Coffee Tracking
By 2025, the market for gourmet coffee shops and roasters is expected to increase by 20%, or more. This article discusses why and how. We offer some advice to coffee companies about how to manage their path of prosperity via keeping a tight control over their inventory. For coffee companies, there is a lack of software that is tailored to coffee management, but Flowtrac has a software package that solves the problem.
The Growing Market
More people drink coffee than ever before, and coffee has already been one of the most traded commodities in the world. In fact, the coffee trade is almost as large as the oil trade around the world. It’s growing in popularity among younger generations. They’re acquiring a taste for specialty coffee drinks of all kinds, which the coffee shops are capitalizing on.
The Need for Inventory Management
Coffee shops may already be implementing various software. Nonetheless, inventory control can be substandard. Point-of-sale-systems and accounting software have insufficient inventory software. Something else is needed.
These coffee companies are seeing success, which presents an inventory management challenge. Spreadsheets, even cloud-based ones like Google Sheets, are not intuitive and sophisticated enough to control the flow of inventory. They need inventory software that lends itself specifically to the coffee world. Flowtrac’s inventory software solves this problem. Coffee companies need to track not just coffee/tea, but also merchandise and consumables.
Tracking Coffee: Inventory management for these companies must track coffee in more complex terms than merely quantities coffee in general. First, coffee shops need an inventory management system that can do a great job tracking various units of measure (UOM). Coffee beans are commonly ordered in one measure (i.e., size or quantity), roasted in another, and sold in another. You might order beans by the 50lb bag, roast a few pounds at a time, transfer several pounds to stores, and package the finished beans in small 10 oz bags to be sold in the shops and online. The inventory system that can make it easy to switch UOMs back and forth and never losing track of how much you have. You can know how many 50lbs bags you should buy given the number of your current sales of 10oz bags in the stores, and vice versa.
Coffee must be converted not just into different UOMs, but also different products based on the names you give each roast and lot. Additionally, each batch of roasted coffee can have roast dates associated with it, and this is tracked through lot numbers. An inventory system is needed that can manage the different coffee conversions while also integrating the ecommerce and in-store sales. Barcoding capabilities can be used to generate and print lot numbers and product numbers for each batch.
To fulfill online sales, an integrating with a shipping application is also an option. The inventory system that best fits a coffee company will help maintain the right stock levels across all their sales platforms while ensuring the fulfillment of each order.
Tracking Merchandise: It’s not just coffee that the roasters need to manage. Merchandise is a nice accompanying sales commodity. People love to have merchandise with the logo of their favorite coffee shop. Things like travel mugs and t-shirts always make for good gifts. That’s why coffee shops are capitalizing on the consumer’s desire for fun keepsakes and collectibles. An inventory system can track the merchandise being received and sold at each location including online. Online sales of coffee merchandise can combine with in-store sales so that the stock levels are managed accordingly. There is a lag from the time an order for more merch is made and the time it take the logo company to deliver the merchandise to the coffee company. However, this is not a problem when you have software that can let you know when it’s time to place an order for more merchandise to be made and sent to your shops. The inventory software will update the quantities of merchandise up receiving it, which can be received through the software’s scanning function.
Tracking Consumables: All coffee shops have consumables they need to track. Consumables refer to the products used in the production of the products and operations of the stores. These include items such as filters, cups, and lids. Consumables are not something the shops want to find themselves running low on. An inventory system is needed to make sure there’s enough consumables at every location and that a sufficient amount of consumables are being ordered without ordering too much.
Tracking Assets: Coffee roasters have assets like coffee roasting machines. Additionally, as more stores are being opened, there’s a need to track all the various machines used in the making of drinks and food at the shops such as fridges, ovens, toasters, espresso machines, coffee drip machines and coffee containers. These aren’t sold nor consumed, but they need servicing and repair, and companies need to know exactly how many of these machines they have at each store and in storage. An inventory system can ensure they track the repairs on each machine, the servicing and maintenance schedule of every machine, and what assets are assigned or moved to each location at all times.
Coffee and Flowtrac
Flowtrac offers an inventory management system that keeps track of all sellable goods, consumables, and assets. In one, easy-to-use system, companies can track the coffee/tea and also other merchandise they sell including cups, bags, and other supplies they use for their operations. Additionally, they can maintain the service and maintenance schedule of every machine and asset they use in their business across multiple store locations and storage locations.
With Flowtrac, fulfillment of orders for online sales can be scanned using mobile devices so that what might’ve taken an entire day could be done using a mobile scanner in a fraction of the time. Flowtrac’s integrations to ecommerce and shipping are also options to explore now or as a later phase in your new inventory software implementation.
Coffee companies use the software for forecasting and as a replenishment tool. The sales trends stay matched up with the right amount of products being ordered. That way there is never a risk of running out of products. The software will ensure you are ordering the right amount of product and not getting low. You can do multiple shops in one central, cloud-based system and add more shops as you grow. You can store pictures of the items so that the distribution warehouse knows they are scanning the right items. You’ll get a detailed reporting and analysis tool to run reports on as well. Flowtrac’s software solutions help coffee companies track and control their inventory. We solve the inventory challenges that come out of growing so that you can keep the fun in quality, gourmet roasting and brewing.