How to Automate BakeSmart

Every order in the bakery ends up on the same bake list

BakeSmart is bakery management software, built for bakeries that sell over a counter and by the case. Retail shops, wholesale bakeries and the many businesses that are both run their orders, production, custom cakes, point of sale and online store on it.

A bakery is a strange business to run. Everything it makes is perishable and dated, most of the day's work is decided the night before, and the same kitchen serves two completely different customers. One is buying a birthday cake for Saturday. The other is a cafe taking eight dozen rolls every Friday that will notice if seven arrive.

BakeSmart's answer to that is a single production report. A wholesale standing order for Friday and a custom cake taken over the phone both land on the same day's list, so the bakers work from one sheet instead of three. That sheet is the business. Get it wrong upward and it goes in the bin. Get it wrong downward and somebody gets told no.

Every dozen sold has a phone call behind it

The baking is the part that runs to a schedule. The rest of the day belongs to other people's systems.

Ingredient prices move, so somebody signs into the distributor's ordering site to see what butter and flour cost this week, spots two items on backorder, and finds a substitute before the cutoff. A grocery chain sends its purchase orders through its own vendor portal, so somebody logs in, reads them and types them in again. A delivery gets disputed, so somebody goes hunting for proof of receipt on the customer's receiving system. Invoices are outstanding, so somebody works the list. A wedding cake has a balance due next week and a tasting to be booked.

It is a morning of logins, and it happens while the ovens are running and the counter is three deep.

BakeSmart

Costs checked against the price list This week's ingredient prices set beside what each product was costed at, before a whole season sells at the old margin.

Wholesale orders off the vendor portal Purchase orders read from each chain's own site and ready to enter before the cutoff, without anyone retyping a PDF.

Delivery disputes answered Proof of receipt pulled from the customer's system, so a short-shipment claim is met with evidence the same day.

Standing orders and the Cake Matrix already do the arithmetic

BakeSmart automates a great deal of this, and it is worth knowing where its reach ends rather than guessing.

Standing orders generate repeat wholesale orders automatically, and recurring orders are created a set number of days ahead, with a lock time before which the customer can view and change them without ringing you. The Wholesale Portal gives each account its own login to place orders, see invoices and pay balances, which takes the phone out of the loop. Production reports show exactly what has to be baked each day, retail and wholesale together. The Cake Matrix captures the size, flavour, filling and add-ons of a custom order, prices it by complexity, layer and tier count, prints a ticket for the decorator and produces a count of layers by size and flavour. Invoices, packing slips and statements are generated, and sales totals, customer invoices and time card data sync across to QuickBooks.

Every one of those starts from an order that reached BakeSmart.

The distributor's price list did not. Nor did the purchase order sitting in a chain's vendor portal, the backorder notice, the proof of delivery on a customer's system, or the invoice a customer swears was paid last month.

A price list that keeps up with what the flour costs

A bakery's margin is set by two numbers that move independently: what an ingredient costs this week, and what your price list says a product costs. The first changes constantly and the second gets reviewed when somebody finds an afternoon.

This morning's prices read off the distributor's site and set against what each recipe was costed at, so the product that quietly stopped making money is visible before the season it sells in. Backorders and substitutions found the evening before, not at four in the morning with the mixer already running.

Purchase orders collected from each chain's vendor portal and turned into orders before the cutoff, instead of retyped from a PDF on a second screen. Proof of delivery pulled from the customer's own receiving system, so a short-shipment claim is answered with evidence rather than an apology. Balances on custom orders chased in the week before pickup rather than at the counter on the day.

And the holiday run, where a large share of the year's profit sits: order cutoffs checked against how much oven time is genuinely left, so the answer to one more tray is a fact and not a guess. Anything going out to a customer or a wholesale account is drafted for a person to read first.

The checking can be done before the first tray goes in

What the flour costs today, whether the pallet arrived and whether the chain took the delivery are all facts held somewhere else. In a bakery, whoever goes and gets them has usually been awake since three.

WebRun is an AI agent that works a real Chrome browser, signed in as you. It opens BakeSmart, the supplier site, the vendor portal or the bank, reads each one, and brings back the comparison with the differences named.

It runs on your schedule in your own private environment, and you can watch a run and stop it. Anything addressed to a customer or a wholesale account is prepared and waits for you.

The workflows below are already built, and each one names what it opens.