Weights for landing reports and fish ticket may have fractions of pounds, but IFQ reports only allow weights that are whole pounds. However, it is necessary for the totals reported on Fish Tickets to match total IFQ debits. This page documents the mechanism that eLandings uses to round fractional pounds and maintain matching total weights.
Rounding calculations become very complex in situations with stacked permits and distribution of catch across multiple stat areas. The eLandings system applies a number of business rules and constraints to ensure that pounds are not created or lost in the rounding process and that rounding introduces minimal statistical bias. However, due to the complexity of the underlying data (landing reports with stacked permits and stat area worksheets), multiple calculations with effects on rounding (allocation among multiple CFEC permits, distribution across stat areas, and allocation among multiple IFQ reports), it isn't always possible to predict the exact effect of rounding. It is possible to dissect particular examples and understand rounding in retrospect, and that is the purpose of this page.
Programmer documentation of rounding explains the software's internal mechanisms. This page explains rounding in customer terms.
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