Work Orders

Create and track work orders to manage your production runs from start to finish.

A work order is the central record for a production run. It tells your team what to produce, how much to produce, which recipe to follow, and when production should start and finish. As the work order moves through its lifecycle, Eleo tracks material consumption, costs, and output quantities automatically.

For example, a restaurant might create a morning work order for “20 litres Jollof Base Sauce” before the lunch rush. A bakery could issue a work order for “200 Meat Pies” every Thursday evening to cover Friday demand. Each work order ties back to a recipe, so Eleo knows exactly which raw materials to pull from stock.

Work order lifecycle

Every work order follows these stages:

1. Draft — The work order has been created but not yet started. Materials have not been reserved. You might create a draft on Wednesday for a Friday bake.
2. In Progress — Production has started. Materials are being consumed and the team is working on the order.
3. Quality Check — Production is complete and the output is awaiting quality verification before it is accepted into inventory. A juice producer, for example, might taste-test each batch at this stage.
4. Completed — The finished goods have been accepted. Raw materials are deducted and finished products are added to inventory.
5. Cancelled — The work order was cancelled before completion. Any reserved materials are released back to inventory.

Creating a work order

1. 1

   Navigate to Work Orders

   Go to Production → Work Orders and click New Work Order.

2. 2

   Select product and recipe

   Choose the product you want to produce and select the recipe to use. If the product has only one recipe, it is selected automatically.

3. 3

   Set quantity and dates

   Enter the quantity to produce and set the planned start date and due date. The system calculates the required material quantities based on the recipe ratios and the quantity you specify.

4. 4

   Review material requirements

   The work order displays the materials needed and flags any ingredients with insufficient stock. Resolve shortages before starting production or proceed and address them later.

5. 5

   Start production

   Move the work order to In Progress when your team begins production. Update the status as the order advances through quality checks to completion.

Finished stock

Completing a work order is what puts the finished goods into stock. Eleo adds the quantity you actually produced and prices it at what the run really cost — materials, labour, wastage and overhead — so your margins reflect that batch rather than an average. Complete the 200-pie work order and 200 pies appear in inventory, costed.

Because completion is the only step that adds produced stock, you don’t also need a manual stock adjustment — doing both would count the same pies twice. If the run has already happened by the time you create the work order, Eleo offers to complete it for you there and then.

Material consumption

When a work order is completed, the system automatically deducts raw materials from inventory based on the recipe’s ingredient list and the actual quantity produced. This auto-consumption feature ensures your stock levels stay accurate without manual adjustments. Complete a 200-pie work order and Eleo instantly subtracts the flour, mince, and seasoning from your stock counts.

If you need to record additional material usage or adjust quantities (for example, a cook used extra tomatoes because the first batch was watery, or substituted groundnut oil for vegetable oil), you can manually edit the consumed quantities before finalising the work order.

Outsourced work orders

For products manufactured by external partners, create an outsourced work order. These work orders track the same lifecycle but include fields for the external manufacturer, shipping details, and expected delivery date. Material consumption can be tracked at your facility (if you supply raw materials) or marked as supplier-managed. A snack brand that sends its own spice blend to a co-packer for bagging, for instance, can track the spice leaving its warehouse while the co-packer handles the packaging materials.