Setting up Yesoma for a bakery

Setting up Yesoma for a custom bakery or cake studio is about protecting two things at once: your production calendar and your customers' trust. This guide walks through how the bakery playbook is configured, why the defaults are set the way they are, and how to adjust them for your specific business.

1. Applying the bakery playbook

When you select "Bakery / cake decorator" during onboarding, Yesoma loads a full set of services, policies, reply templates, follow-up rules, and pricing guidance built around the custom-order model. You do not start from a blank slate.

The playbook ships with 8 services covering the most common bakery offerings: single-tier birthday cakes, multi-tier celebration cakes, wedding cakes (with tastings), cupcakes, decorated sugar cookies, dessert table packages, specialty pastry preorders, and a custom-quote tier for sculpted or dietary-specialist work. Every service has a starting-from price in USD, a deposit requirement, a list of the customer information you need before quoting, and step-by-step booking instructions.

To apply it, go to Settings and select the playbook from the Onboarding tab. Yesoma will pre-populate your Business Brain with a description seed, load all services into your service list, add policies to your workspace, import FAQ entries, and activate the reply templates. You can edit or delete any of it — the playbook is a starting point, not a lock.

After applying, do these three things immediately:

• Update the delivery radius and per-mile rate in the "Pickup vs. delivery" policy and the pickup / delivery confirmation template.
• Set your actual minimum lead times if they differ from the defaults (7 days for standard cakes, 4+ weeks for weddings).
• Add your tasting fee to the wedding tasting policy and the tasting FAQ.

2. Lead-time and deposit policies that protect production

The most common way a custom bakery loses money and reputation is accepting an order it cannot execute well in the time available. The playbook's policies are written to help you say no gracefully and early.

The lead-time policy names specific minimums by service type: 7 days for a 1-tier birthday cake, 2+ weeks preferred for multi-tier celebration cakes, 4 weeks minimum for wedding cakes (with 3 months preferred for complex designs), and 2 weeks for dessert tables. These are defaults. If your production capacity allows shorter windows, edit them. If you need longer, adjust to match reality — a policy that reflects your actual limits is far more useful than one that sounds flexible but breaks in practice.

The deposit policy is non-negotiable in the playbook's framing, and intentionally so. The 50% deposit at booking triggers ingredient ordering, blocks the date on your production calendar, and compensates you for design time if the order cancels. The 7-day balance deadline gives you time to confirm the order is financially settled before you begin decoration. If you operate on a different schedule — say, full payment on booking for smaller orders — you can edit the deposit notes on individual services. The important thing is that the policy is stated clearly before a customer books, not after a dispute arises.

The "no-availability reply" template is written to respond to inquiries where the lead time is too tight. It offers three alternatives: a later date, a simpler design that might fit a shorter window, and a trusted referral. Using this template instead of a one-line decline protects the relationship and often converts to a future booking.

3. Dietary and allergen disclosure language in templates

Allergen disclosure is one of the highest-risk areas for a food business, both legally and in terms of customer trust. The playbook includes a dedicated allergen policy and a FAQ entry that cover the same ground from two angles — the policy sets the formal terms, the FAQ explains them in plain language for customers who are browsing.

The core language in both is: our kitchen regularly handles tree nuts, peanuts, dairy, eggs, gluten, and soy. Cross-contamination is possible. We cannot certify a 100% allergen-free environment from our standard kitchen. For orders requiring strict allergen control, we offer dedicated allergen-controlled bakes at a premium, scheduled on days when conflicting ingredients are absent.

This framing does two things. It is honest about the risk, which protects you legally. And it offers a path forward for customers with serious allergies rather than just saying no — which protects the relationship and the booking.

In your reply templates, the first-reply template already asks for dietary considerations as one of its four required questions. Do not remove this question or move it lower in the list. Gathering dietary information at the very first touchpoint means you can flag concerns immediately, before a customer has gotten emotionally invested in an order you may need to decline or modify.

If you work out of a dedicated allergen-free kitchen, update the allergen policy to reflect that reality. The default language assumes a mixed-use kitchen because that is the most common setup.

4. Design-change lock and the Pinterest-cake policy

Two policies in the playbook address creative scope in ways that are worth understanding before you launch.

The design-change lock policy states that changes to design, colors, text, and flavors are welcome up to 7 days before the event. Inside that window, decoration is underway and changes are no longer possible. This deadline exists because the physical process of custom cake decorating does not allow for late pivots — fondant panels are cut, sugar flowers are dried, structural elements are set. The policy prevents the situation where a customer asks for a color change two days before the event and you have to either disappoint them or destroy work you cannot recover.

The final-design-lock reminder template fires 7 days before the event and gives the customer one explicit confirmation of what is on file (design summary, flavors, pickup or delivery details) with a note that this is the last day for changes. This template reduces last-minute panics significantly because customers know the deadline is coming and act on it.

The Pinterest-cake policy lives in the FAQ rather than the formal policies section, because it is more of a creative boundary than a legal term. The language is: we use Pinterest and inspiration photos enthusiastically, and we encourage you to share them. We do not produce exact replicas of another artist's original work — we interpret the inspiration in our own hands. This is a reasonable boundary that most customers understand and appreciate when it is explained well. The "why" matters here: a direct copy rarely translates across different skill sets and tools, and your interpretation is usually better for the customer than a replica that falls short.

5. Wedding cake tasting workflow

The wedding cake tasting is the single most important trust-building touchpoint in the wedding cake sales process, and the playbook is configured to make it straightforward.

Every wedding cake order includes a complimentary tasting. The tasting is in-studio, by appointment, and covers up to four cake-and-filling combinations. The booking step for wedding cakes places the tasting after the initial quote is accepted but before the deposit is paid — this sequence lets the couple confirm they love the flavors before committing financially, which reduces buyer's remorse and produces more enthusiastic clients.

For couples who want to taste before committing to a wedding cake booking at all, the tasting FAQ and policy both describe a paid tasting option (the fee is a placeholder you should fill in) that is credited against the order if they book within 30 days. This converts browsing couples into paying customers at a low barrier of entry.

After you apply the playbook, update the wedding cake service's booking steps with your actual tasting appointment process — whether you use a calendar link, require a phone call, or only schedule on certain days. The default language says "by appointment" because the scheduling mechanism varies by business.

Non-wedding tasting requests use the paid tasting only. This is set intentionally to protect your time — complimentary tastings are a meaningful cost when scaled across all inquiries, so reserving them for wedding orders keeps the benefit targeted.

6. What your reply templates look like in action

The bakery playbook includes eight reply templates covering the full inquiry lifecycle. Here is how they fit together in a typical custom cake order flow.

When a new inquiry arrives, Yesoma suggests the "First reply — bakery inquiry" template. It asks four questions: event date, serving count, design inspiration, and dietary considerations. All four are required before you can quote — do not trim this list. The serving count and event date tell you whether the order is feasible. The design inspiration tells you the complexity. The dietary question surfaces allergen concerns before the customer is emotionally committed.

Once you have the answers, the "Pricing reply" template gives a starting price with a transparent breakdown of what drives the cost higher. It ends with an invitation to send a formal quote, which moves the customer toward the deposit step.

The "Quote sent" template is the formal proposal. It summarizes every material detail — item, servings, flavors, design notes, dietary accommodations, pickup or delivery, total price, deposit amount, and balance due date — in one message. It also includes the 7-day design-lock reminder inline, so the customer sees that boundary at the same moment they receive the quote.

The "Deposit reminder" template is for customers who have accepted a quote but have not yet paid. It names the specific deposit amount and the payment link, and explains why the date is not held without it — in a warm tone, not a threatening one.

The "Final design lock reminder" fires 7 days before the event. It confirms everything on file and makes clear that today is the last day for changes.

The "Pickup / delivery confirmation" is sent when the balance clears or when logistics need to be confirmed. It includes all the practical details a customer needs and brief transport guidance for pickup orders.

The "Day-after thank you + review request" goes out the morning after the event. Custom cake customers are emotionally primed to leave a review — they saw the reaction, they cut the cake, they took the photos. Catching that moment within 24 hours is significantly more effective than waiting 48 or 72 hours.

The "No-availability reply" is for lead-time-too-tight or fully-booked situations. It offers real alternatives rather than a flat decline, which leaves the relationship intact.

All templates use {{customer_first_name}} for personalization and [bracket] placeholders for the details you fill in per order. Yesoma will highlight unfilled placeholders before any message is sent.