How do you plan production for made-to-order COD orders?
Give every order a due date, then plan from a calendar that groups orders by that date and adds up how many units of each product the day needs. In Cashod, the Planning app does this: it shows orders by due date, courier delivery date or call-back date, totals units per product per day, flags stock shortfalls and prints a production sheet for the kitchen or workshop. You confirm orders before the day, produce from the sheet, and dispatch with your own couriers or a carrier.
This guide is for pâtisseries, cake makers, caterers, custom product workshops and pre-order shops that sell with cash on delivery (COD). It walks through the setup and a simple daily routine.
Why is made-to-order COD harder to plan?
A shop that ships from stock cares about when an order arrives. A made-to-order shop cares about when the order is wanted. A birthday cake ordered on Monday for Saturday must not be baked on Monday, and a catering order for a wedding next month must not be forgotten until the day before.
Cash on delivery adds a second problem: the customer has not paid yet. Until the order is confirmed, you do not know for sure that it will be accepted at the door. Producing an unconfirmed custom cake means risking ingredients and hours on a parcel that may come back. So a good plan answers two questions for each day: what is due, and how much of it is confirmed.
Step 1: put a due date on every order
Orders reach Cashod from Shopify, YouCan, WooCommerce, LightFunnels, Storeep, xPage, a Google Sheets import, a custom webhook or the public REST API. Wherever an order comes from, the date the customer wants it is what drives your plan. You can set it in several places:
- In the order itself: the order details have a due date field you can fill or change at any time.
- During the confirmation call: the call center screen has a "Due on" field, so the agent records the date while talking to the customer.
- From a WhatsApp chat: when you create an order from a conversation, you can enter the due date there.
- Through the API: the public API accepts a scheduled_for date when an order is created, so a custom order form can send the date directly (see the developer docs).
- With the AI WhatsApp agent: when a customer says they want the order later, on a specific day, the agent reschedules it and records that date as the due date instead of confirming it now.
Planning also counts recent open orders (from the last 14 days) that have none of the dates you are viewing, under "Without a date". Check that number daily: each one is an order that will not appear on any production day until someone dates it.
Step 2: read the calendar by the date that matters
Planning is a month or week calendar. You choose which dates to show: due date, courier delivery date, call-back date, or several at once, each with its own colour. Each day shows the orders and the units per product to prepare. Above the calendar, the stats give you the number of scheduled orders, units to prepare, how many are confirmed, and how many open orders have no date.
Cancelled, duplicate, fake and abandoned orders are left out, because they will never be made. Unconfirmed orders are still shown, drawn with a dashed outline, so you can see what is coming before it is certain.
The confirmed-only view
Switch on "Confirmed only" and the calendar keeps only confirmed orders. Use it for anything that costs money: buying perishable ingredients, starting a batch, booking extra staff. Use the full view for forecasting.
Stock shortfall per day
Open a day and you get two tabs: products and orders. The products tab lists each product and variant with the quantity needed, how much is confirmed, how much is in stock, and how many units are short. The shortfall is calculated for products that track stock. For a pâtisserie this is useful for bought-in items such as boxes, toppers or candles; for a custom product shop it covers blanks and packaging.
What does a daily production routine look like?
- Morning: print the production sheet. Open today in Planning and print the production sheet. It lists what to make, product by product, so the kitchen or workshop does not need access to the dashboard.
- Midday: confirm tomorrow's orders. Look at tomorrow (and the days after, for long preparations) and make sure every order is confirmed. Anything still dashed needs a call or a WhatsApp message.
- Afternoon: dispatch what is ready. Send finished orders to your couriers or carrier, and use the call-back view to see which customers the team promised to call again.
- Weekly: export to CSV. Export the period as a CSV file to plan purchasing or share it with a supplier or partner.
How do confirmation and planning work together?
Planning is only as reliable as your confirmations. Two options in Cashod keep the dashed orders from piling up:
- A call center: agents work a confirmation queue, record the due date during the call and schedule call-backs, which then appear on the calendar.
- The AI WhatsApp agent: it confirms orders in Darija, Arabic, French, English or Spanish. It auto-confirms only when the customer clearly agrees and its confidence passes your threshold; unclear replies go to a human, and cancellations are never automatic.
How do you deliver made-to-order COD orders?
Fragile or fresh orders are often delivered by the shop's own couriers. Cashod's Delivery Runs give you a dispatch board, a mobile view for couriers, cash expected versus cash collected, and courier payouts. If you use a carrier instead, Cashod connects to built-in carriers in Morocco, Tunisia, Panama and Costa Rica, and auto-assignment rules can pick the carrier by city, amount, product or source. Details are on the delivery management page.
Should you take a deposit on large custom orders?
For a wedding cake or a large catering order, a deposit reduces the risk of a refusal at the door. Cashod lets you record an advance payment on the order: the amount the customer paid before shipping. The carrier then collects the total minus the advance, so the customer is not asked to pay twice and your COD reconciliation stays correct.
What Planning does not do
Planning is read-only. It does not create orders, move them between days or change their status. To change a date, edit the order; the calendar follows. This keeps one source of truth: the order.
Frequently asked questions
Does it work with orders from my online store?
Yes. Planning reads every order in Cashod, whatever channel it came from. The only requirement is a due date (or a delivery or call-back date) on the order.
Does it work if I run several stores?
Planning shows the store you have selected in Cashod. If you run several stores, switch store to see each one's plan.
How do I share the plan with a team that does not use Cashod?
Print the production sheet for a day, or export the CSV for a period.
Start planning your production
If you take orders ahead of time and get paid on delivery, a calendar by due date is the difference between a calm morning and a missed order. See the Cashod plans to get started.
