Revel Blog

5 Tools Needed to Manage Bakery Inventory

Revel | July 6, 2022 |

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5 Tools Needed to Manage Bakery Inventory

Bakeries are by nature very dynamic businesses and have their own unique set of challenges. From high production costs and fluctuating ingredient prices to customers placing highly-customized orders and bakery inventory – a robust  point of sale (POS) is table stakes to run a successful bakery.

In this blog post, we take a look at the tools needed to manage one of your most important ingredients, your inventory. With  inventory management software you can streamline your bakery options and manage bakery inventory more efficiently within your business. 

Leverage these tools to keep track of your bakery inventory and ensure that your business never runs out of your customers’ favorite items.

1.Purchase Orders for Bakery Inventory

With built-in purchase order functionality into a bakery point of sale, you can easily manage your vendor relationships. On the backend, you can place reorders on the fly and have those numbers automatically reflected into your POS

You will want a bakery inventory management software that includes low-stock inventory alerts to keep you one step ahead. This will allow you to setup alerts to let you know when items are low, generate purchase orders and automatically send to your vendors and track past year’s sales numbers so you can get results to further fine tune your inventory and ordering process.

2.Ingredient- Level Tracking in Bakery Management 

Your inventory count should be precise and be able to keep track of modifications in real time. And in reality, inventory loss starts as soon as the recipe is created, so inventory shouldn’t just be subtracted at the time of purchase. Say you have a batch of cookies go to waste in the baking process, you can now account for this shrink by entering in the yield amount, to initiate an exact inventory amount at the time of preparing the recipe.

With bakery inventory management software, you can adjust the values of each ingredient, as well as the number of times it’s run by the actual yield, to promote the most precise inventory measurement at the exact time the recipe has been created. At this level of inventory tracking, you can better track spoilage and make in-house ingredients.

3.Store to Store Transfers in Inventory Management Software

You will want a bakery POS that can streamline inventory not just for one location, but for multiple locations and franchises. Ensure that bakery inventory is accounted for at every location and that every store can customize its offerings with store to store transfers. Each transfer initiated from one location to another can be assigned a status to ensure that items are accounted for and received in full.

4.Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) to Manage Bakery Inventory

Control overhead costs by returning unused or damaged inventory back to vendors. Through your bakery inventory system, you will want to be able to create RMAs for easy reordering and vendor management. The vendor can then approve the return, ensuring a quick and easy way for your bakery to make returns.

5.Sales Data & Analytics for Inventory Management

Optimize your inventory by looking at what’s really selling. Understanding sales data lets you know what items are the most popular with your customers, what you may need to work on an up-sell strategy for, or what you may need to discontinue or 86 from your product mix and help you forecast your inventory.

Revel Systems Inventory Management System

We have mentioned above some of the features that come with Revel’s inventory management system.  Other great features include:

Ability to Manage Complex Matrix Inventories

Easily find thousands of items by organizing them in categories. Get granular and display items by size and color in your inventory system.

Inventory App

Scan and manage your inventory more efficiently than ever. Use your phone as a handheld barcode scanner and inventory management tool to ensure accurate inventory records. Seamlessly sync activity from the Inventory App to your Management Console.

Phillip from Patty’s Cakes and Desserts says that because of Revel "we can really know for sure what is selling." He goes on to add, "We can make sure we have enough material in stock, we can make sure that the favorite flavors are going to be readily available for all the customers."

To learn more about Revel's inventory management system and all the ways our POS can help you manage bakery inventory, schedule a free demo today