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Operations guide
Run your business from one admin console
This is how we built the console that runs our farm and shop. You can see it in the portfolio. Start with orders, then add one layer at a time, and use each layer for real before you build the next.
Before you build: answer these
Every screen in the console comes from one of these answers.
- What do you sell? List every product and how it’s made: grown, bottled, packed, downloaded.
- Where do orders come from? Your site, DMs, Marketplace, in person. All of them belong in one queue.
- How do people pay? Card, a pay link by text, cash. Each one needs a way to mark it paid.
- How does it reach them? Pickup, delivery, shipping or download.
- What has to happen by when? Lead times, grow times and batch sizes. This is what turns orders into a schedule.
Build it in phases
Phase 1: Orders
One queue for every order, from every source. Add order by hand, with a tag for where it came from. Customers get an email when it’s confirmed.
Phase 2: Payments
Card checkout, pay links, cash. Then refunds and cancel requests the owner approves, so money never moves without a yes.
Phase 3: Make & stock
Track what’s on hand and what’s promised. Count back from due dates so the console tells you when to start each order.
Phase 4: Today
Turn all of it into one checklist: what to make, ship or restock next. This is the screen the owner actually lives in.
Phase 5: Shipping & reminders
Print labels from the order, send tracking automatically, and remind customers before pickup.
Phase 6: Money
Add expenses (snap the receipt), then show profit by product and month. Now tax season is a report, not a project.
Phase 7: On the phone
Wrap the console as a phone app with a ping for every new order.
Rules that keep it safe
- Lock every owner screen to the owner’s account, and keep it out of search engines.
- Keep a test mode, so you can try a change without real money or real customers.
- Add a pause switch for each product, so you can stop orders without taking the site down.
- Never let money move automatically: refunds and cancels wait for the owner’s yes.
From our build
Ours took 210 updates over four months, one phase at a time. Each phase was used for real before the next one started, and that’s why the screens are so simple.
See it running in the portfolio.
Every screen, with what it does and how an order moves through it.