Industry · Bakery
POS and stock system for a Kenyan bakery
A bakery holds two kinds of stock that behave completely differently. There are raw materials — flour, sugar, yeast, margarine — bought in sacks and consumed by production. And there are finished goods, baked this morning, worth nothing by tomorrow evening. A till that tracks one quantity per product cannot describe either properly.
The result is a business that knows what it sold and not what it used. Flour is reordered when a sack looks low, the cost of a loaf is a guess based on last month's invoice, and this morning's unsold bread is given away or thrown out without ever appearing in a report. The margin per loaf — the only figure that matters — is unknown.
What solves it
Recipes that deduct ingredients
A bill of materials per product, so baking 300 loaves consumes the flour, sugar and yeast it actually took, at the price you paid for them.
Production runs
Record the bake, not just the sale. Raw materials go out and finished goods come in as one movement with a real cost attached.
Same-day expiry and write-offs
Unsold stock at close is written off against a reason and hits the profit and loss, so waste is a measured cost rather than an unexplained gap.
Order-ahead cakes with deposits
Take a part payment against a collection date, with the balance tracked as outstanding until the cake goes out.
Cost per loaf, derived
Because the recipe and the ingredient costs are both recorded, the cost of a loaf moves when the flour price moves — without anyone recalculating it.
A worked example: when the flour price moves
A 50kg sack of flour goes from KES 3,800 to KES 4,400 — a rise of KES 12 a kilo. Your standard loaf uses 0.42kg of flour plus sugar, yeast, margarine and salt, and you sell it at KES 65.
Without a recipe on the system, nothing happens. The loaf still shows whatever cost was typed in months ago, the margin report still says the same thing, and the bakery keeps selling at KES 65 in the belief that it is making what it used to. The flour rise costs about KES 5 a loaf, and on 400 loaves a day that is KES 2,000 a day — KES 60,000 a month — disappearing with no signal at all.
With the recipe recorded, the cost per loaf moves the moment the new sack is received at the new price. The margin report reflects it that week, and the decision — raise to KES 70, or accept a thinner margin on a volume line and hold the price — is made deliberately rather than discovered a quarter later. That is the whole value of a bill of materials in a bakery: it turns input inflation into something you can see.
- →Flour: KES 3,800 → KES 4,400 per 50kg sack
- →Standard loaf uses 0.42kg — about KES 5 more per loaf
- →At 400 loaves a day: roughly KES 60,000 a month
- →With a recipe on file, the cost per loaf updates itself
The features this trade leans on
Each one goes deeper than this page does — start with the first.
Stock you can trust
Batch and expiry, serial numbers, reorder levels, stock takes and the formulas behind them.
Buying, suppliers and approvals
Purchase orders, goods-received notes, supplier bills and the cost figure every margin depends on.
Reports and real accounting
Double-entry books — trial balance, P&L, balance sheet — not a CSV export to somebody else's software.
Customers and loyalty
Credit accounts that do not go missing, loyalty that returns, and a debtor list you can actually chase.
Questions from this trade
Can it deduct flour and sugar when I bake?
Yes. Each product carries a recipe — a bill of materials — so a production run of 300 loaves consumes the ingredients that run actually used and creates 300 finished goods with a real cost. Raw materials and finished stock are tracked separately, because they behave differently.
How do I account for bread that does not sell?
Write it off at close against a reason. Same-day expiry is a genuine cost of the trade, and recording it puts the waste in the profit and loss where you can see whether a line is worth baking at the volume you bake it.
Can I take orders for cakes in advance?
Yes, with a deposit against a collection date. The balance is tracked as outstanding against the customer until the cake goes out, so a part-paid order is a record rather than a note by the phone.
Will it tell me the true cost of a loaf?
Yes, and it will keep telling you as prices move. Because the cost comes from the recipe and the actual purchase prices of the ingredients, a rise in the flour price changes the cost per loaf without anyone recalculating anything.
Can I sell in the shop and take wholesale orders from kiosks?
Yes. Wholesale customers can have their own price list and buy on account, while walk-in sales run at retail prices from the same stock. Both are the same order type, so the bakery's total production and margin are visible in one report.
How long does setup take?
A single-counter duka is usually selling the same day. The work is the product list, not the software: import a CSV or let Amina create products from a supplier invoice or a photo of your price list. A multi-branch business with thousands of SKUs, opening stock counts and an eTIMS enrolment should plan a week and run the old system in parallel for a fortnight.
Can I sell online with the same system?
That is the point of it. The storefront reads the same products, the same branch stock and the same price lists as the till — there is no sync job and no separate ecommerce subscription. A web order and a counter sale move the same stock and land in the same report, tagged by channel so you can see which one is actually growing.
Will it show me my profit?
Yes, and from a real ledger rather than a sales total. Every sale posts to a double-entry chart of accounts, so you get a trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow — not a CSV to hand your accountant. Margin is visible per product, per branch and per channel, because cost is tracked on the way in through purchase orders and goods-received notes.
Try it in your bakery
Fourteen days, no card, no hardware to buy. Import your product list or let Amina build it from a photo of your price list.