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Production System

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Byicecreamcalc

The Production system gives you a complete set of tools for managing your ice cream production — from tracking ingredient stock and logging batches, to planning ahead and tracing ingredients for compliance. Everything is optional: use as much or as little as you need.

You’ll find all production tools in the Production Hub, accessible from the main navigation menu.

The Production Hub

The Production Hub is your starting point. It displays six tool cards, each leading to a different part of the production system:

  • Production Planning — Schedule production runs, forecast ingredient needs, and generate work orders (Premium feature)
  • Stock Management — Track ingredient inventory, costs, and purchase history
  • Production Log — Record batch production and view your production history
  • Analytics — View production trends, costs, and ingredient usage patterns
  • Traceability — Trace ingredients forward to batches (supplier recalls) or backward from batches to supplier lots (customer complaints)
  • Recipe Sets & Labels — Group recipes together for combined labels and production reports (Premium feature)

Below the cards, a Production Overview panel shows quick stats for the current month: ingredients tracked, low stock warnings, pending orders, batches produced, production costs, and total volume.

How the Parts Fit Together

The production system may look like many separate tools, but they all connect through a simple flow. Here’s how the pieces relate to each other:

Stock is the foundation. When you add your ingredients to stock tracking and record purchases (with supplier and lot details), everything else builds on it automatically.

Recipes are what you produce. Every production batch is linked to a recipe, and the system uses the recipe’s ingredient list to calculate how much stock to deduct and what the batch costs.

Planning is optional. You can skip it entirely and produce batches directly from your recipes. But if you want to schedule ahead, the planning calendar lets you lay out your week and forecast exactly how much of each ingredient you’ll need.

Production logging happens when you mark a batch as produced. The system generates a unique batch code, deducts ingredients from stock, calculates costs, and records which supplier lots were consumed.

Traceability works automatically behind the scenes. If you record supplier lot numbers when purchasing stock, the system keeps track of which lots went into which batches — ready for you to search whenever you need it.

Two Ways to Produce

There are two paths to logging a batch, depending on whether you plan ahead or produce on the fly.

Quick Production (No Planning Required)

This is the fastest way to log production. No planning step needed — just go straight from recipe to batch.

  1. Open any recipe and click Produce
  2. Set your batch size using multiplier buttons, fixed weights, or the container calculator
  3. Use the ingredient checklist to track your progress as you weigh
  4. Click Mark as Produced to confirm

The system automatically deducts stock, calculates costs, and logs the batch with a unique batch code. For full details, see Production Logging.

Planned Production (Premium)

If you want to schedule production in advance, the Planning tool lets you lay out recipes on a weekly calendar and forecast ingredient needs before you start.

  1. Open Production Planning from the Hub
  2. Add recipes to specific days on the calendar
  3. Switch to the List View tab to see ingredient forecasts — which ingredients you need, what’s in stock, what’s short, and what’s expiring soon
  4. When it’s time to produce, click Produce on the plan card — the batch size and containers are pre-filled from your plan

Planning also supports work order generation for printing daily production sheets. For full details, see Production Planning.

Stock Management

Stock management tracks your ingredient inventory levels, costs, and purchase history. You can add ingredients to tracking, record purchases with supplier details and lot numbers, and set low-stock thresholds for alerts.

Stock is automatically deducted when you produce a batch, using FIFO (first in, first out) consumption — the oldest purchased stock is used first. The Hub shows warnings when ingredients are running low, expiring soon, or have pending orders overdue.

For full details, see Stock Management.

Production Log and Analytics

Every batch you produce gets a unique batch code (formatted as YYYYMMDD-NNN, for example 20260205-001) and is recorded in your Production Log. You can filter by recipe or time period, edit batch details like quality rating and waste tracking, and view complete ingredient usage breakdowns.

The Analytics page builds on your production history with visual charts and trend comparisons. It shows production volume over time, your most popular recipes, top ingredients by usage and cost, and compares current stats against the previous period. Filter by last week, month, quarter, year, or a custom date range.

For full details on logging and analytics, see Production Logging.

Traceability

The Traceability tool lets you trace ingredients in two directions:

  • Forward trace (supplier recall) — A supplier reports a problem with a lot. Search by supplier name or lot number to find all production batches that used it.
  • Backward trace (customer complaint) — A customer has an issue with a specific batch. Search by batch code to see exactly which supplier lots were used, grouped by ingredient.

Traceability data is created automatically when you record purchases with lot numbers and produce batches through the system. No extra steps needed.

For full details, see Production Traceability.

Recipe Sets & Labels (Premium)

Recipe Sets let you group recipes together — for example, your weekly flavor lineup. From a set, you can generate combined ingredient labels and create production reports. This is a separate Premium feature accessed from the Production Hub.

Getting Started — Recommended First Steps

If you’re new to the production system, here’s a suggested path to get going:

  1. Add your ingredients to Stock — Open Stock Management and use “Find Untracked” to add all the ingredients from your recipes in one step. You don’t need exact quantities to start.
  2. Set cost per kg — Enter the cost for your ingredients in the stock table. This enables automatic cost tracking when you produce batches.
  3. Produce your first batch — Open a recipe, click Produce, set your batch size, and click Mark as Produced.
  4. Check your Production Log — See the batch you just created, including batch code, ingredient usage, and estimated cost.
  5. Record a purchase with lot details — Next time you buy ingredients, use the Quick Add Stock button on the Stock page and fill in the supplier name and lot number. This enables traceability.

From there, explore Planning and Analytics as your needs grow.

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