The batch is the product, and everything else follows from it. Cleaning, laundry, dish, surface and air care brands run on a fact most systems ignore: the unit a customer buys and the batch you are accountable for are different things. AIMS360 holds the batch, the lot, the ingredient disclosure data and the retailer commitments on one record, so a recall question takes minutes rather than a week of spreadsheets.
California's Cleaning Product Right to Know Act of 2017, Senate Bill 258, requires manufacturers of designated cleaning products sold in California to disclose ingredient information both online and on the label. Online disclosure has applied since 1 January 2020 and label disclosure since 1 January 2021. It is not a marketing exercise. It is a per-product data obligation that has to stay current as formulas change.
Most home care founders meet SB 258 as a compliance headache and solve it with a spreadsheet and a web developer. That works until the third reformulation, the first co-manufacturer change, or the day a retailer asks for the same data in their own format.
| What the law asks for | Where it lives in AIMS360 |
|---|---|
| Every intentionally added ingredient | On the product record, versioned, so a reformulation does not silently overwrite what you published last year |
| Anything on the 23 designated lists at 0.01% or above | Held as product data alongside the ingredient list, including Proposition 65 items |
| Fragrance allergens at 0.01% (100 ppm) or above | Same product record, so the fragrance house's disclosure travels with the SKU |
| A link to the safety data sheet | Attached to the product, available to every channel that asks for it |
| Label and online disclosure staying in sync | One product master feeds the label spec, the website feed and the retailer item setup |
The category is defined by the products, not by the company: general purpose cleaners, air fresheners, automotive cleaning products, and polishes and floor maintenance products. If you make any of those and sell into California, this applies to you regardless of size. The workplace requirement extends it further, since employers who must provide a safety data sheet also have to make the same disclosure information accessible.
The operational point: disclosure data behaves like product information, not like a document. Held on the product master it can be reused. Held in a spreadsheet it has to be rebuilt every time someone asks.
A batch comes back questionable. Where did it go? Not roughly. Specifically: which retailer distribution centers, which purchase orders, which cartons, which subscription shipments, and which units are still sitting in your warehouse or your 3PL.
That answer is only fast if the lot travelled with the transaction the whole way. In most home care operations it does not. The batch record sits with the co-manufacturer, the warehouse tracks cases, the retailer tracks purchase orders, and the subscription platform tracks customers. Four systems, four vocabularies, and nobody holds the join.
The lot is captured at receipt, allocated at picking, and written onto the shipment. It appears on the 856 advance ship notice when a retailer requires it, so their receiving record and yours agree from day one rather than after a dispute.
Enzymatic and plant-derived formulas have real shelf lives. Dated inventory picks first expired first out, and stock approaching its date is visible before a retailer rejects it at the dock.
Wholesale, EDI, marketplace, subscription and DTC all draw from the same position. A lot cannot be promised twice, and a hold on a lot removes it from every channel at once rather than from one at a time.
Most home care brands do not own a plant. The batch record starts when goods are received against the purchase order, with the co-man's batch number carried as the lot, so their reference and yours are the same string.
Refill and concentrate models break the assumption most inventory systems are built on: that one product equals one saleable unit. A concentrate, a starter kit with a bottle, a refill pouch and a multi-pack can all come off the same formula batch while being four separate SKUs with different pack configurations, different retailers and different reorder rhythms.
| What you sell | What it has to do in the system |
|---|---|
| Starter kit | Bottle plus concentrate as a kit drawing from component stock, so selling kits depletes the parts |
| Refill single | Its own SKU and UPC, tied back to the same formula batch for traceability |
| Refill multi-pack | A pack configuration, not a separate product, so inventory does not fragment across pack sizes |
| Subscription refill | Recurring demand that has to be reserved against the same pool wholesale is drawing from |
| Retailer-specific pack | Club and mass packs with their own case configuration and their own item setup |
Get this wrong and the symptom is always the same: subscription oversells while wholesale sits on stock, or a club pack eats the units a retailer purchase order was counting on. The fix is not better forecasting. It is one inventory pool with allocation rules, which is what omnichannel order management does.
Home care brands usually start in natural and specialty retail, move into mass, and run a subscription base alongside both. Each has a different compliance surface and a different cash rhythm.
Erewhon, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Thrive Market, Credo and Grove Collaborative. Smaller orders, tighter ingredient scrutiny, and buyers who will ask for your disclosure data directly.
Target, Kroger, Costco, CVS, Walmart and Amazon. Full retailer EDI, routing guides, GS1-128 carton labels, and chargebacks when the advance ship notice is late or wrong.
Recurring demand that has to be reserved rather than hoped for, and that competes with wholesale for the same lots in the same week.
Your warehouse does not need to speak EDI. AIMS360 sends the ship order in whatever format it accepts and builds the retailer's advance ship notice from the cartons it reports back. See 3PL integrations.
Moving from specialty into mass is where most home care brands hit the wall, because the first mass purchase order arrives with a routing guide, an EDI requirement and a chargeback schedule attached. EDI is built into AIMS360 rather than bought separately, with no per-document, per-transaction or kilocharacter fees, so a good month does not produce a bigger transmission bill.
Worth saying before a demo rather than during one.
If you make and fill your own product at scale in your own facility, say so early and we will tell you honestly where the line sits.
The right system depends on whether you manufacture or outsource. If contract manufacturers run your batches and you sell through retail, subscription and DTC, you need lot and batch traceability, ingredient disclosure data held as product information, retailer EDI and one inventory pool across channels. AIMS360 ships all of that configured for the category rather than built as customization.
If you own and operate a chemical plant with process control equipment, a manufacturing execution system belongs in the stack alongside an ERP.
SB 258, the Cleaning Product Right to Know Act of 2017, requires manufacturers of designated cleaning products sold in California to disclose ingredient information online and on the product label. Online disclosure has applied since 1 January 2020, label disclosure since 1 January 2021.
Designated products include general purpose cleaners, air fresheners, automotive cleaning products, and polishes and floor maintenance products. It applies by product and by market, not by company size, so a small brand selling into California is covered the same as a large one. Confirm your specific obligations with a regulatory advisor.
By carrying the lot through every transaction rather than only at receipt. From a lot number you can trace which purchase orders consumed it, which shipments carried it, which retailers and distribution centers received it, which subscription orders it filled, and what remains unsold in your warehouse or at your 3PL.
Placing a hold on a lot removes it from every channel at once, so wholesale, DTC, marketplace and subscription all stop selling it in the same moment rather than one system at a time.
Yes, and they are treated as what they are rather than forced into one shape. A starter kit is a kit drawing from component stock, so selling kits depletes bottles and concentrate. A refill single is its own SKU with its own UPC. A multi-pack is a pack configuration rather than a separate product, which stops inventory fragmenting across pack sizes.
All of them tie back to the same formula batch for traceability, and all of them allocate against one stock pool.
350+ retailers and dropship programs, including the mass and club accounts home care brands grow into: Target, Kroger, Costco, CVS, Walmart and Amazon, alongside natural and specialty channels. The full retailer list is published, and the EDI team can onboard a retailer that is not yet on it.
EDI is built into the platform rather than bought from a separate provider, with no per-document, per-transaction, VAN or kilocharacter fees.
It is the normal case in this category and the system is built for it. The batch record starts when goods are received against the purchase order, and the co-manufacturer's batch number is carried as the lot, so their reference and yours are the same string when a question comes up months later.
What AIMS360 does not do is run the batch. Formulation, stability testing and process control stay where they are.
3 to 16 weeks depending on complexity. You get a named implementation manager before the project starts, and the project is scoped with you at AIMS360's expense before you sign. Implementation is run by the in-house team rather than handed to a consultancy.
Retailer EDI partners come online in waves behind the core system, at roughly 2 to 4 weeks per retailer, most of which is their certification queue rather than build time. More on the implementation page.
AIMS360 is a consumer brands ERP that began in apparel in 1984 and now serves ten categories. The architecture that handles a garment in twelve colors and seven sizes handles a formula in four pack configurations across three channels, because both are variant management, lot tracking, retailer compliance and multi-channel allocation.
The category configurations differ. Home care runs on batch, lot, expiry and disclosure data where apparel runs on style, color and size. See the other nine industries, including the closest sibling, pet products, which shares the same lot, expiry and state registration shape.
Last reviewed 1 September 2026 by AIMS360.
SB 258 details checked against the published California legislation and current regulatory summaries in August 2026. This page describes software capability and is not legal or regulatory advice. Confirm your own obligations with a qualified advisor.
Pick a batch you shipped last quarter and ask us to trace it: which retailers took it, which subscription orders it filled, and what is left. It is a faster test of an ERP than any feature list, and it is the question you will be asked when it matters.
