Production orders: create, deduct lots and finish
Essential, Advanced and Integral plans
How to create a production order, start it, deduct the lots of each ingredient and finish it with its lot, expiry date, label and real cost.
What it is for
The production order is your bakery’s manufacturing order: it says which recipe is made, how much, who makes it and when. While production is under way, it records which lot of each ingredient has been used. When you finish it, it creates the lot of the finished product with its expiry date, puts it into stock, prints its label and works out what that batch really cost.
It’s used by the manager, who plans and creates the orders, and by the production team, who carry them out from the computer or the tablet. It’s the piece that links goods-in with dispatches to customers: without production orders there’s no traceability.
Before you start
- You need a paid plan: production orders can’t be created on the free plan.
- Production orders are created by the administrator, the manager and users with permission to create orders. The Employee (production employee) sees their orders in Assigned to me and may have permission to create their own. We explain it in Users and roles.
- Have your recipes complete and, to deduct lots, your raw material stock recorded by lot through your goods-in.
- In Configuration › Nomenclature, check the lot pattern for production orders, and in Configuration › General Data the Production orders configuration block (next sequential number) and the email notifications Per assigned task and Per completed task.
The life cycle of a production order
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pending | Created and planned. Quantity, date and person in charge can still be changed. |
| In production | Someone clicked Start production. Lots are deducted and processes are carried out. |
| Finished | Completed: the finished product is already in stock with its lot. |
| Cancelled | Voided. It doesn’t count in stock or in reports. |
Create a production order
There are three ways: Production orders › New production order, the Produce button on the recipe itself, or the New production order button in the list. The New production order window opens.
Recipe and quantity
Choose the Recipe and enter the Quantity to produce, which multiplies the recipe. If the recipe has production formats, Add other formats to this production lets you make, for example, the 22 cm cheesecake and the 16 cm one in the same order.
Lot, date and person in charge
The Lot is suggested using your nomenclature; you can overwrite it. Enter Produce on and the Start time, the Assigned user (you, by default), the Location where the product will be stored and the Notes, which the assigned user will see. Recipok shows the Estimated expiration date based on the recipe’s shelf life.
Required ingredients
Check the quantities. If you edit one ingredient, the rest and the total quantity adjust in proportion. Click Create production order.
Produce: start, deduct lots and weigh
Open the order from the list (See task) and click Start production. In the ingredients block, each one has its Lot Assignment. There are three ways to say which lot has been used, from the most reliable to the most convenient:
- Scan QR: with the tablet camera or a barcode scanner, you scan the label on the container. This is the recommended way.
- Choose the lot from the list, with its quantity and expiry date. Move the quantity to this lot splits the quantity across several lots.
- Manual lot: you type the number on the container. If it exists in the warehouse, the deduction comes from that lot even if it has no stock left; if it doesn’t exist, it’s kept as a note and no stock is deducted.
Then click Discount lots. If you make a mistake, Cancel batches reverses it. If you have a scale, Weigh ingredients records each weighing against the quantity in the order: we explain it in Scales and weighing.
| Ingredient | Quantity | Lot | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cream cheese | 12.000 kg | L24-0980 | Lot used |
| Cream 35% | 4.800 l | NT-1102 | Lot used |
| 1Eggs | 60 units | H-0930 · Lot entered by hand | Pending |
| Recipe - Biscuit base | 3.840 kg | BG-260930-000013 | Lot used |
- 1Manual lot: the number on the egg container was typed in. The deduction will come from that lot.
- 2Discount lots: each line is deducted only once and leaves a stock movement linked to the order.
If the recipe has processes (baking, cooling, temperature checks), Start process appears, followed by Continue process. The Finish production button doesn’t appear until all the processes are complete, and you can’t finish with timers still running. More in Process control.
Finish the order: lot and expiry date
Finish production opens the closing window. Enter the Total units/kg actually produced (the difference from what was ordered is the Yield), the Times, the Production date, the Shelf life and the expiry date, the Lot no. and any notes. Check the Lots used list: if any ingredients have no lot, Recipok warns you. If the recipe generates by-products, this is where you record the Quantity obtained of each one.
When you confirm, the finished product goes into stock with its lot in the order’s location, the real cost of the batch is calculated and you can print the lot’s labels from Manage labels: Label to customer for what you sell or Internal label for the semi-finished product. From Print you also get the Production report and the Cost report.
The list: all orders and assigned to me
- All production orders: filters by status, user, dates and search by recipe, lot or SKU; totals for ingredient, overhead, staff and production costs; Export to Excel. From More actions: view, print, Edit schedule, manage labels, void or delete.
- Assigned to me: the orders of the logged-in user. This is the production employee’s screen.
- Select several orders to Duplicate or delete them in bulk.
Tips
Deduct the lot of the container you have actually opened, not “the first one on the list”. Stick the lot’s QR label on the tub when the goods arrive and the production team will only have to scan it.
Produce the semi-finished products first (the biscuit base) and then the product that uses them. For chain productions, itineraries create all the orders in one go. And to work from the production floor without opening each order, use the active production orders board.