Customers order custom cakes on a web form that only offers pickup dates with free decorating capacity. A 50% deposit link goes out on submission, paid orders move across a production board, and a WhatsApp reminder with the balance due arrives the day before pickup.
Typical results
12/day
Decorating capacity enforced on the order form
50%
Deposit paid before an order enters production
0
Overbooked decorating days
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
Custom cake orders arrive by phone, Instagram and WhatsApp, with reference photos scattered across chats. Staff write them in a notebook and sometimes accept 18 cakes for a Saturday when the decorators can finish 12. Deposits are chased by hand, details like the inscription get lost, and customers call the day before to confirm the pickup time.
Before and after
Order admin hours per week
−83%Overbooked decorating days per month
−100%Late or missed pickups per month
−67%The automation
The web order form asks for size, flavors, inscription, a reference photo and the pickup date. The date picker only shows days with free decorating capacity (12 custom cakes a day), and each submission holds its slot for 24 hours. A 50% deposit link is sent at once. Paid orders appear on a production board with the photo attached and move from baking to decorating to ready. The day before pickup, a WhatsApp reminder confirms the time and balance due.
How it works
- 01
Customer fills the cake form
Size, flavors, inscription, a reference photo and the pickup date are entered on one web form.
- 02
Capacity check on the date
Only dates with fewer than 12 custom cakes are offered, and the new order holds its slot for 24 hours.
- 03
Deposit link sent
A payment link for 50% of the price goes out at once. Unpaid orders get a reminder and release the slot at 24 hours.
- 04
Production board
Paid orders appear as a card with the photo attached, moving from 'baking' to 'decorating' to 'ready'.
- 05
WhatsApp pickup reminder
The day before pickup, the customer gets the pickup time and the balance due on WhatsApp.
Starts from
- Custom cake order form
- Reference photo upload
Delivers
- 50% deposit link
- Production board card
- WhatsApp pickup reminder
The impact
Decorating days are no longer overbooked, because the form stops taking orders at 12 cakes. Order admin drops by about 5 hours a week, from roughly 6 hours to 1, since details, photos and deposits arrive together. Late pickups fall too, and decorators work from one board instead of a notebook and chat screenshots.
Questions about this automation
How does the form know which dates are full?
Each order holds one decorating slot on its pickup date from the moment it is submitted. The form counts the slots taken for each day before showing the date picker and hides any day that has reached 12. The owner can raise or lower the limit for a holiday week, or close a day, from a settings sheet.
What happens if the deposit is never paid?
An unpaid order gets a reminder after 12 hours, and at 24 hours its slot is released for other customers. Staff see unpaid requests in a separate column on the board, so they can call a regular customer before the slot goes instead of losing the order without noticing.
Which tools does it run on?
The order form can be built in Jotform or on the patisserie's own site, deposits go through its card processor, and the production board can live in Trello, monday or Airtable. Make connects the pieces and sends the WhatsApp reminders. This is a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages.