Bakery Management Software: The Complete Guide for Hourly Teams in 2025

Making delicious pastries is just one part of running a bakery. Just like baking a treat to perfection, so much of running a bakery depends on great time management—arranging early morning shifts, precise production schedules, and securing fresh ingredients and inventory. But the more your business grows, the more the fun of baking can be overwhelmed by the challenges of day-to-day management. 

That’s where bakery management software comes in. A good bakery operations software helps you spend less time on spreadsheets and more time perfecting your recipes.

In this guide, we'll explore the best tools available in 2025 to help you run your bakery smoothly so you can focus on the actual baking.

What is bakery management software?

Bakery management software is any tool that can help your business run more smoothly, including taking orders, managing inventory, scheduling shifts, data tracking, and customer management. 

Different software will help you with different parts of your business, so you may want more than one tool to meet all your business needs.

Bakery operations software can include core functions like:

• Schedule building and management - Create your team’s schedules and swap shifts without all the paperwork
• Time tracking and attendance - Your team’s hours are tracked automatically and accurately when they clock in and out
• Inventory and supply chain management - Track ingredients and supplies so you can restock before running out of something
• Labor cost control - Always know how much you're spending on labor so you can stay within budget
• Team communication - Share important updates with your team no matter where they are
• Payroll integration - Sync your time tracking with payroll so your team always gets paid correctly and on time 
• Compliance tools - Help you follow labor laws and food safety regulations
• Point of sale - All customer transactions can be tracked in one place
• Order management - Accept and fulfil orders with all the details you need
• Analytics - See your sales, labor, and inventory data in one place 
• Marketing - Promote your bakery and improve customer engagement

Types and features of bakery management software

Since bakery management software includes different kinds of tools, here’s a breakdown of the four main types and the kinds of features you should look out for in each.

The four types of bakery management software are:

1. Specialized inventory management software (to help track goods and ingredients)
2. Production planning software (to help with recipe and batch management)
3. POS systems with bakery features (to help with transactions)
4. Team management software (to help with scheduling and HR)

Specialized inventory management software

Bakery inventory management software helps you track ingredients, manage stock levels, and ensure food safety compliance. Accurate inventory management prevents waste and ensures you always have the necessary baking ingredients on hand.

Key features: 

• Real-time inventory tracking - Always know exactly what you have in stock and how much, so fulfilling orders can be easier
• Inventory alerts - Know when you’re running low on eggs or sugar, so you can restock before it’s too late
• Batch and lot tracking - Trace your batches, lots, and expiration dates wherever your goods are being stored and shipped, and easily recall batches when needed
• Inventory reports - See trends in your inventory data so you know what baked goods your customers love and which ones not so much

Production planning software

Production planning software helps you manage recipes, batch production, and scheduling. Using a production planning tool means you’ll always be ready for customer demand, even when demand changes.

Key Features:

• Recipe management - Store all your recipes in one place, track ingredient usage and cost, and easily create nutrition labels
• Batch scheduling - Plan ahead by mapping out which recipes to make and when, depending on demand, and see your calendar automatically updated 
• Production forecasting - Use your sales data to predict when to make which recipes so you’re always on top of customer demand and reducing waste
• Batch and lot tracking - Label new batches instantly and never lose track of your inventory levels
• Real-time reporting - Run reports any time and see what production changes you need to make to accommodate demand changes

POS systems with bakery features

POS systems with bakery features help you handle customer transactions and can integrate with your inventory and order management tools. The best POS for a bakery speeds up your transactions and organizes your sales data.

Key Features:

• Customized checkout - Make your screen easy for your team with your most-used functions and popular bakery items up top
• Versatile sales and payments - Customers can buy their favorite baked goods on your website, from a delivery app, or in person with simple, fast transactions
• Integrate with inventory - Automatically update your inventory after each sale
• Customer relationship management (CRM) - Use customer profiles and loyalty programs to offer customized promotions that make your customers feel seen
• Sales reporting - See which times are the busiest or what’s selling the best, so you can be prepared to build on the momentum

Team management software

Bakery scheduling software helps you with employee scheduling, time tracking, HR, and team communication. An effective team management tool reduces scheduling conflicts, improves staff communication, and saves you time better spent trying new recipes.

Key Features:

• Scheduling - Easily build schedules with templates and auto-scheduling, let your team swap shifts themselves, and say goodbye to no-shows!
• Time clock - Track your team’s hours automatically when they clock in and out on the app, and let it sync with your payroll so everything is calculated accurately
• Team messaging - Contact your team in the same app as their schedule and time clock, so they never miss an important update
• Payroll - Keep your team happy with paychecks paid correctly and on time, without you ever lifting a calculator 
• HR - Hire and onboard new teammates in one place without juggling a million apps

If you’re looking for bakery management software to help end your team management chaos, Homebase lets you hire, schedule, track, and pay hourly teams all in one app. 

But don’t just take our word for it:

[replace below with quote from bakery customer if available]

“Before Homebase, we were printing out timesheets and manually calculating hours. Now our lives are so much more efficient!” — Ashley Ortiz, Co-owner, Antique Taco

Try Homebase for free today.

The 8 best bakery management software options for 2025

Whether you’re just starting your business or ready for a change after years of the same issues, we have bakery management software options for you.

1. Homebase - Best for bakery team management

Who it's best for: Homebase is the best bakery software if you need an easy-to-use team scheduling and communication tool.

Top Features:

• Drag-and-drop scheduling with templates and automation that save managers 5+ hours every week
• Digital time clocks and time sheets that work on any device and auto-calculate hours, overtime, and wages
• Team messaging so everyone’s in the know and you’re not left short-staffed
• Payroll is built-in and automatically syncs with your time clock, so no manual calculations and everyone is paid properly
• All-in-one mobile app for managers and employees with no complex learning curve

Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $20/month per location.

The catch: While excellent for team management, Homebase doesn't offer inventory or production planning features.

Struggling to coordinate your team schedule with time tracking and payroll? Ditch the spreadsheets and use the one app to rule them all: Homebase. 

“I've run payroll from literally sitting on a horse, moving cattle, and submitted my payroll.” —Rob Graft, Owner, Nemesis Industries

Try out our free payroll tool designed specifically for hourly teams.

2. Cybake - Best for retail and wholesale bakeries with complex operations

Who it's best for: Cybake is the best bakery management software for medium to large bakeries needing advanced production and inventory management.

Top Features:

• Recipe management and costing
• Inventory management
• Custom online ordering
• Delivery tracking

Pricing: Contact Sales for custom pricing based on your business needs.

The catch: It may be more complex and costly than necessary for small bakeries.

3. FlexiBake - Best for bakeries with food manufacturing needs

Who it's best for: FlexiBake helps bakeries that need a bakery management software with detailed production and compliance tracking.

Top Features:

• Production management
• Inventory management
• Sales and accounting
• Shipping and delivery

Pricing: Five different paid plan options starting at $125/month.

The catch: Higher cost may not make sense for smaller operations.

4. CakeBoss - Best for home bakery businesses and small operations

Who it's best for: CakeBoss is the best bakery order management software for home-based bakers needing simple order and expense tracking.

Top Features:

• Recipe management
• Pricing calculator
• Order management and customer tracking
• Expense logging

Pricing: $149 for the first year; $20 annually thereafter.

The catch: Limited scalability and customization, and lacks advanced features. 

5. Toast POS - Best for point of sale

Who it's best for: Toast is the best bakery POS system if you need a POS tool with restaurant-grade features, but not a restaurant management software.

Top Features:

• Payment processing
• Handheld terminals
• Kitchen display screen
• Reporting and analytics

Pricing: Plans start at $120/month.

The catch: It requires hardware setup, which adds to the cost, and customers have had issues with poor customer service. 

6. BakeSmart - Best for production planning and workflow

Who it's best for: BakeSmart is for bakeries focusing on custom orders and detailed production schedules.

Top Features:

• Manage custom orders
• Production management
• Customer management
• eCommerce and POS integration

Pricing: Starts at $199/month per location with add-on features for extra costs. There’s also an initial onboarding cost of $1,999 and a $500 set-up fee for additional locations.

The catch: All the costs make for an expensive bill, and it can be complex to set up and manage for smaller teams.

7. Mountain Stream - Best for wholesale bakeries with CRM needs

Who it's best for: Mountain Stream is the best bakery management system for wholesale bakeries needing customer relationship management (CRM) and order tracking.

Top Features:

• Online ordering
• CRM for customer invoices, meeting reminders, and logging complaints
• Delivery tracking
• Reporting tools

Pricing: Starts at $299.50/month; data set up and training start at $499—the more data you have, the more this will cost.

The catch: Primarily geared toward wholesale operations and may not be best for retail-focused bakeries.

8. Craftybase - Best for inventory management and production tracking

Who it's best for: Craftybase is a small bakery management software for small and home-based bakeries focusing on inventory and cost tracking.

Top features:

• Real-time inventory management
• Schedule and forecast production
• Cost of goods sold (COGS) tracking
• Batch tracking

Pricing: Four different paid plans, starting at $24/month or $240/year.

The catch: Craftybase isn’t a full team or POS system, so you’ll need other tools for scheduling, payroll, and customer transactions. 

If you’re looking for payroll options, here’s a list of the best payroll services for small businesses.

Using bakery software to conquer scheduling nightmares

Running a bakery means working on a tight clock—early-morning dough prep, mid-day rushes, and perishable goods that won’t wait. And when your team schedule isn’t rock solid, even one small mix-up can throw off your entire day. 

That’s where the right bakery management software can make a big difference.

Scheduling mistakes and confusion → Solution: Schedules with automatic reminders

• When shifts aren’t clearly communicated, you risk under- or over-staffing the front of house or production team.
• Homebase offers drag-and-drop scheduling with built-in shift reminders via text or app, so every team member knows exactly when they’re needed.

Last-minute call-outs → Solution: Let employees trade shifts themselves

• Someone calls in sick 20 minutes before their shift, and you’re stuck baking and running the register.
• With Homebase, employees can trade shifts directly in the app. You just approve the swap—no frantic texts or missed shifts.

[insert related customer testimonial if available]

Seasonal staffing fluctuations → Solution: Use labor reports to predict busy periods

• You know your busy periods, like the holidays, but sudden slowdowns make it hard to plan ahead.
• Use labor reports in Homebase to predict your busiest times, so you can build smarter schedules that match demand.

High employee turnover → Solution: Attract and retain great people with tools and perks they’ll love

• Staffing shortages are common across the baking industry. And in bakeries, turnover hits hard because all your baking schedules will be thrown into chaos.
• Homebase helps you keep your team happy with built-in tools like easy scheduling, team messaging, and early wage access—perks that keep your best bakers coming back.

Rising labor costs → Solution: Set labour cost targets and alerts to prevent overspending

• When you’re running a busy bakery, extra hours and overlapping shifts can sneak up fast. 
• Set labor cost targets in Homebase and get real-time alerts when you’re about to overspend.

Payroll processing errors → Solution: Sync your time clock with payroll

• When you’re juggling baking and running a business with manual timesheets, some miscalculations might sneak in there.
• Homebase syncs hours worked directly to payroll, so employees are paid accurately, and you stay stress-free on payday.

[insert related customer testimonial if available]

Labor law violations → Solution: Get alerts for breaks and overtime limits

• Bakeries are busy places, but forgetting to schedule breaks or exceeding overtime can cost you fines. Last year, child labor violations resulted in over $15.1 million in penalties.
• Homebase tracks breaks, calculates overtime, and sends alerts when someone’s approaching their limit on working hours, so you won’t have to worry about labor violations.

Get your mornings back with Homebase

When every minute matters—from proofing the dough to the morning rush—you don’t have time for clunky spreadsheets or broken communication. You need bakery scheduling software that does the work for you and does it right.

Here’s how we can help a team like yours:

• Save 5+ hours a week with drag-and-drop scheduling so you’re prepared for early morning shifts and variable production needs
• Avoid last-minute scrambles and delays to your production process by letting your team swap shifts and find their own coverage
• Stay in budget on labor costs with automatic alerts when employees approach overtime thresholds
• Keep your team in sync with messaging and scheduling in a single app, so everything from dough prep to customer pickup times is covered
• Stay compliant and avoid costly penalties with built-in break tracking and automatic alerts for overtime limits

The right bakery management software makes it easy to stay organized and keep the pastries (and your team) rolling on time.

“The fact that the time card collection is built right into the same app is really helpful. The seamless way the data goes over to Quickbooks and I can run payroll with a couple button clicks is great.” — Keith Zimmerman, Owner, Plum Creek Farm

Ready to spend less time scheduling and more time baking? Try Homebase for free and see the difference it makes.

FAQs about bakery management software

What software do bakeries use? 

Bakeries use a combination of tools depending on their size and needs. Popular options include team management software like Homebase, inventory and production tracking tools like Cybake and FlexiBake, and POS systems like Toast for handling sales and customer transactions.

What is the best billing software for a bakery?

For bakeries, the best billing or invoicing software often comes bundled with POS systems, like Toast, while platforms like Cybake support wholesale order billing.

What is a bakery management system?

A bakery management system is a set of digital tools that help automate and organize bakery operations, like scheduling, time tracking, inventory, payroll, and production planning. The goal is to make daily tasks easier and more efficient for managers and employees.

What is the best bakery system?

The best bakery system depends on your specific needs. Homebase is ideal for small to mid-sized bakeries that want better scheduling, time tracking, and team communication. For bakeries with complex production and inventory needs, Cybake or FlexiBake may be better fits.