How to keep control of your bakery’s ingredients’ costs
It’s the holiday season and sales are up, but have you got a proper grip of the prices you are paying for your ingredients?
Keeping a close eye on just how much it costs you to make your goods becomes more important than ever during this busy period. But in a volatile market, sourcing ingredients and tracking yo-yoing prices has become an increasingly arduous task.
As you negotiate prices with your suppliers, you can be forgiven for feeling more like a futures trader. The current pressures on wheat, maize and sunflower seed supplies are well documented. At the same time, difficult growing and harvest seasons around the world this year have taken their toll on other essentials like fruit, chocolate and sugar.
Navigating all of this is a big administrative headache. Especially so, when you consider the effect that a change in price for just one ingredient has on what you should charge your customers across multiple lines. Plus, if you have to swap out an ingredient, there’s the job of recipe reformulation and then altering the allergen and nutritional information for those lines.
If you use Cybake’s purchasing module, all these tiresome admin tasks are taken care of. If the price of an ingredient changes, that change is updated and reflected throughout your system automatically. Cybake integrates with accounts software like QuickBooks, Xero or Sage, so there is also no need to double-enter purchase invoices.
But what about when you are negotiating prices and order sizes with your suppliers? How do you make sure that you are getting the best deal?
For example, suppliers don’t often notify customers of price changes, especially on commodity lines. These changes can build up into significant amounts over just a few weeks without you even noticing. Also, unless you negotiate on each specific item, suppliers may put you on list price automatically.
Upper hand
That’s where the business intelligence (BI) reports within Cybake’s purchasing give you the upper hand. With all of your purchasing activities displayed in clear pie charts, bar charts and graphs, you get the information you need to make a good deal with your suppliers at all times.
As well as showing you your net purchasing spend by both supplier and ingredient, Cybake also gives you the latest prices. It tells you the last time an ingredient was purchased from which supplier, at what price, and in what format.
There is also cost trend analysis, so for, say, butter or eggs – which can be volatile – you can analyse pricing over a period of time, and make the decision to contract when appropriate.
Plus, the purchasing BI reports tell you whether your suppliers are delivering their orders in full. It is often more costly to halt production when ingredients don’t show up, rather than spend a few extra cents or pence with a more expensive but more reliable supplier.
Cybake ensures that you are paying the correct price agreed with your supplier and that you always claim the right credits for short-delivered or damaged stock. There is always a clear picture of what has been spent and what is on order.
As Cybake is a cloud app, this data can be used by you and your staff anywhere, anytime, whether it be in the office, the bakery, the warehouse, on the road, or at home.
So, if you want to start using Cybake’s purchasing module, its BI features, or to talk to us about using Cybake to manage any other part of your bakery’s operations, please contact us here or via LiveChat below.
Cybake analyzes your ingredient purchases and cost trends.
Cybake tells you whether your suppliers are delivering their orders in full.
Rachel Hindle is the Business Development Manager of Cybake in the UK and the coordinator of the Independent Cybake Partners group.
