridge program plus packaged mill software or an accounting system is enough. Building your own pays off when you need yield by lot or by supplier through drying and blended piles, and your current software cannot give it.
What does rice mill software do, and what does a mill need to track from truck to sack?
Rice mill software records how much rice came in, which steps it passed through, and how many kilograms of what went out. It starts with the paddy truck on the weighbridge, then follows the rice to the dryer, into a storage pile, through the mill, and out as milled rice, brokens, bran and husk, packed in jumbo bags or sacks for sale. When every step is recorded, you can say what a paddy lot yielded, which suppliers deliver good rice, and where lost weight actually went.
Many mills already have this information, but it is spread across weigh tickets, the dryer's moisture logbook, production summaries and the warehouse's spreadsheet. The software's job is to keep it in one place and tie each step's numbers to the same lot. The table below lists the steps most mills have and what each one should record.
| Step | What happens | What to record |
|---|---|---|
| Arrival and weigh-in | The loaded paddy truck is weighed on the truck scale before unloading, then weighed again empty | Plate number, supplier, gross weight, tare weight, net weight and weigh ticket number |
| Sampling and pricing | A sample is tested for moisture and foreign matter and checked for variety before the price or deductions are agreed | Moisture, foreign matter, variety, price per tonne, deductions and who approved them |
| Dryer | Wet paddy is dried until its moisture is low enough to store and mill, usually over several passes with rest periods in between | Weight in and out of the dryer, moisture before and after, number of passes and rest time |
| Storage pile or silo | Rice from many trucks and suppliers is tipped together into one pile | Whose rice is in the pile, how many kilograms each, and when and how much was drawn off for milling |
| Milling and polishing | Husking, whitening, polishing, grading and colour sorting; one pile of paddy becomes several products | Weight of paddy into the mill, and weight of milled rice, head rice, brokens, bran and husk out |
| Packing | Milled rice goes into jumbo bags or sacks of various sizes; jumbo bags are sometimes repacked into smaller sacks later | Number of bags of each size, actual weights from spot checks, and which bags came from which lot |
| Warehouse and sales | Stock waits for sale, for a truck or for a container, and is weighed out | Stock in kilograms and in bags, customer, dispatch date, plate or container number, and the lot shipped |
Why can't generic stock or accounting software keep track of rice?
Because generic software counts items that never change shape: receive ten boxes, sell three, seven are left. Rice does not behave like that. It is a bulk material that changes weight, changes form and mixes all the way through the mill. There are six places where generic software usually loses track.
- Weight lost in drying. 100 tonnes of wet paddy weighed in is less than 100 tonnes once dried. What left was water, not stock, but if the software keeps only the weigh-in figure, stock stops matching reality on day one.
- Blended piles. Rice from several suppliers goes into one pile the moment it comes off the truck. When that pile is milled, software that keeps lots separate cannot say whose rice was milled today.
- One input, many outputs. One pile of paddy becomes milled rice, head rice, brokens, bran and husk, each at a different price. Software built for buying and reselling rarely has anywhere to record one item turning into several.
- Jumbo bags become sacks. Rice bought or stored in jumbo bags leaves as 5 kg or 50 kg sacks. If the software counts bags rather than kilograms, the unit changes halfway and the totals no longer reconcile.
- Figures that were never weighed. Some numbers come from counting bags and multiplying by the label weight, or are worked back from other totals, such as bran or husk. They look complete in a report but hide the difference inside them.
- Moisture and price are linked. Paddy prices are usually quoted at a reference moisture, such as 15%, and wetter rice carries a weight or price deduction. Accounting software records the amount paid, not the moisture it was based on.
How much weight does paddy lose in the dryer?
One formula covers it: weight after drying equals weight before drying times (100 minus the starting moisture) divided by (100 minus the final moisture). The worked example in the International Rice Research Institute's (IRRI) Rice Knowledge Bank takes 1,000 kg of paddy at 25% moisture down to 14% and ends with 872 kg. The Thai Rice Department's knowledge bank says rice harvested at the right stage is at about 20 to 25% moisture, and should be dried to about 14% if it is to be stored for two to three months.
The chart applies the same formula to 100 tonnes of wet paddy at different weigh-in moistures, with one line drying to 14% and the other to 15%. It counts only the water that evaporates; dust, removed foreign matter and spillage in handling are not included, so real losses are larger.
What the chart shows is that one point of moisture is worth about one tonne per 100 tonnes of wet paddy. At a paddy price of 9,000 baht per tonne, within the 8,700 to 9,600 baht per tonne at 15% moisture that Thansettakij reported for white paddy in the week of 7 to 11 September 2026, one point comes to roughly 9,000 to 10,000 baht per 100 tonnes; put in the price you actually pay. A moisture reading one point off at intake, or drying one point past the target, is real money. Over-drying costs in another way too: FAO notes that each variety has a critical moisture of about 11 to 16%, below which the grain fissures when it takes moisture back up, and then breaks in milling.
This is why a mill's system should always keep two weights side by side: the weight actually on the scale, and the weight adjusted to a standard moisture such as 14%. Two piles of the same weight at different moistures are different amounts of rice. Compared at the same moisture, drying loss becomes a figure you can check instead of a difference nobody can explain.
- Dried to 14% moisture
- Dried to 15% moisture
| Moisture at weigh-in | Left after drying to 14% | Lost | Left after drying to 15% | Lost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16% | 97.67 | 2.33 | 98.82 | 1.18 |
| 18% | 95.35 | 4.65 | 96.47 | 3.53 |
| 20% | 93.02 | 6.98 | 94.12 | 5.88 |
| 22% | 90.70 | 9.30 | 91.76 | 8.24 |
| 24% | 88.37 | 11.63 | 89.41 | 10.59 |
| 26% | 86.05 | 13.95 | 87.06 | 12.94 |
How is milling yield calculated, and why is the real figure hard to know?
Milling yield, often called milling recovery, is the weight of milled rice divided by the weight of paddy that went into the mill, times 100. It is always read alongside the share of whole grains and head rice, which fetch the best price; brokens, small brokens, bran and husk all sell, but for less. Thailand's rice standards from the Ministry of Commerce define each class by kernel length; head rice, for example, is a broken kernel longer than a broken but shorter than a whole grain.
Reference figures from public sources are in the table at the end of this section. Treat them as a rough frame only, because yield depends on variety, paddy quality, drying and the milling equipment, and jasmine rice does not yield the same as ordinary white rice. The figure you can actually decide on is your own mill's, measured lot by lot.
The formula is simple, but the real number is hard to pin down, because every part of it leaves room for error.
- Which paddy weight is the divisor? Wet paddy at weigh-in, paddy after drying, or paddy drawn into the mill all differ by several percent. Unless they are adjusted to the same moisture, two lots cannot be compared.
- Paddy into the mill is not weighed. Many mills know the weight at purchase but do not weigh what is drawn from the pile into the mill, so the input figure is worked back from other totals.
- Blended piles. With ten suppliers' rice in one pile, and no record of each one's share, nobody can say whose rice produced a good or bad yield.
- Some by-products are not weighed. If bran or husk is estimated, the total output is an estimate too, and the real loss hides inside it.
- Milling runs for days. A lot may be milled across shifts and days; without a clear point where the lot is closed, rice left in the machines and holding bins turns up in the next lot.
| Measure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Husk | 18 to 28% of paddy | FAO, Rice: Post-harvest Operations |
| Theoretical milling recovery | 71 to 73%, depending on variety | FAO, Rice: Post-harvest Operations |
| Well-operated modern mill, good paddy variety | Milled rice 68 to 70% | FAO, Rice: Post-harvest Operations |
| Laboratory potential, good paddy at 13% moisture | Milled rice 68 to 72%, head rice 50 to 58% depending on variety | IRRI Rice Knowledge Bank |
| Multi-stage modern rice mill | Milled rice 65 to 70%, head rice 45 to 55% | IRRI Rice Knowledge Bank |
| Compact two-stage village mill | Milled rice over 60%, head rice 40 to 50% | IRRI Rice Knowledge Bank |
What is one point of milling yield worth?
On 100 tonnes of paddy, one point of milling yield is one tonne of milled rice. Over a season of 10,000 tonnes of paddy, one point is 100 tonnes of milled rice. Multiply by the price you actually sell at to get the figure in baht; we do not guess it for you, because milled rice prices vary widely by variety and grade.
IRRI notes that real-world milling yields are often much lower than the potential. The trouble is that a mill which does not measure its own yield lot by lot cannot tell how far below potential it is, or whether the loss comes from the paddy, the drying or the machine settings. A monthly total can say something is wrong, but not where.
What kinds of rice mill software are there in Thailand, and what is each good for?
What Thai mills use falls into five kinds, and many mills run more than one side by side, such as a weighbridge program with an accounting system. The table is based on each vendor's website as we checked it in September 2026. We have not used these products ourselves, and we have no partnership or referral fee with any of them. Before deciding, ask for a demo using your own mill's data.
| Kind | Example | Good for | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weighbridge program | Software supplied with the scale or sold separately, such as TruckWeight 2.0 from THEO Engineering, which says it reads the scale directly, prints weigh-in and weigh-out tickets, calculates net weight, deducts weight in percent or kilograms, and exports reports to Excel | Mills and paddy buying yards that need correct weigh tickets and a searchable weighing history | The job ends at the scale; it does not follow the rice after it leaves the truck, through the dryer, the piles or the mill |
| Packaged Thai mill software | AGG from Siam2Software, which lists truck weighing with three photos per weighing, moisture and foreign-matter tables by product, purchasing, sales and finance, stock conversion such as drying or breaking a 1,000 kg jumbo bag into 25 kg sacks, a mobile app, and a data link to Express accounting | Mills and buying yards that want weighing, purchasing, sales, stock and finance in one program, from a vendor that builds for this trade | The mill works the way the program is laid out; if you need yield by lot or by supplier, ask to see that report run on real data before buying |
| General accounting software or ERP | Express, Odoo and other accounting programs | Accounting, tax, tax invoices, receivables and payables, and stock counted in units | Moisture, blended piles and by-products are not built in; they need configuration or extra development, otherwise stock rarely matches the real weight |
| Machine maker's system | Satake says its REACH 7.0 milling line can add flow scales before and after milling to show head rice yield in real time; Bühler connects optical sorters, a whitener and sensors into one system with real-time quality alerts | Mills already investing in a new line from that maker | What is published centres on the maker's own milling line and machines; if your plant mixes brands or older machines, ask the maker how much it can connect to |
| Excel or Google Sheets | Files the mill builds itself | Small mills with someone who keeps the file up to date, and mills that want to start collecting numbers before buying anything | Figures are retyped from tickets and logbooks, formulas break easily, several people cannot edit safely at once, and blended piles become unmanageable when intake is heavy |
Which software fits which mill? Four example scenarios
The examples below are composites of common situations in this trade, not real mills or our clients. Find the one closest to your own mill.
| Situation | What usually fits | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A buying yard with a dryer | Buys wet paddy from farmers at harvest, dries it and sells dry paddy on to mills, with no milling of its own | A weighbridge program with moisture deduction tables, or packaged mill software, alongside accounting software | The money is in weighing and moisture deductions done right, which packaged software handles well, and there is no milling step to measure |
| A small mill selling milled rice locally | Mills a few tens of tonnes a day and sells sacks of milled rice to local shops; the owner is on the floor most days | Packaged mill software, or a weighbridge program with a spreadsheet that records daily yield | The owner already sees every step first-hand; a custom system would struggle to pay for itself |
| A mid-sized mill that wants to know whose rice is good | Takes paddy from many suppliers into shared piles, runs its own dryer, and suspects falling yield comes from someone's deliveries | Packaged software for weighing and trading, plus a layer that follows weight through the dryer and shared piles if the existing program cannot | Answering this means knowing each supplier's share of every pile and adjusting weights to the same moisture before comparing |
| A mill with its own bagged rice brand | Sells several bag sizes to wholesalers and retail chains; buyers ask which lot a bag came from, and certification auditors want to see traceability | A system that ties lots to bags and delivery notes, either extending the current program or adding a traceability layer | When one bag has a problem, you should know which delivery to recall rather than recalling the whole lot |
Packaged software or a system built by SyncEdge: what is the difference?
Packaged software starts quickly, its price is known up front, and the vendor already knows mill work. A custom system takes longer and costs more at the start, but it follows your mill's own steps and documents and connects to the scale and accounting software you already use. If your mill works close to the way a packaged program expects, the package is usually the better buy, and we will tell you so.
| Time to start | How you pay | Following weight through dryer and piles | Worth knowing | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weighbridge program plus Excel | Within a few days | The weighing software, sometimes included with the scale | Only as far as someone keeps the spreadsheet complete | Cheap and simple, but everything after the scale depends on the discipline of whoever types it in |
| Packaged mill software | Several weeks, including installation and training | Ask the vendor, and include installation, annual support and upgrades | Depends on the product; ask to see the report on real data before buying | The vendor knows mills, but the mill adapts its way of working to the program |
| Accounting software or ERP with extra configuration | Several weeks to several months | Licences, implementation and custom development | Needs extra development; standard systems count stock in units | Suits a company already moving to an ERP, with someone to maintain the custom parts |
| Machine maker's system | Comes with a new milling line or as an add-on | As quoted by the maker | Measures within that maker's milling line | Worth it when you are already investing in new machinery |
| SyncEdge (custom build) | About two to three weeks of scoping, then several weeks to several months of building | One fixed price for the build, agreed after scoping, then hosting and an optional monthly maintenance retainer | Designed to track kilograms at every step, keep moisture-adjusted weight beside weighed weight, and attribute blended piles proportionally | Higher up-front cost, a wait before it is in use, and floor staff need time to walk us through the process |
When is packaged software enough, and when should you build?
Packaged software is enough if most of your money is made or lost at the weighbridge and in moisture deductions, if the owner can still see every step each day, or if the mill works close to the way the program expects. Many mills are in this group. A good weighbridge program with mill or accounting software, plus someone who records daily yield in a spreadsheet consistently, gives a clear enough picture to make decisions. In that case a custom build does not pay off.
A custom build starts to pay off when the questions you need answered sit after the weighbridge: yield by lot or by supplier, weight lost in drying versus in milling, or tracing a sack back to the paddy it came from. It also makes sense when you have tried packaged software and your mill's steps do not fit it. Work from the figures in the earlier sections: a mill that processes several thousand tonnes of paddy a season turns even half a point of yield into tens of tonnes of milled rice.
Many mills are best served by a middle path: keep the existing weighbridge program and accounting software, and add a layer that follows weight through the dryer, the piles and the milling line, so no existing data is thrown away. If you are unsure, start by weighing the paddy going into the mill and the milled rice coming out for every lot for one month, and see whether the numbers change any of your decisions.
How can SyncEdge help a rice mill?
SyncEdge is building mill software together with a Thai rice mill; it is not yet available for sale. The design uses kilograms as the spine of everything: each movement of rice is recorded as a new entry in a mass ledger, without editing earlier entries; moisture-adjusted, dry-equivalent weight is kept beside the weight on the scale; and when rice from several suppliers is tipped into one pile, the system attributes the pile to each supplier in proportion to weight. If your mill wants a system shaped to how it actually works, talk to us about custom software, and if a packaged program suits you better, we will say so.
What to ask a rice mill software vendor before you decide
- Does it connect to the truck scale you already have, reading the weight directly, or is it typed in by hand?
- Can you set your own moisture and foreign-matter deduction tables, and does it record which table each weigh ticket used?
- Does it keep the weighed weight alongside the moisture-adjusted weight?
- Can it follow rice through the dryer and shared piles, and show each supplier's share of every pile?
- Can it calculate milled rice, head rice, brokens, bran and husk by lot? Ask to see the report run on real data
- When jumbo bags are repacked into sacks, does stock in kilograms still reconcile?
- Can one sack be traced back to its lot and its delivery?
- How does data reach your accounting software, and if you leave, in what format can you export all of it?
- At the peak of harvest intake, if the system fails, who fixes it and how quickly?
Frequently asked questions
What is rice mill software?
Rice mill software follows rice in kilograms from the paddy truck on the weighbridge, through moisture testing, the dryer, the storage piles and the mill, to the milled rice, brokens, bran and husk that leave in jumbo bags or sacks. Most packages also cover weighing, purchasing, stock and sales, and some calculate milling yield by lot.
How much milled rice do you get from one tonne of paddy?
FAO says a well-operated modern mill gets about 680 to 700 kg of milled rice from one tonne of good paddy, or 68 to 70%, against a theoretical 71 to 73%. IRRI gives 65 to 70% for a multi-stage modern mill. The real figure depends on variety, moisture, drying and equipment, so measure your own mill lot by lot.
How much weight is lost drying paddy from 25% to 14% moisture?
About 12.8%: 1,000 kg of paddy becomes 872 kg. The formula is weight after drying equals weight before times (100 minus starting moisture) divided by (100 minus final moisture). The example comes from IRRI's Rice Knowledge Bank, and it excludes removed foreign matter and spillage in handling.
Is a weighbridge program enough on its own?
Yes, if your business is mainly buying and selling paddy, because the money is in the weigh tickets and moisture deductions. If you mill your own rice and want to know your milling yield, a weighbridge program stops at the scale and does not follow rice through the dryer, piles and mill; you need mill software or another system alongside it.
Can accounting software or Excel manage a rice mill's stock?
For money and sales, yes, but the rice stock rarely matches the real weight, because accounting software counts items and has no notion of drying loss, blended piles, paddy turning into several products, or jumbo bags repacked into sacks. A spreadsheet can do more if someone maintains it consistently, but it breaks down when intake is heavy.
Is custom rice mill software worth it?
Yes, if you need yield by lot or by supplier, weight lost in drying versus milling, or traceability to the sack, and packaged software cannot provide it or does not fit your process. If your work is mainly weighing and buying, or the owner still oversees the floor every day, packaged software is cheaper and quicker to start.