Use Cases
Industry playbooks with concrete tasks and workflows
Playbooks for your industry
Each playbook below walks you through the exact setup, daily tasks, and periodic reviews for your type of business. You'll get step-by-step instructions with direct links to the relevant pages and guided workflows.
Home Bakers & Cake Decorators
Cottage food businesses, custom cake shops, bakeries
Track ingredients, build recipes with automatic cost calculations, run production batches, and manage customer orders with batch traceability.
In this playbook
- Set up ingredients with unit costs and allergen data
- Create recipes that auto-calculate cost per batch
- Run production and track batch/lot numbers
- Record sales and generate nutrition labels
- Schedule C reports for cottage food tax filing
Craft Sellers & Handmade Goods
Etsy sellers, market vendors, handmade jewelry, pottery
Manage raw materials, track labor as a cost input, organize products with variants, and set up wholesale and retail pricing tiers.
In this playbook
- Add materials and track costs per unit
- Include labor time in product cost calculations
- Set up product variants (size, color, material)
- Configure wholesale and retail pricing tiers
- Generate price lists for markets and online shops
Digital Product Creators
Printables, templates, digital downloads, fonts
Track software subscriptions and service costs, record sales across platforms, manage expenses, and generate tax-ready reports.
In this playbook
- Track software and service subscriptions as inventory
- Record income from multiple sales channels
- Categorize expenses with IRS tax categories
- Generate Schedule C and income statement reports
- Run end-of-period closeouts for clean books
Soap & Candle Makers
Bath products, candles, aromatherapy, skincare
Manage fragrances, waxes, and oils with precise measurements. Track equipment usage, maintain batch records, and generate traceability reports.
In this playbook
- Set up ingredients with density conversions
- Create recipes with precise fragrance ratios
- Track equipment hours and maintenance schedules
- Maintain batch records for product safety
- Run traceability reports for recall readiness
Small Food Producers
Jams, sauces, spice blends, meal prep, pet treats
Track perishable ingredients with allergen and nutrition data, scale recipes for different batch sizes, and maintain traceability for food safety.
In this playbook
- Add ingredients with allergen flags and nutrition data
- Build recipes that calculate per-unit nutrition labels
- Run production batches with lot number tracking
- Perform guided stocktakes with variance detection
- Generate traceability reports for food safety audits
Kit & Assembly Businesses
Subscription boxes, DIY kits, assembly operations
Manage components and subassemblies across multiple locations. Track multi-step assembly processes and transfer stock between facilities.
In this playbook
- Set up multiple locations (warehouse, assembly, sales)
- Create subassemblies and finished kit definitions
- Build assembly procedures with step-by-step instructions
- Transfer stock between locations with full tracking
- Monitor equipment maintenance across facilities
Don't see your industry? Ardent Seller is flexible enough to work for any small business that manages inventory and production. Let us know your use case and we can help you get set up.