Guides

How to manage wholesale coffee orders from roast to dispatch

Wholesale orders touch every part of a roastery: sales takes the order, the roaster needs to know what to roast, the packing table needs the bag and grind, and accounts needs an invoice. Most mistakes happen in the handoffs, when the same order is retyped into a new place.

Capture the order once

Record the customer, coffee, roast level, grind, pack size and quantity when the order comes in. Every later step should read from that record rather than from a message thread.

Give the order clear stages

An order that moves through named stages is easy to follow. A simple sequence works for most roasteries:

• Roasting: the coffee for this order still needs to be roasted.
• Packaging: roasted coffee is waiting to be packed.
• Ready to ship: every line is packed.
• Shipped, then delivered.

Pack line by line

Treat each order line as its own packing job, with the coffee, bag, pack size, grind and quantity in front of the person packing. When every line is done, the order is ready to leave.

Invoice from the order, review in your accounts

Create the invoice from the order record so the customer and lines are not retyped. Prices, taxes and payment collection belong in your accounting system, where they can be checked before the invoice goes out.

Keep online retail orders in view

If you also sell through an online store, keep those orders visible next to wholesale work, but decide deliberately which of them become production work. Not every web order needs its own roast.

Updated 21 October 2026