What inventory tracking do bakeries need?

Bakeries need to track both raw ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, eggs, flavorings) and finished baked goods (cakes, cookies, bread, pastries). Unlike retail inventory, bakery inventory involves recipes where multiple ingredients combine into a single product. Software like Craftybase tracks ingredient quantities across recipes, automatically deducts materials when you log a production batch, and maintains real-time stock levels for both ingredients and finished goods — so you always know what you have on hand and what you need to order.

How do I calculate cost per item for baked goods?

Craftybase calculates cost per item automatically using your actual purchase prices. You set up a recipe specifying how much flour, sugar, butter, and other ingredients go into each product. Craftybase then uses your real purchase history — including price changes from different suppliers — to determine the true material cost per item. You can also factor in labor time and overhead costs. This means your per-item costs update automatically when ingredient prices change, giving you accurate pricing guidance at all times.

Can I track perishable inventory with expiration dates?

Yes. Craftybase supports lot number tracking on material purchases, which allows you to record expiration dates and supplier batch information for perishable ingredients like dairy, eggs, and fresh fruit. You can trace which lots went into which production batches, making it straightforward to manage first-in-first-out (FIFO) usage and comply with food safety requirements. If a supplier issues a recall on a specific lot, you can generate a report showing exactly which baked goods were affected.

How is bakery inventory software different from a spreadsheet?

Spreadsheets require manual updates every time you buy ingredients, bake a batch, or sell a product. With dedicated bakery inventory software like Craftybase, ingredient levels update automatically when you log production runs. Orders import directly from your sales channels. Your cost per item recalculates when supplier prices change. And you get features a spreadsheet can't offer — like lot traceability, low-stock alerts, COGS reports for tax time, and recipe-based material deductions — all without building and maintaining complex formulas.

Can Craftybase import orders from Etsy, Shopify, and other sales channels?

Yes. Craftybase connects directly to Etsy, Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce, Squarespace, Faire, and Square. Orders import automatically each night, so your inventory levels and COGS figures stay up to date without manual data entry. Each imported order gets a full profit breakdown showing material costs, labor, expenses, and your actual margin — across all the channels where you sell.

Bakery Inventory Software

Stop guessing what your bakery actually costs to run

Most small bakery owners are guessing at their ingredient costs — and underpricing as a result. Craftybase is bakery inventory software that tracks ingredients, recipe costing, orders, and production in one place, so you can run your bakery with confidence and stop living in spreadsheets.

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4.6/5 from 240+ reviews on Capterra

Bakery inventory software showing ingredient tracking and recipe costing

What Is Bakery Inventory Software?

Bakery inventory software is an all-in-one system that tracks raw ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, eggs), manages production batches, handles customer orders, and calculates costs for small bakery businesses. Unlike general retail inventory tools, bakery software handles recipe-based manufacturing — when you log a production batch, it automatically deducts the correct quantities of each ingredient from your stock. Craftybase is bakery inventory software built for small-batch bakers who need accurate ingredient tracking, per-item cost calculations, production planning, and COGS reports for tax time.

Not ready for software? Start with our free bakery costing spreadsheet, bakery inventory spreadsheet, or free cake pricing calculator.

What matters most to your bakery business right now?

Making sure I price correctly
Logging my Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)
Tracing by material batches or lots
Managing products & orders
Capturing & categorizing expenses
Knowing my real-time inventory levels
Getting insight into my overall profitability
Planning my production batches

Decide how much to charge with built-in
Pricing Guidance

Craftybase calculates a suggested retail and wholesale price for every product you make, based on your actual ingredient costs, labor time, and target margin. Price every cake, loaf, and batch with confidence — and know exactly which products are making you money.

Without Craftybase I would not be able to run my business properly. It tracks all my ingredients to the gramme so I can confidently price my products knowing that everything is correct and I can trace all my products to each supplier.
Lorraine Purcell
Lorraine's Cakery

Effortlessly keep track of your
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)

With Craftybase, every order is assigned a material usage cost that’s based on your complete inventory history. So instead of wrangling Excel spreadsheets and stressing over EOY counts, you'll build up your COGS tally during the year as you make and sell. Craftybase calculations are GAAP compliant and use IRS-approved methods, making our COGS tracking ideal for U.S.-based small manufacturers.

Craftybase helps me keep my sales automatically entered into my system so that I can get on with doing the fun part: the creative products I make!
Kitty Waters
Founder, Oh Crumbs Bakery

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No credit card required · Takes about 15 minutes to set up

Stay compliant with transparency &
traceability

There’s no need to manage your compliance requirements separately from your inventory — because Craftybase makes all your products and materials fully traceable.

All you need to do: Log material purchases with lot numbers, and associate those lot numbers with your manufacture records. Then, Craftybase creates a purchase-to-sale, GMP and CPSC traceability solution for your small bakery business.

Generate a full report in seconds that shows exactly which orders contain a particular lot or batch of material — so that even when you have to recall a product or replace a faulty material, you already know which orders were affected.

Bakery order management — track every
order, product, and sale in one place

Whatever happens, Craftybase has you covered. Our powerful inventory adjustments capabilities can handle any stock change — including cancellations, damage, and stock loss.

Plus, automatically import your orders and products from sales channels, and see detailed profit breakdowns for orders (including material costs and expenses).

Craftybase has helped track my customer orders, how much they cost and how much they cost me to make them, keeping me on top of my orders which is so important to my little business.
Lorraine Purcell
Lorraine's Cakery

Log & categorize your
expenses

Track both direct and indirect expenses in Craftybase, using as many custom categories as you like. Purchases are associated with your materials, so that your unit pricing and inventory asset value are automatically calculated based on landed actual costs.

You can also associate expenses with products or orders, allowing you to see your true, exact profit margins for everything you sell.

Being able to categorize expenses and see where each project is costing me has helped me to understand my business and pinpoint areas of high value or expense.
Kitty Waters
Founder, Oh Crumbs Bakery

Plan your bake schedule and
scale recipes with confidence

Know exactly how many batches you can produce from your current stock — before you start baking. Craftybase shows you your on-hand ingredient quantities against your recipe requirements, so you can plan your production runs without running short mid-bake.

Scale recipes up or down and your ingredient requirements update automatically. Log a completed production batch and your stock levels deduct in real time. No manual math, no spreadsheet formulas — just an accurate picture of what you have and what you can make.

Automatically sort, search, and
manage inventory

Meet the last inventory system you’ll ever need. Keep sortable, searchable lists of all your material inventory (with photos!) that are always available online, wherever you are.

Maintain full purchase histories without trying, and even have Craftybase auto-calculate your rolling average unit prices.

Plus, you can create recipes for commonly used combinations of materials, with recommended pricing and detailed profit margin calculations for each recipe. You can even track the hidden costs of making sub-assemblies using components.

Being able to easily add and subtract materials from my master inventory based on daily sales is invaluable in keeping organized & proactive. Managing inventory was a painful, manual, and inaccurate process before I discovered Craftybase.
Kara
Kara's Vineyard Wedding

Generate useful reports
for business insight, taxes & more

Be your bookkeeper’s new favorite client — or just be a better bookkeeper for yourself. Craftybase generates traditional, bookkeeper-friendly reports that slice and dice your data into useful insights. Reports include Profit and Loss, Expenditure & Revenue, Inventory Valuation, and Schedule C (COGS).

Craftybase, overall, has helped me streamline my inventory expenses, keep consistent unit costs and allowed me to see through the Reports section, my business grow each year.
Shelby Crandell
Founder, The Soap Brewhouse

Everything a small bakery needs to run like a business, not a hobby

Everything in one place: Finally: your sales, stock, and financial data in one safe place. Your data is accessible from any Internet-enabled device, and always securely backed up.
Daily Imports from Etsy, Amazon, Wix and more...: Stop manually copying over numbers from screens to spreadsheets! Craftybase automatically imports your products and orders each night, so you’re ready to start your day.
Pricing Guidance: Know exactly how much it costs to make your bakery products! Our smart Pricing Guidance feature keeps you on top of your margins and profits, even when your COGS change
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS): Track your cost of goods sold in real time, using the data you enter. We'll even generate the numbers you need for your Schedule C at the touch of a button.
Reports & Charts: Always know how well your bakery store is doing with detailed, useful reports. No one likes staring at stacks of numbers — so we present your vital stats using easy-to-understand charts and graphs.
Low Stock Alerts: Track your exact material and product stock levels, so you know exactly when you need to order more supplies or make more product to list on your sales channels. Don't run out of stock ever again, and keep those sales rolling in!

Trusted by makers worldwide

Craftybase helps me keep my sales automatically entered into my system so that I can get on with doing the fun part: the creative products I make!
Kitty
Kitty
Oh Crumbs Bakery

Without Craftybase I would not be able to run my business properly. It tracks all my ingredients to the gramme so I can confidently price my products knowing that everything is correct and I can trace all my products to each supplier.
Lorraine
Lorraine
Lorraine's Cakery

Who is Craftybase for?

Craftybase is inventory and manufacturing software built specifically for small-batch makers and artisan food businesses.

It's designed for:

Home bakers and cottage food producers — track flour, sugar, butter, and eggs across all your recipes with automatic ingredient deductions when you log a bake.
Custom cake and cookie decorators — calculate the true cost of multi-component products (cake base + filling + fondant + decorations) so you can price custom orders confidently.
Small bakery owners selling on Etsy, Shopify, or at farmers markets — import orders from your sales channels automatically, track per-order profitability, and generate COGS reports for tax time.
Wholesale bakers supplying cafes and retail stores — manage multi-channel pricing, track lot numbers for food safety compliance, and see profit margins by channel.
Cottage food producers and farmers market bakers — manage recipe scaling and ingredient inventory without needing accounting software or a POS system. Craftybase works from any browser, with no dedicated hardware required.
Bakery businesses growing beyond spreadsheets — replace manual ingredient counts and formula-heavy spreadsheets with automated inventory tracking that updates in real time. If you're just getting started, see our guide to starting a bakery business.

Craftybase is not designed for retail-only businesses that don't manufacture products, large-scale industrial bakeries with complex ERP needs, or POS/front-of-house restaurant operations.

Dear maker...
Hi there! I’m Nicole, and I started Craftybase in 2011 as a way to help small-batch makers get more insight into (and control over) the manufacturing side of their business.
Bakers have been part of Craftybase from the very start — tracking ingredient costs, managing recipes, and getting COGS right for tax time. Today, thousands of makers use Craftybase every day, across dozens of craft verticals.
I’d love for you to give Craftybase a try and see how much time and struggle it saves you on ingredient tracking, recipe costing, and everything else that keeps your bakery running smoothly. You can start your free, full-featured 14-day trial by clicking here — no credit card or commitment required.
Nicole
Founder, Craftybase

Frequently Asked Questions About Bakery Inventory Software

What inventory tracking do bakeries need?: Bakeries need to track both raw ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, eggs, flavorings) and finished baked goods (cakes, cookies, bread, pastries). Unlike retail inventory, bakery inventory involves recipes where multiple ingredients combine into a single product. Software like Craftybase tracks ingredient quantities across recipes, automatically deducts materials when you log a production batch, and maintains real-time stock levels for both ingredients and finished goods — so you always know what you have on hand and what you need to order.
How do I calculate cost per item for baked goods?: Craftybase calculates cost per item automatically using your actual purchase prices. You set up a recipe specifying how much flour, sugar, butter, and other ingredients go into each product. Craftybase then uses your real purchase history — including price changes from different suppliers — to determine the true material cost per item. You can also factor in labor time and overhead costs. This means your per-item costs update automatically when ingredient prices change, giving you accurate pricing guidance at all times.
Can I track perishable inventory with expiration dates?: Yes. Craftybase supports lot number tracking on material purchases, which allows you to record expiration dates and supplier batch information for perishable ingredients like dairy, eggs, and fresh fruit. You can trace which lots went into which production batches, making it straightforward to manage first-in-first-out (FIFO) usage and comply with food safety requirements. If a supplier issues a recall on a specific lot, you can generate a report showing exactly which baked goods were affected.
How is bakery inventory software different from a spreadsheet?: Spreadsheets require manual updates every time you buy ingredients, bake a batch, or sell a product. With dedicated bakery inventory software like Craftybase, ingredient levels update automatically when you log production runs. Orders import directly from your sales channels. Your cost per item recalculates when supplier prices change. And you get features a spreadsheet can't offer — like lot traceability, low-stock alerts, COGS reports for tax time, and recipe-based material deductions — all without building and maintaining complex formulas.
Can Craftybase import orders from Etsy, Shopify, and other sales channels?: Yes. Craftybase connects directly to Etsy, Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce, Squarespace, Faire, and Square. Orders import automatically each night, so your inventory levels and COGS figures stay up to date without manual data entry. Each imported order gets a full profit breakdown showing material costs, labor, expenses, and your actual margin — across all the channels where you sell.

Stop running your bakery on spreadsheets and guesswork.Start your free 14-day trial of Craftybase today.

Start my free trial →

See how it works

No credit card required · 14-day full-featured trial