Putnam County, Indiana posts one food inspection PDF per month on its county Food Safety page, grouped by year from January 2023 onward. In those PDFs, a Complete by Date is the deadline for fixing an item; whether it was fixed shows in a later follow-up. The COS column refers to correction during the inspected visit, while Corrected At followup records a later verification when one is shown. Start with the visit type and date before interpreting a Yes, No or blank field. Open the month that contains the visit; the county’s March 2026 report is used below as an example of how the columns are arranged.
What Complete by Date, COS and Corrected At followup each mean
The March 2026 report, for example, covers visits within its displayed inspection-date range and labels visits such as Routine or Followup. For each cited item, it shows an item number, a P/PF/C category, possible COS or repeat flags, observation text, a completion date and, where relevant, a follow-up correction result. Each field describes a different moment.
| Field in the PDF | Read it as | Easy to misread as |
|---|---|---|
| Complete by Date | The stated date for that item to be corrected | A completed correction or return visit |
| COS | A correction marked during the visit whose row you are reading | Removal of that violation from the historical report |
| Corrected At followup | The recorded outcome for that item at the later follow-up, when populated | A full new routine inspection or permanent status |
| R | A repeat notation on the report | A stand-alone finding without the item narrative |
Consider a routine row with a future completion date. It tells you what was required after that visit. Search the following months for the same physical establishment and item, then check whether a later row is labeled Followup and what it records. If that later item says No, the follow-up recorded the item as uncorrected on that date; anything after the PDF’s date needs a later record. Describe a blank follow-up cell as a result missing from that copy, rather than reading it as Yes or No.
This matters because the county’s PDF combines many establishments and visits. A search hit for the business name may take you to a different branch, a different month, or a different inspection purpose. Use the street address if it appears in the full report or agency record, and preserve the exact date and item number. If the published monthly summary lacks enough identity detail, ask Putnam County Health Department for the full report before joining two entries. Our report-reading guide gives a general item-by-item worksheet; the county’s own column labels control this example.
How P, PF and C classes and the print date fit in Putnam’s PDF
The county links Indiana’s Retail Food Establishment Sanitation Requirements, 410 IAC 7-26, effective April 16, 2025. It uses Priority, Priority Foundation and Core classifications, corresponding to P, PF and C in this report. These classify the cited requirement rather than grading the restaurant. Retain the classification beside the item rather than counting every entry as equally significant or converting it to a percentage.
The March PDF also has a print date later than the inspection month. Use the date attached to the establishment’s visit to describe when the observation occurred. The print date only tells you when the document copy was made; the inspection stays in its own month. When you save an extract, keep both the visit header and column headings visible so that a Yes under COS cannot be mistaken for a Yes in the far-right follow-up column. Our follow-up guide helps interpret the sequence after the individual columns are matched.
Find Putnam County’s later follow-up in the monthly archive
The monthly archive lets you move from the first inspection month to a later one. The county’s March 2026 PDF visibly has routine and follow-up entries with both Yes and No in its follow-up column. That shows the report records both outcomes; each row speaks only to its own establishment and date. A follow-up can be narrow, and a later routine visit may address more of the operation.
If you cannot find a later entry, use the county page’s Public Record Search Form link or its Environmental Health contact route. Provide the establishment name, address, original visit date and item number, then ask whether a follow-up report or other correction record exists; the department may have a visit on file that the online PDFs leave out. A closure order, if there was one, has its own record to request. Putnam County Food Safety page checked October 20, 2026, when the newest monthly PDF covered August 2026.