Farmers who purchase seed and later need to file for seed arbitration are required to give the lot number of the seed purchased. This information was lacking on many of the cases filed, and often became a "guess", making the cases very difficult to arbitrate.

Also, Plant Board Auditors have been routinely auditing licensed seed dealers and their subsidiaries, and one of the most common errors found is a lack of information on the invoice.

The very least amount of information on invoices required both by federal and state laws is the lot number and kind and/or variety of seed. The lot number should tie this invoice to other information required to be kept for each lot, such as the analysis used to back up the information required on the label. Other needed information for the auditors is whether the seed was sold as certified seed or not, the address (city/state) of the buyer, bulk or bagged, and weight of the bag. When all this information is routinely provided on the invoices, the auditor can complete the audit with little disruption of the company’s daily business. The time needed to complete an audit greatly depends on the information available on the invoices.