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One form, every detail, before you say yes.
A cake order form is the list of questions you would ask anyway, asked once, in order, before the customer has your promise. Below is the template we use: twenty-two fields in six groups, with the reason each is there and an example of a good answer. Print it, copy it into Google Forms, or put it behind a link.
It is built for custom cakes, but it works for cupcakes, cookies, dessert tables and anything else made to order for a date. Full disclosure: we make Rapid Cart, an order link, and the last section is about it. Everything before that works on paper.
1 · The template
The fields, and why each one is there
Fields marked required are the ones an order cannot be made without. The rest can be optional, but leave them on the form: a customer who has the answer will give it, and it saves a message later.
About you
| Field | Why it is there | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Name required | Who the order is for and who you are talking to. | Aoife Murphy |
| Phone required | The one channel that works on the morning of the event. | 087 123 4567 |
| Where the confirmation and the invoice go. | aoife@example.com | |
| How did you find me? | The only free marketing data you will ever get. One tick box. |
The cake
| Field | Why it is there | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Occasion required | Changes the design, the wording and how forgiving the date is. | Fourth birthday |
| Servings or size required | Ask for people, not inches. Customers know how many are coming; they do not know tin sizes. | About 20 people |
| Sponge and filling required | Offer your list as tick boxes. A free-text box here gets “chocolate” and nothing else. | Vanilla sponge, raspberry jam, vanilla buttercream |
| Finish | Buttercream, fondant, drip, naked. Your list again. | Buttercream, smooth |
| Colours | Two or three words. “Pastel” means five different things. | Sage green and cream |
| Wording on the cake | Exactly as it should appear, spelled by them. You are not responsible for their spelling if you copy it. | Happy 4th Birthday Cara |
| Design notes | The one free-text box. Theme, characters, anything to avoid. | Dinosaur theme, no fondant figures please |
| Reference photo | Ask for one; say clearly that you make your own version of it, not a copy. | One image attached |
Allergies and dietary needs
| Field | Why it is there | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Allergies among the guests required | Asked even when the answer is none. A blank is not an answer; “none” is. | One guest with a nut allergy |
| Dietary needs | Vegan, gluten-free, egg-free: what you offer, as ticks. | None |
In Ireland and the UK a food business has to be able to say which of the fourteen major allergens a product contains, however small the business. The question on the form is how you find out what matters to this customer; your own allergen statement, on the form and on the invoice, is how you tell them what is in the cake. If you bake in a kitchen that handles nuts, say so on every order.
Date and handover
| Field | Why it is there | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Date needed required | The date of the event, not the day they want to collect. | Saturday 12 October |
| Collection or delivery required | Two tick boxes. Delivery opens the next three fields. | Collection |
| Time | A window you offer, not a free choice. | Between 10 and 11 |
| Delivery address | The full address, including Eircode or postcode. | 12 Main Street, Douglas, Cork, T12 AB34 |
| Who will accept the delivery | A venue and a name. Cakes have been left with the wrong reception desk. | The Glen Hotel, ask for Siobhán |
Money
| Field | Why it is there | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | Optional, and a range. It stops you designing a €120 cake for a €60 customer. | €80 to €100 |
| Quoted price | Filled in by you, once you have read the rest. | €95 |
| Deposit paid, and how | Amount, date and method. The order is not booked until this line is. | €30 by Revolut, 20 September |
| Balance due | A date, before the handover, not at it. | By 10 October |
Agreement
Five short lines, printed on the form, with one tick box that says the customer has read them. They are the five policies every made-to-order business ends up needing, and the form is the cheapest place to state them:
- Lead time. “Orders need at least seven days’ notice.”
- Deposit. “A 30% deposit books the date and is not refundable.”
- Changes. “Design changes are welcome up to five days before the date.”
- Delivery. “Once the cake is handed over, its care is yours.”
- Allergens. “Made in a kitchen that handles nuts, eggs, milk, gluten and soya.”
On paper, add a signature line and the date. On a web form, the tick box does the same job.
2 · Using it
Three ways to put the form in front of customers
On paper
The PDF beside this article is the form above laid out on two A4 pages. Print a stack for the market stall and the kitchen counter. It is the right version for a customer standing in front of you, and the wrong one for everybody else, because nobody photographs a form and sends it back.
In Google Forms
Free, and better than a chat. Make each group above a section, use the checkbox and dropdown question types for anything with a list, the date type for the date, and file upload for the reference photo. Two things it cannot do: it will not stop the same customer asking again in your DMs, and every answer lands in a spreadsheet you have to go and read. Turn on email notifications for new responses, or you will miss one.
Behind a link
An order link is the web form with the follow-up built in: the customer fills in the fields, you get the order in one place with an email, and the customer is told when it is accepted, declined or ready. That is what Rapid Cart is, and the last section covers it. The fields are the same either way; the difference is what happens after the customer presses send.
3 · Why bother
The four orders this form prevents
- The cake for the wrong day. “Saturday” in a message on Monday meant this Saturday to one of you and next Saturday to the other. The form has a date.
- The cake for twice as many people. “A birthday cake” became forty guests on the day. The form asks how many.
- The cake nobody paid for. Agreed in a chat, no deposit, and they changed their mind on Thursday. The form has a deposit line, and an order is not booked until it is filled.
- The cake with the allergen in it. Nobody asked, because nobody asks every time. The form asks every time.
If you want to know what to charge once the form is in, the costing guide works it out from your ingredients and your hours.
4 · If you want the link version
The same form as a Rapid Cart order page
This section is about our tool. Everything above works without it.
- Sign up and your order page exists at an address like rapidcart.co/o/aoifes-cakes. Put it in your bio, your automatic replies and on the printed form as a QR code.
- Customers fill in the fields above on their phone. They do not make an account. They get a reference and a page to check the status.
- You get an email and a dashboard entry per order, with every field filled in. Accept, decline or mark it ready with one tap, and the customer is told automatically.
- The deposit and the balance are still agreed between you the way you do now. It does not take payment.
Fourteen days on the trial with no card, then plans from a few euro a month. If a paper form or Google Forms is working for you, keep it.
A field you think is missing, or one you would drop? We would genuinely like to hear it: info@rapidcart.co
Why “ingredients times two” pays you nothing for the afternoon, the four costs a fair price has to cover, and a worked example from flour to a per-cupcake price.