It is a good habit to send producers a reminder, as you are downloading reports and getting ready for distribution next day. The reminder can be the same email every week, with some variation depending on changes. As new producers sign up and join the market it is important to update the list, which FarmDrop HQ also supports you with. Emailing producers weekly the day before distribution can ease learning curves and help make sure your distribution day goes smoothly. This is also a good time to communicate about any refunds, or order issues, weather, or other collective logistics needing to be addressed.
There are different reports that can get used in different ways:
- Aggregate Producer Report or Pick List: this is a list per producer of all their orders that week, that you can print out and have on hand to double check inventory as it arrives, which is especially relevant if producers just drop and go and don’t fill each individual orders. You want to make sure they dropped everything off so you can track any human errors that occur down the line. You can remind them of where to access this report with the weekly emails, to ensure a smooth process.
- Customer Order Report or Packing List: this is a page per customer order (sometimes more than one page) that the system creates for order packing. These get printed so that either they lay flat on the tables so producers can fulfill orders as they bring in their inventory, or the market hub manager fills orders with these reports stapled onto customer bags. TIP: You can also export this as a CSV and have it handy on your computer so you can search for items and not have to look through all the bags and printed orders if a count of product gets off.
- Sales Report: all producers are paid directly via their Stripe account, and so are Market Hub Managers (pickup fees), and Delivery Drivers. At the end of the Ordering Period, you can access a MHM Sales Report to see your growth and overall sales, as well as a Settlement Report to know exactly how much has gone to your Stripe account.
Note: “All Markets” is an option for reporting under Select Market Hub for producers selling on multiple markets, this will give an aggregate total on the first page, and then a subsequent page per Market Hub Sales Report.
Take a look at our Help.FarmDrop.us site for some guidance and tech support on how to use the FarmDrop Dashboard tools:
> Guide to the Market Hub Managers Dashboard.