Does Square have a kitchen prep sheet?

No. Square has no kitchen prep sheet and no to-bake report. Square records and reports on individual orders and individual sales; it does not roll them up into a single production number per item for a date. Bakeries fill the gap three ways: counting off the orders on paper, rebuilding the totals in a spreadsheet each morning, or letting CafeKit assemble the sheet for them.

What is a to-bake report?

A to-bake report is a single list of what to produce for one day: each item and the total quantity needed, with every order for that day already added together. If three preorders each contain 2 chocolate cupcakes and 1 cinnamon roll, the to-bake report reads Chocolate Cupcakes 6, Cinnamon Rolls 3. It is the same thing bakeries call a prep sheet, batch list, or production list.

Why do my Square totals land on the wrong day?

Square attributes a sale to the day the order was placed, not the day the customer is picking it up. An order taken Monday for a Friday pickup counts toward Monday. That inflates Monday and leaves Friday's prep sheet short. A prep sheet has to count each order on its fulfillment date instead, which is what CafeKit does.

Can I build a prep sheet from a Square CSV export?

Yes, and it works. In the Square Dashboard go to Orders, filter by date range, export the CSV, open it in Excel or Google Sheets, filter to the fulfillment date you care about, then use SUMIF or a pivot table to group by item and sum quantities. The catch is that it is manual every single time, and any order that arrives after you export is missing from the sheet.

Does a prep sheet include walk-in sales as well as preorders?

Preorders are the committed part and are known in advance. Walk-in demand has to be estimated. CafeKit lists preorder totals separately from a forecast built on your own Square sales history for that item on that day of the week, so you can see which part of the number is already sold and which part is a projection.

Guide

Square Kitchen Prep Sheet

How to Get a To-Bake Report Out of Square

Every morning the kitchen needs one number per item: how many to make. Square holds all the orders that answer it, but there is no report that adds them up. Here is what a real prep sheet needs, why Square won't produce one, and the two ways bakeries get one anyway.

Written by Zech Campbell, founder of CafeKit and former Square engineer. Read his story. · Published Aug 25, 2026

Short Answer

Square has no kitchen prep sheet and no to-bake report. There is nothing to run that tallies unfulfilled or future preorders into one production number per item for a date. Square reports on individual sales; adding them up is left to you.

Two ways to get one: export your orders to a CSV and total them in a spreadsheet, or connect CafeKit and pick a bake date to see the totals already assembled.

The spreadsheet route The automatic route

The Requirements

What a Prep Sheet Actually Needs

A list of orders is not a prep sheet. Four things separate the two.

One row per item, not per order

Nobody bakes an order. They bake 6 chocolate cupcakes. Every order containing that item has to collapse into one number.

Counted on the day it's due

An order taken Monday for Friday pickup belongs on Friday's sheet, not Monday's. Order date and bake date are different dates.

Current as of right now

Orders keep arriving after you build the sheet. A prep sheet that was accurate last night is wrong by 6am.

Committed separated from expected

Preorders are already sold. Walk-in demand is a projection. Mixing them into one figure hides which part you can trust.

The Gap

Why Square Won't Give You One

Square is built to record transactions well. A prep sheet asks a different question.

Reports are built around the sale, not the item

Square's order views show you orders. You can open them one at a time and read what's inside, but there is no view that turns twenty orders into a per-item total for one day.

Sales land on the order date

A preorder counts on the day money changed hands. For a bakery taking orders a week out, that puts the whole week's production on the wrong days — today looks busy and Saturday looks empty.

Bundles stay bundled

"Dozen Assorted Cookies" is one line on a Square order. The kitchen needs to know it is 4 chocolate chip, 4 oatmeal, and 4 snickerdoodle. Somebody has to unpack that by hand.

Option 1

Build It Yourself in a Spreadsheet

This works. It's free. It's also a chore you repeat every day.

1 In your Square Dashboard, go to Orders and filter to the date range you're prepping for.
2 Export the orders as a CSV.
3 Open it in Excel or Google Sheets and filter the rows to the fulfillment date you're baking for — not the order date.
4 Use SUMIF or a pivot table to group by item name and sum the quantities. That column is your prep sheet.

Where it breaks

•Every order placed after you exported is missing from the sheet.
•You redo the whole thing tomorrow, and the day after.
•Bundles and modifiers still have to be unpacked by hand.
•The person who knows the pivot table becomes a single point of failure.

Option 2

Have It Built for You

CafeKit reads the orders already in your Square account and assembles the prep sheet for whichever date you pick.

Connect Square

Orders Pull In

Your sales history and upcoming preorders sync automatically — in-store, Square Online, and delivery apps routed through Square.

Pick a Bake Date

Choose the day you're producing for. The per-item totals are already added up, counted on the fulfillment date.

What that looks like

Three preorders come in for Saturday. Each has 2 chocolate cupcakes and 1 cinnamon roll.

Item	To bake
Chocolate Cupcakes	6
Cinnamon Rolls	3

That's the whole idea. One number per item, on the day you need it, without opening a single order.

Stop Building the Prep Sheet by Hand

The orders are already in Square. CafeKit turns them into the sheet your kitchen actually works from.

Or schedule a 15-minute discovery call

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Frequently Asked Questions

Prep sheets, to-bake reports, and what Square does with them.