Labor shortages are creating a strain on the food industry, from large-scale manufactures to craft bakeries, and everywhere in between. With staff hours stretched thin, and managers spending their time on the production floor, it’s time to look into creative solutions to streamline tasks.

Bakery software is one way for your production to free up labor costs, while improving efficiency. Handling a wide range of administrative tasks that every food producer deals with, it’s a powerful technology to add to your business.

Here are three ways bakery software can help cover your staff shortages.

1. Speed up the busy work

While it might not be the most glamorous side of baking, paperwork is the key to a smooth and efficient business. Managing orders, ingredient inventory, and the delivery process are just a few of the tasks that are not only essential but time consuming. Online management systems can consolidate and automate many of these daily tasks so staff has more time to focus on the rest of the business. A few things bakery software can automate include:

• Invoicing
• Recipe costing
• Production and management reports

2. Reduce human error, product waste and overall costs

Manually keeping track of information like receipts or orders allows things to fall through the cracks. User error such as double entry are easy to do. One lost document or mistyped number can create hours of extra work on the production floor. This costs labor, as well as wasted products or ingredients. So moving everything online, integrated with your other systems, not only saves time but cuts down on waste. For example, with bakery software you can tighten up your purchasing and margins, and receive suggestions for areas to cut waste and increase sales with advanced analytics.

3. Looking ahead

Unfortunately, there is no way to predict the length and impact of current labor trends and staff shortages. So whether your business is greatly affected or not, the last year has shown how quickly and drastically things can change. It’s always productive to look ahead for ways to grow and now is the time to be leaning into technology. If things are slow now before the busier holiday season, it’s an excellent time to research different solutions and think about what areas your business could use help. Don’t wait until the last minute to implement something new.

Picking a software that’s right for you

There are many options for business management software out there. However, you don’t have to try and make a generic system work for food production. At Cybake we’ve designed a system specifically for bakeries. We understand how they operate, as well as their pain points. So you’ll find features ideal for wholesale and resale that will help your business run smoothly, track profits, and improve sales.

Like any new software, it will take time to train on and implement. So, now is the time to start looking into options and thinking about ways it could work for your situation. If you’d like to see our bakery software at work, set up a demo!