From: Marco Aju marco@cacaoixchel.gt Subject: Inventory and order system
Hello,
I run Cacao Ixchel, a small chocolate maker in Coban, Guatemala. We source cacao from six farms in Alta Verapaz, ferment and process it ourselves, and sell single-origin bars to about thirty specialty shops in the US, Germany, and Japan, plus a few restaurants locally.
Right now I track everything in spreadsheets -- farm deliveries, batch records, inventory levels, customer orders. It worked when I had five customers. Now I have thirty and I can't keep up. Last month I double-allocated a batch -- promised the same bars to Portland and Tokyo. That can't happen again.
What I need:
- Inventory tracking from bean to bar. I want to see what cacao I have from each farm, what stage it's at (fermenting, drying, roasting, finished bars), and what's available to sell.
- Batch traceability. Which farm's cacao went into which batch, which bars came from that batch. My customers care about provenance.
- Order management. When a shop orders, I allocate specific inventory. No double-selling.
- Order status tracking. Confirmed, in production, shipped, delivered.
- Simple enough for my staff. They're chocolate makers, not computer people.
Marco Aju Cacao Ixchel, Coban