How to Run Your First Production Batch
Learn how to run a production batch in Ardent Seller — starting from a saved recipe, scaling the batch up or down with Batch Quantity and Recipe Scale, confirming ingredient availability and live costs, and marking the run complete so Ardent Seller automatically deducts your ingredients and adds the finished goods to your shelf at the real per-unit cost.
Transcript
Full narration from the video, broken down by section.
Welcome
Your recipe is dialed in and your ingredients are on the shelf — now it's time to actually make the thing. Every time you pour a batch of candles, cut a loaf of soap, or fire up the mixer, you want a production run on the books in Ardent Seller. It deducts the ingredients, adds the finished goods to your shelf, and hands you an honest cost per unit. Let me walk you through it.
Navigate to Production Runs
In the sidebar, open the Create section — that's where you'll find your recipes and production runs. Click Production Runs to see everything you've made so far. To start a new one, click Add Production Run in the top right.
Choose a Recipe
A small dialog opens and asks how you want to start. Based on Recipe is what you'll use most of the time — it copies your ingredients, equipment, and steps straight from the recipe so you don't have to rebuild them. Custom Production is there for one-off batches that don't have a saved recipe yet. Pick a recipe from the dropdown — we'll go with Lavender Soy Candle Recipe — and click Continue.
Review the Run Details
The Create Production panel slides in with most of the work already done for you. The name, batch number, target inventory, and batch unit are all carried over from the recipe — you can edit the name if you want something more descriptive, like a date or a batch identifier. And just so you know — the recipe is a template, not a straightjacket. The ingredients, equipment, and steps all copy in to save you time, but you can swap, add, or remove any of them for this specific run without touching the original recipe. Below that, the production status starts at Initiated, which is useful when you're scheduling ahead, and the Scheduled Date defaults to today. If you want to run multiple batches in one go, bump Batch Quantity up — set it to two, and Ardent Seller will use twice the ingredients and produce twice the finished goods.
Scale the Batch
Right below Batch Quantity, you'll see a Recipe Scale slider. These two controls do different things. Batch Quantity — which we just bumped to two — simply runs the recipe multiple times, so we get two full-size batches out of this production run. Recipe Scale, on the other hand, proportionally resizes a single batch — 2x doubles every ingredient and the yield per batch. It's handy when you only have enough wax for a partial run, or you want every batch a bit bigger without rewriting the recipe. We'll leave it at 1x so each batch stays its usual size.
Verify Ingredients Available
Scroll down to the Ingredients section. For every line, Ardent Seller pulls the current on-hand quantity and weighted-average cost from your inventory, so the line cost and the Total Ingredient Cost below it are exactly what this production run is going to cost you to produce. If you're short on any ingredient, you'll see a red warning right on the line and the Create button at the bottom stays disabled until you either add stock or drop your batch quantity. That check alone can save you a ruined run.
Equipment, Steps, and Total Cost
Keep scrolling past the ingredients and you'll hit Equipment — the tools this run will use. You can log a duration against each one right here, and Ardent Seller will roll that time into your equipment usage, maintenance reminders, and replacement planning. Below that, Steps carries your method straight from the recipe with each step's duration and, if you've set labor rates, its labor cost. And at the very bottom of the panel, everything rolls up — Total Ingredient Cost, Total Labor Cost, and a combined Total Production Cost for the whole production run. That bottom number is what this run actually costs you to make — not a guess, not a spreadsheet average, but the real number you can price and plan against.
Mark Complete and Save
Once your production run is actually made, scroll back up to the top and switch the production status to Completed. A completion date field appears — today's date is fine. Then scroll all the way to the bottom one more time and click Create Production. Ardent Seller deducts every ingredient from your stock, adds the finished goods to inventory at the run's real cost, and drops you back on the list.
Review the Production Run
Your new production run shows up at the top of the list with its batch number, status, and target inventory. Click its name any time to reopen it — duplicate it into another run, dig into the audit trail, or print the batch record for your files. Every run you log here becomes part of your traceability trail and feeds straight into your profit and loss numbers.
Wrap Up
And that's a production batch — recipe-driven, auto-costed, and already updating your stock counts. From here you can schedule the next run straight from the same recipe, or kick off an assembly recipe to package your finished goods into ready-to-sell products. If this tutorial helped, give us a like and subscribe for more Ardent Seller walkthroughs. See you in the next one.