Guide to Cake Matrix R

1. Guide to Cake Matrix R By Alice Keeler www.selfservebaker.com

2. Start on the pricing tab. Don’t touch anything in yellow!

3. On the time tab you can make a list of your different levels of pricing. Basic codes are b for basic, c for medium, d for difficult and w for wedding. The base charge will automatically adjust according to the chart. OR you can write whatever base charge you want into the dark blue base charge cell. The base charge is what you pay yourself per wilton serving before costs or extras are considered

4. On the assumptions tab you can change the size of your slice of cake, which will adjust the number of servings, otherwise the wedding slices according to the wilton chart is defaulted.

5. The time tab allows you to enter the amount of time to work on the cake so that the decorating hours is automatically calculated. This is just a suggestion, you will want to from your own experience enter the number of hours you think it will take you. The price per hour assumes you are renting a kitchen and need to pay overhead. You may want to put in $1 or $2 an hour to cover electricity, soap and other overhead that is difficult to quantify. This is not calculated into profit

6. Price to quote and the price with tax. Shows the price per serving based on the adjusted servings. First price per serving is divided by all servings, second price per serving is withOUT the top layer.

7. Use the price per serving if you have a set price that you charge. This will override many of the calculations for the spreadsheet so it is not recommended. Put a y for top layer free if you don’t want the top layer to be considered in the price per serving. This is only if you are using the pink price per serving override.

8. This tax rate is referred to in other places so enter you correct tax rate for your area

9. Do you charge extra for fondant? Enter the percent extra you charge for a fondant cake. If you use Marshmallow Fondant put a y for MMF, the cake costs will be adjusted.

10. What percent extra do you charge for extra decorations? Putting a percent here doesn’t charge the percentage, you have to denote that lower down on the page. Do you charge extra to stack the cakes? You have to note the layers that are tiered below for this charge to be included.

11. If you accept credit cards have pay credit be defaulted. You can leave blank or put a y if you are including credit into your costs. This way you can give customers a discount for paying cash (you have to write out no)

12. If Rental Fees and Refundable Deposit are automatically included in the rental tab.

13. How much do you charge per mile to deliver a cake? Don’t just consider gas but also wear and tear on your car. My reg. day job reimburses me 40 cents a mile so if you find out what a local business reimburses it’s employees per mile for this might give you an idea. Do you charge to set up the cake?

14. Gumpaste is listed on the gumpaste tab. Do you charge the same per serving for cupcakes as the cake? One cupcake is considered one serving. You could go over 100% if your cupcakes are fancy and you charge more.

15. Do you charge the same per serving for sheet cakes? Put the percent you will charge of the base charge. Some people charge extra for square cakes, do you have a premium charge? Put the percentage here for what you charge extra.

16. What type of cake pans do you use? See the assumptions tab for the different types of cake pans and what number they are associated with. Enter a 1 for 2 inch pans, 2 for 3 inch pans, 3 for square pans, etc… The number of servings and costs will automatically be adjusted.

17. Enter the number of layers for each size that you making.

18. Enter a Y for each cake that is a square cake that you want to charge the square cake charge. This is NOT in place of changing the cake pan type to (3) square pans.

19. If the cake has extra decorations put a y for yes to incur the extra decorations charge.

20. Put the NUMBER of layers that are tiered! Some of your cakes might be satelite cakes so you can’t just mark y, you must enter a number. Most cakes are 2 layers so if you have one ten inch cake, you would put down a 2 for the 2 layers.

21. Do you tort your cake? Do you want to CHARGE for fillings? The wilton guide includes enough frosting for one tort and frosting and decorating so one tort might already be included. If you are doing additional torts you might want to consider listing the ADDITIONAL and not the total number of torts.

22. Once you’ve entered in all of the information on the cake this tells you how much profit you have earned and how much per hour that works out to if you entered in a number of hours.

23. Move to the next tab “Info to know”

24. This is just a summary page, nothing to do here. Info only!

25. Referring to the respective cake, frosting and filling tabs where you can enter in your recipes. Enter in the number of the type of frosting you are using. The price is automatically considered from said tabs.

26. IF above the number of calculated cake, frosting and filling units you want to add additional units indicate the additional units to charge for here.

27. Enter in the number of each item you use. One cake circle is defaulted when you enter in layers on the pricing tab, but if you have multiple cakes of the same size you will need to indicate here.

28. If you have items you use catalog them under the items list. Then indicate the number you use.

29. How many dowel rods do you use?

30. Do you want to include a cake plate or do you ask for the cake plates back?

31. Do you want to charge EXTRA fondant beyond what is automatically calculated? Also you want to check your prices for everything including how much it costs you to make marshmallow fondant.

32. Enter in the actual price that you pay for items. $1 for paper towels and $1 for ziplock bags are automatically calculated (you can override), I do this to account for cleaning supplies (soap, paper towels, ziplock bags, etc… ) that are difficult to actually quantify.

33. Move to the extras tab.

34. Do you have a specific per serving charge for different types of items? Make a list and the price per serving you want to include. If you are including those mark with an x.

35. Move the cakes tab.

36. Not much to do on this page. Most of the values are automatically taken from the assumptions tab. If you want to change the number of servings do not do it on this page!

37. The customer page is your invoice to print for the customer. Replace my logo with your logo, enter in your business and contact info below the logo. The page is set up so you can put information to the right (column K+ and it won’t print. So I will put my own notes about the order and any sample cake pics that the customer sends me off to the right)

38. Most of these values are automatically inputted, however you can easily override the values to reflect what you want it to reflect.

39. The friend tab is almost identical to the customer tab. Use this tab if you are discounting the price. The info from the customer tab are automatically copied over.

40. Enter the price you are going to charge instead of the calculated price. This helps your friends and customers to know that they are getting a deal and not to always expect such a bargain rate. The percent of discount is automatically calculated. IF you want to give a percent discount instead do it off to the right and the quoted price will automatically be calculated.

41. If you have different rates for different types of cake make a list of codes here. Your CODES must be alphabetical. Consider the number of minutes in the chart and adjust for the minutes it takes you.

42. On the rental tab list your items that you have available to rent out. If you are renting out the item mark it in columns A and B. The rental costs will automatically be considered in the final price.

43. Use these arrows to see more tabs.

44. Put your cake recipes onto the cake tab. Each recipe is numbered based on what you enter in the green cells. Make sure you enter the cup yield.

45. Unit conversion can be tricky. What do you multiply by to get from the bulk units to the units you are using in your recipe. Go to www.ask.com and type in convert ounces to pounds (or whatever units you need) and it will give you a conversion rate.

46. These are the types of cake pans. You can change the names here.

47. If you are not doing wilton wedding sizes enter in your sizes. The volume isn’t really the volume but is surface area.

48. These are the servings according to the wilton chart. If you want to change those you can do that here.

49. It is assumed that there are 4 ounces of filling for a 6 inch cake. The rest of the numbers are mathematically calculated. If you use a different number of ounces for a 6 inch cake enter into the blue cell and the rest of the values will change automatically.