Wholesale Handler
Your production schedule is the merchant's view of what to make for each delivery date. Wholesale Handler reads every pending and processed order, totals up the quantities by product, and shows you one summary per day (or per week) so you don't have to flick through ten separate orders to plan the day's work. It lives at the Production schedule page in the menu, and every day's totals can be printed as a PDF to hand to whoever's preparing the orders.
What is a production schedule?
A production schedule turns a stack of customer orders into a single "what to make" list per delivery date.
If five customers between them order 42 sourdough loaves, 28 baguettes and 16 dozen eggs for Thursday, your Thursday card on the production schedule shows exactly those three lines - not five separate orders. You start the day knowing what to make in total, not what each customer wants.
How do I open the production schedule?
Click Production schedule in the menu. The page opens to today (if you use daily precision) or this week (if you use weekly precision), with a grid of upcoming delivery dates ahead of it. Use the chevron buttons either side of the grid to scroll backwards or forwards in time, or click Today / This week to jump back.
What does each day on the schedule show?
Every day (or week) on the grid is a card containing:
- The delivery date
- A lock icon showing whether the cutoff has passed
- The total number of orders placed for that date
- An aggregated product list - every product, with the total quantity needed across all customers
- A PDF button to print a hand-out for that date
Past dates fade slightly so the eye is drawn to upcoming production. Days with no orders show the reason - a holiday name if you've added one (like "Bank holiday Monday"), or a note that you don't deliver on that weekday.
What does the lock icon mean?
The lock icon shows whether orders for that delivery date are final.
LockedThe cutoff for this date has passed. Customers can no longer change, cancel or add to their orders, so the totals on this card are final. Safe to start prepping.
OpenThe cutoff hasn't passed yet. Customers can still place, change or cancel orders, so the totals may still move before the deadline.
How do I see which customer ordered what?
Click into the date on the schedule and the detail page opens. It shows the same aggregated product list as the grid card, plus a per-customer breakdown listing every customer ordering for that date and what they ordered. Each customer's order references link straight back to the order itself if you need to check anything specific.
This is mainly useful when you're moving from "make" to "pack" - the aggregated list tells you what to prepare in total, the per-customer breakdown tells you which order each item belongs to.
How do I print a production schedule?
Click PDF on the day's card on the grid, or open the date's detail page and click PDF there. The PDF lists each product with its total quantity and a checkbox - tick them off as you prepare each item. Totals match what you see on screen at the moment you generate the PDF.
If the cutoff hasn't passed yet, regenerate the PDF after the lock to make sure you've got the final numbers - any orders that came in late or got changed after you printed won't be reflected on the earlier copy.
Can I add notes to a production day?
Yes. Each production day has a private notes field on its detail page - free text, saved against that date, only visible to you. Use it for things that don't belong on any customer-facing order:
- A substitution you've agreed informally with a customer
- A delivery instruction ("leave at side gate")
- A reminder about who's picking up that day
- Anything else you'd otherwise have to remember separately
Notes are per-date, so a note saved against Thursday won't show up when you open Friday.
How does daily vs weekly precision work?
Your delivery precision setting controls how the schedule is grouped:
- Daily precision - the grid shows individual days (Mon, Tue, Wed...) and you plan production one day at a time. This suits most wholesalers - bakeries, florists, egg suppliers, fresh produce.
- Weekly precision - the grid shows weeks-commencing-Monday, and each card aggregates everything ordered for that whole week. This suits seasonal businesses where customers commit weeks or months ahead - Christmas trees, pumpkins, and similar.
You set this in Settings under delivery precision. Switching it changes the production schedule grid the next time you open the page.
What happens on holidays?
Days you've marked as a holiday show the holiday name in place of a product list - they're not orderable, so there's nothing to make.
For weekly precision, a week is only marked as a holiday if every accepted delivery day in that week falls inside the holiday range. If even one accepted day remains, the week stays orderable and the card shows the totals for the orders that did come in.
Can I look at past production schedules?
Yes. Use the chevron buttons or click Today / This week to scroll backwards through the grid - past dates stay accessible indefinitely. The detail pages for past dates also stay accessible, so you can re-print a PDF or look up what a specific customer ordered on any historical delivery date.
How Wholesale Handler handles production schedules
The production schedule is built directly from your orders, so you never enter the same information twice. Place an order on a customer's behalf and the totals on its delivery date update immediately. A customer changes their order before the cutoff and the totals change with it. The cutoff passes and the lock icon flips green - the totals are final, the PDF you print is the one you can hand to whoever's preparing the orders.
The grid view is for planning - "what's the week ahead look like?". The detail view is for prepping - "what exactly am I making on Thursday, and for whom?". The PDF is the hand-out for the bench, the field, the cool-room or the workshop - wherever the actual work happens, away from the screen.
