If you have been using Breww for multiple duty years, Breww will already have the figures you provided for those duty years. However, if you have moved to Breww, we will need historical production figures and estimates for previous duty years where you still have stock that is Small Producers Relief eligible. If you try to dispatch this stock before entering those figures, you may encounter an error like this:
"Please provide an annual production estimate for 1 February 2024 - 31 January 2025 in your Alcohol duty settings. For duty purposes, you will not be able to complete deliveries or move stock between locations until one has been added."
🧾 What this means
This message appears when you're trying to complete an order for stock that was produced in a previous duty year (e.g. 2024–25), but Breww doesn’t yet have the production figures needed to calculate the correct duty rate for that period.
⚙️ Why Breww needs historical figures
Duty rates in the UK are applied differently depending on eligibility for Small Producer Relief (SPR):
- For SPR-eligible beer, the duty rate is fixed at the time of production
- For non-eligible beer, the duty rate applies when the beer leaves duty suspense
So, to correctly apply the SPR rate to historical stock, HMRC requires:
- Your estimated production for the year the beer was produced (e.g. 2024–25), and
- Your actual production from the year before (e.g. 2023–24)
👉 Both of these figures must be in hectolitres of pure alcohol (HLPA).
Each estimate should reflect the volume you anticipated you would produce at the start of that specific (now past) duty year. It’s not your forecast for the current period, nor the actual volume you ended up producing that duty year.
These two values work together to determine both your eligibility for SPR and what rate should have been applied at the time.
🛠️ How to fix It
- Go to Settings → Beer duty → Beer duty settings in Breww
- Under Production volumes, click Historical annual estimates
- Click Add a new estimate
- Enter:
- Your estimated HLPA production for the year the beer was produced (e.g. 2024–25)
- Your actual HLPA production for the year before (e.g. 2023–24)
Once these are added, Breww can apply the correct rate to your historical stock, and you’ll be able to complete the order.
