A birthday cake, a photo and a WhatsApp
A hotel wants a three-tier cake for a wedding on Saturday. A cafe wants a tray of mini pastries for a christening. A pub orders a birthday cake for a regular with a photo of a football shirt. The details come by phone, WhatsApp, and email, and are written in the special orders book, or not.
On Friday night the cake decorator is not sure whether the wedding cake was lemon or vanilla, and the photo is on the owner's phone. The christening pastries were never added to the bake list.
Why special orders slip
Special orders are a different kind of work from the daily bake: each one is unique, needs a brief, often a deposit, and has to be made on a specific day. The bakery's systems are built for the repeating daily orders, so specials live in a book and people's phones.
- Details are split between calls, messages and a notebook.
- Photos of designs are on personal phones.
- Deposits are taken, or not, with no record against the order.
- The work is not added to the night's plan automatically.
- Delivery is arranged separately from the rounds.
What a lost special costs
There is also the time lost on the phone confirming details that should have been written down once: which flavour, what message on the top, whether the hotel wanted it delivered at ten or collected at twelve.
A special order going wrong is worse than a missing loaf. It is someone's wedding or birthday, and your trade customer takes the blame in front of their own customer. Beyond that: remakes at short notice, unpaid cakes when deposits were not taken, and decorators working from guesswork.
The special order tracker we build
- Each special order is entered on a single form, by the office or by the trade customer through a link: product, size, flavour, design notes, photos, date and time needed, and delivery or collection.
- The price is set from your price guide and adjusted by you, and a deposit request goes to the customer with a payment link through a provider such as Stripe, if you take deposits.
- Once confirmed, the order is placed on the right nights for each stage, such as baking the sponges and decorating, with a job sheet for the decorator showing the photo and notes.
- Delivery is added to the right round, or given its own drop, with a note for the driver.
- The customer gets a confirmation with all the details, so any misunderstanding comes up before the bake.
- A calendar view shows every special order for the coming weeks, so busy weekends are visible early.
| Captured | Used by |
|---|---|
| Design notes and photos | Decorator's job sheet |
| Date and time needed | Night plan and round |
| Price and deposit | Invoicing |
| Confirmation sent | The trade customer |
What changes
Every special order has one record with everything on it. The decorator works from the photo, not memory. Deposits are recorded. The work appears on the right night without anyone remembering to add it. And trade customers get a confirmation, which reassures them and catches mistakes.
The calendar also helps you decide how many specials to accept for a given weekend, instead of discovering on Thursday that you have taken on more than the team can do.
Afterwards, the order record is there for next time. A hotel that orders a similar cake for every wedding can have the previous order copied, with the photo and notes, rather than starting the brief again.
Is this how specials work at your bakery?
- Special orders live in a notebook and on phones.
- Decorators have worked from memory rather than a brief.
- Deposits are taken inconsistently.
- Specials have been left off the night's plan.
- Busy weekends catch the team by surprise.