How do I track market day sales and profit?

Record each market day as one sale: gross takings, the cost of the goods you sold and the costs of being there, mainly the stall fee. Takings minus those costs is what the day made. Record cash and card together, and write the figures down the same evening while the float and the card reader totals are in front of you.

A worked market day

That A$730 still has to pay for your time. Ten hours of baking the day before and nine hours at the stall at A$30 an hour is A$570, which leaves A$160 of profit. A market that looks busy can be a poor day once the hours are counted, which is exactly what the numbers are for.

What to record each time

• Takings, split by payment method. Card reader totals and counted cash, less your opening float.
• What you sold, by product. Bake count minus what came home. This is what tells you the brownies outsell the cupcakes at one market and not another.
• Cost of goods. From your product costs, not a guess.
• The cost of being there. Stall fee, any commission, parking.
• The market and the date. So you can compare markets and seasons.

After six or eight markets, the comparison answers the real questions: which markets are worth the Saturday, which products to bake more of, and how much to bake so less comes home.

In ibakepro

ibakepro records a market day as a quick sale on every plan: date, market or event name, takings, cost of goods and extra costs such as the stall fee, with tax worked out from your own settings. Add the products you sold and ibakepro can take them off your stock as well. Quick sales report by sale type with revenue and profit, so market, counter, online and custom orders sit in one set of books and you can see which channel is carrying the business.

Because ibakepro already knows what each product costs to make from what you paid for its ingredients, the cost of goods you enter is a real figure rather than a guess. See recipe costing, and for the whole-business view, is my bakery actually making money.