Home Bakers & Cake Decorators
Your complete playbook for managing a baking business
Cottage food, custom cakes, and bakery operations
This playbook covers everything from tracking your flour and sugar inventory to costing recipes, running production batches with lot numbers, recording customer sales, and filing taxes with Schedule C reports. Follow the sections below in order to get your bakery fully set up, then use the day-to-day and periodic tasks as your regular workflow.
Getting Started
One-time setup tasks to get your baking business configured in Ardent Seller.
1. Set up your kitchen location
Your account starts with a default location. Rename it to something like "Home Kitchen" or "Bakery" so your inventory and production data is tied to the right place. If you bake from multiple locations, add each one.
2. Add your ingredients
Add the raw materials you bake with: flour, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, food coloring, fondant, etc. Set the unit of measure (lbs, oz, each) and your typical cost per unit. If you track allergens, flag them on each ingredient.
3. Add packaging materials
Add cake boxes, cupcake liners, bags, ribbons, labels, and other packaging you use. Including packaging in your costs gives you a true cost-per-product figure.
4. Set up your products
Create entries for each product you sell: custom cakes, cupcake dozens, cookie boxes, etc. Add variants if you offer different sizes or flavors. Set your selling price on each.
5. Add your vendors and customers
Add the suppliers you buy from (wholesale food suppliers, craft stores) and your regular customers. This lets you track who you buy from and sell to.
6. Set up tax categories
If you file Schedule C, configure your tax categories so expenses and income are automatically categorized for tax time. Ardent Seller includes standard IRS categories.
Day-to-Day Operations
Regular tasks you'll perform as you run your baking business.
Create recipes with auto-calculated costs
Build a recipe for each product: list the ingredients with quantities, add step-by-step instructions, and specify any equipment used. Ardent Seller multiplies each ingredient's quantity by its unit cost to calculate your total recipe cost and cost per unit.
Purchase supplies from vendors
When you buy flour, sugar, or other supplies, record the purchase. Select the vendor, add line items with quantities and costs, and choose your payment method. Inventory quantities update automatically.
Run a production batch
When you bake a batch of cupcakes or a custom cake, record a production run. Select the recipe, set the batch size, and optionally assign a lot number. Ingredients are deducted and finished goods are added to inventory.
Record customer sales
When a customer picks up their order or you sell at a market, record the sale. Select the customer, add products with quantities and prices, and choose the payment method. Revenue is tracked and inventory is deducted.
Check replenish levels
Before a busy weekend, check which ingredients are running low. The Inventory Replenish workflow compares your current stock against replenish points and suggests what to purchase.
Periodic Reviews
Weekly or monthly tasks to keep your books accurate and your business optimized.
Perform a stocktake
Count your physical inventory and compare it against what's in the system. The guided stocktake walks you through each item, highlights variances, and creates adjustment transactions to reconcile the difference.
Review and adjust pricing
As ingredient costs change, review whether your selling prices still give you a healthy margin. Use the Price Review workflow to compare costs against prices across your product line and batch-update if needed.
Run your income statement
Generate an income statement to see total revenue, cost of goods sold, and gross profit for any date range. This is your go-to report for understanding whether you're making money.
Generate Schedule C report
At tax time, generate a Schedule C report that categorizes your income and expenses by IRS categories. Export the data for your accountant or use it to fill out your Schedule C directly.
End-of-period closeout
At the end of each month or quarter, run the closeout workflow to verify inventory, review sales, check outstanding items, and generate summary reports all in one pass.