Deposits against an open order
Custom orders change. Taken as a partial payment the change is a balance adjustment; taken as its own sale it is a refund and a re-charge, which is two transactions that never needed to happen.
Industries · Food and beverage
Payments for bakeries, from tomorrow's production sheet backwards
A bakery's day starts before its customers' does, and it is planned against orders that were taken days ago by someone who is now asleep. Everything downstream depends on those orders being written somewhere the oven can read.
The day, end to end
What a bake schedule asks of the system
Six places a bakery's paperwork either becomes production or becomes a surprise.
The sheet is a query, not a list
Custom orders with a pickup date and standing wholesale orders with a route day are all the sheet needs. The thing that breaks it is an order taken in a counter book that never reaches the system.
Allergens from the recipe to the label
The chain has to run end to end. Every place it breaks is a place a declaration gets retyped, and retyping is where one goes missing.
Pickup slots that the counter can hold
Wedding season and holiday weekends fail on collection, not on baking. Slots are how a Saturday morning becomes staffed instead of survived.
Wholesale routes with delivery notes
A cafe account with a standing Tuesday order needs a note at the door and an invoice with a due date. That is a different motion from a counter sale and it deserves its own one.
Markdowns with a reason
An open discount records that something was reduced and nothing about why. Over a season, the reason is the only part that teaches you anything.
Buying guide
Before you sign anything for a bakery
Seven questions worth asking any provider, us included.
Can an order stay open with a balance across days?
Ask to see a deposit taken, the order changed, and the balance settled at pickup.
Does the production report read from dated orders?
Ask what it looks like on the Friday before a holiday weekend.
Is the label printer driven by the same item record as the register?
If not, plan for the retyping or plan to close the gap.
Can pickup times be capped per slot?
Ask what a guest sees when a slot is full.
Does the system raise invoices on terms with delivery notes?
Wholesale is a real second business. Confirm it is supported, not improvised.
Are discounts reason-coded, and who can apply them?
Ask for the permission model as well as the button.
What is the export when you leave?
Recipes, allergen data and wholesale accounts. Ask up front.
Questions
Bakery questions we get asked most
How is a deposit on a custom cake handled if the order changes later?
As a partial payment against an open order, not as a separate sale. The order stays open with a balance, changes adjust the balance, and the final payment settles it at pickup. Taking the deposit as its own completed sale is what makes a later change into a refund and a re-charge, which is two card transactions where there should be none.
Can the production sheet be built from tomorrow's orders automatically?
Yes, where custom orders carry a pickup date and standing wholesale orders carry a delivery day. The sheet is then a query over both, scaled to pan or batch quantities. What breaks it is orders taken in a book at the counter that never reach the system, which is why the counter workflow matters more than the reporting.
How do allergen declarations get onto a label without retyping them?
From the recipe, through the item, onto the label printer. That chain has to exist end to end or somebody is retyping, and retyping is where an allergen goes missing. If your label printer is not driven by the same item record the register uses, that gap is the first thing to close.
Are wholesale delivery accounts billed on the same system as the counter?
They can be, and they should be on a different workflow. A wholesale account has a standing order, a route day, a delivery note and an invoice on terms. A counter guest has none of those. One system with two motions is manageable; one motion for both is not.
What is the cleanest way to handle day-old markdowns?
As a recorded reason on the item rather than an open discount at the register. The reason is what turns a markdown into information: how much bread is being marked down, on which days, from which bake. An open discount records that something was reduced and nothing about why, which is the version that teaches you nothing.
Free tools
Two tools to run before tomorrow's bake
Both are open to anybody comparing setups, including anybody comparing us with somebody else.
Check what fits your business
The questionnaire asks a bakery the questions boarding asks — deposits held against an open custom order, wholesale accounts invoiced on terms, a counter and a delivery route on the same merchant account. You end up with the answer sheet whether or not you ever call.
Statement audit
The statement audit reads a statement you already have and separates the counter tickets from the wholesale invoices sitting inside the same total. A bakery running both usually finds the second one priced as if it were the first.
Talk to someone who has run a production board
Tell us about your bakery
Four fields. A person reads it, looks at what you are running now, and comes back with what they would actually change.
The promise
We will implement whatever is right for you — including keeping what you have. If the counter book is the only gap between your orders and your oven, closing that one gap is the whole project, and we will scope it that way.
Payco · Industries · Food and beverage · Bakery
Last updated: 2026-08-17