Operations: How to Run a Production Day

RoasterTools Operations is where your production team plans, roasts, packages, and fulfills orders every day. This article walks through each step of a production day — from reviewing orders in the morning to shipping them out the door.

High Level Overview of a Production Day

Below is the high level overview of the steps you'll be taking throughout a production day. Refer to the detailed sections below for specifics on any step.

Step 1: Review and approve orders

Orders arrive in pending status — whether they come through the Wholesale Portal, a commerce connection like Shopify, or are entered manually. Pending orders are not included in production planning. You need to approve them into ready status before they'll show up in Auto Plan.

Approving from the Orders page

1. Go to Sales > Orders.
2. Review orders in the Pending tab.
3. Select the orders you want to include in today's production.
4. Click Actions > Approve Orders.

Check Commerce Orders

If you have auto import turned on, commerce orders automatically import into pending tab on orders page. If you don't have it turned on all commerce orders will be in the commerce page, both importable and non importable.

You should still check the Commerce Orders page each production day.  There are a few ways to get to the commerce page:

• Orders page > Commerce order button on top right
• Home page > Commerce order button on the "Open Orders" chart
• Operations Dashboard > Commerce Order button on left side

Once there:

1. Select importable order and import them

2. View non Importable orders (click the 👁️) and see what needs to be done to import them (typically mapping).  See our help doc on troubleshooting commerce orders here.  

Print Invoices or Packing Slips

You can print packing slips or invoices from the orders page, either individually or in a batch.

1. select orders and choose Batch Actions > Print Invoices or Print Packing Slips.

Review Orders - Schedule Page

This page is helpful to get a high level overview of the demand for the day and make adjustments on orders based on your roastery's capacity.  Some teams heavily use this page, and others barely use it. It depends on your process and need to move orders around.

1. Go to Operations > Schedule Orders.
2. Select pending orders and click Approve Orders.

1. Review orders.
2. You can select the view of Today, Tomorrow, This week or Next Week

3. Select orders to see the total demand for those orders broken down by the the total green weight, roasted weight, and per-variant breakdown on the right side in the Demand Calculator.

   Select the ^ to expand details of each section of the Demand Calculator.

4. On this page you can also update the production day by selecting an order and then clicking the calendar icon next to the number of orders, or by dragging and dropping the order to a different day

Step 2: Export Wholesale Order Data to Shipstation

Each wholesale order has a delivery method.  If you use Shipstation and have the integration setup, orders with methods set to be exported will show up on the page "Create Shipping Labels".

1. Go to Operations > Create Shipping Labels
2. Select Export Orders.
3. Once they've exported the order data will show up in Shipstation.
4. In shipstation, you can create the labels.
5. If the order had a Live Shipping Rate, the shipping charges will sync back to the invoice once the label is created.

Step 3: Count inventory

Before planning, verify that the system's inventory matches what's physically on the shelf. This step keeps your production plan accurate.

1. Go to Operations > Count Inventory.

   The page is organized into four tabs:

   Roast (loose roasted coffee)

   Blend (post-roast blends)

   Package (bagged products)

   Other (non-coffee items like merchandise and supplies).

2. Review inventory for each item. If any numbers don't match what you see on the shelf, update the count directly on this page.
3. Click Update Inventory to save changes.

Step 4: Plan production

The planning page is where you are creating and reviewing the production plan for the day.  Auto Plan looks at your orders, current inventory, and roast/blend/packaging settings to calculate exactly what tasks need to be created for the day.

Each tab on the Planning page will show the data for demand, current inventory, created tasks, outstanding (how much you'll be short) and expected carryover (what's left after fulfilling orders) for each item.  

On the planning pages you can manually add tasks, delete tasks and use the Auto Plan button to automatically plan tasks to meet your demand for the day.  

How to Use Auto Plan and Update Tasks:

1. Go to Operations > Plan Tasks.

2. Click Auto Plan.

   This will create the tasks necessary to fulfill the demand on the orders

3. Review the planned tasks for each tab: Roast, Blend, Package and Bundle.   

• Add a Task: If you want additional inventory of any item, click the (+) to Add Task to create them manually.
• Delete a Task: Click a task box to select it. a Trash can icon will appear above the header box.  Select the trash icon to delet.
• Filter Tips: To narrow the list, use the "packages with demand" filter to only see items that have demand (are on orders) today.
• Pagination: Each planning page will only list 20 rows before the pages become paginated.  Make sure to review all pages or use the filters to narrow down what is displayed.

Step 5: Complete Tasks

The Planning Pages focuses on creating the task lists for the day.  

The Tasks Pages are the to do lists for the day and where tasks are completed.

This is where your production team spends most of the day as they compelte the tasks - roast, blend, and package.  

1. Go to Operations > Tasks.
2. Work through tasks in the tab order — this mirrors the flow of production:

3. Complete Tasks  
   • Tasks will turn green when they are completed.
   • You can complete individual tasks by selecting the circle in the task box
   • You can select multiple or all task boxes and bulk complete
     • select anywhere on the task box, select each task you want to complete as a batch
     • or - select box to select all then then mark all as complete

Helpful things to know

• Unchecking tasks: Click a completed task again to uncomplete it. If downstream tasks were already completed (e.g., packaging after roasting), uncomplete those first.
• View incomplete: Use this filter to hide finished tasks and focus on what's left.
• Leftover tasks: Anything not checked off today will carry over to tomorrow.
• Adding Tasks that weren't planned : If your team may complete additional tasks that weren't on the plan, no problem.  We just want to make sure they're refelcted in the system. If they bag up extra coffee or the roaster roasts and extra batch, just add a task for it and complete it. This keeps inventory accurate.

Step 6: Fulfill orders

The Fulfill page connects packaged products to specific customer orders. We define "fulfill" as assigning the product to an order (such as putting it in a shipping box or delivery crate).  Shipping is when the order leaves your hands.  

Mark orders as fulfilled.  

Note: You need packaged inventory of an item before you can fulfill it.

1. Go to Operations > Fulfill.
2. Mark items as fulfilled for each order.
3. Once all items on an order are fulfilled, it moves to the Fulfillment tab on the Orders page and is ready to be marked as Shipped in the shipping task.

Sorting and filtering

Switch between views depending on your workflow and needs.

Sort the Page:

Filter:

To narrow down what you see on the Fulfill page you can apply filters. There are many filters to choose from.  A few common ones are:

Delivery Method - Choose to see orders for a specific delivery method (UPS, local delivery, pickup)

By retail/wholesale - Separating commerce fulfillment from wholesale

Step 7: Ship orders

Once an order is assigned to the order in the fulfilled tab, it is ready to leave the roastery.  This could be via shipping, delivery or pickup.  You can mark it as shipped when this step is completed.

1. Go to Operations > Ship.
2. Select fulfilled orders and mark them as Shipped.
3. Print packing slips or invoices from this page if needed.

Shipped orders move to the Shipped tab on the Orders page.

The next handoff is typically to whoever manages payments and accounting - syncing orders, collecting payments, and handling adjustments.

Step 8: Sync to accounting and collect payments

To view details for these steps view our other help articles.

• Accounting: How to Sync Orders to your Accounting Platform
• RoasterPay: How to Process Payments

Tips & FAQs

Q: How long does morning planning take once we're up and running?

A: Usually about 10 -30 minutes, depending on your process and roastery.  Reviewing orders, checking inventory, and running Auto Plan becomes quick once your team has the routine down.

Q: Do I have to complete pre-blend tasks?

A: No. Pre-blend is optional. If your team blends greens and roasts in one step, just complete the roast task — the pre-blend is skipped automatically.

Q: Does the Operations dashboard update in real time across terminals?

A: Not instantly. If someone makes changes, other terminals should be refreshed. Get in the habit of refreshing your page before starting work.

Q: What does the Count Inventory page show?

A: Only items with demand for today — not your full inventory. It's designed for a quick morning check. For full inventory management, go to Inventory in the main navigation.

Q: Can my roaster override a batch size on the fly?

A: Yes. Create a new task with the actual weight, complete it, and delete the original. The system adjusts inventory based on what you actually roasted.