Wherefour also provides blended inventory costs and creates total ingredient traceability reports with the push of one button. The system provides uncomplicated creation of bills of material­–also known as recipes–and tracks production costs including overhead. A production multiplier can quickly set production to any amount desired, and a what-if tool provides an instant analysis of the number of runs that can be completed based on current inventory, he said.

All of this functionality is provided for $189 per month for single user access to the system. For $249 per month, features also include multiple user support with specific user permissions and integration with QuickBooks Online, the most popular accounting program, Brown said. Data migration and set up, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars or more with other systems, is easy enough to be done by the user. For those who want to implement the system as quickly as possible, Wherefour will set it up to a customer’s needs for an optional fee of $299 or $399 at the $189 and $249 per month level respectively. There is no contract so users may cancel at any time, he said.

“I love food and think the food business is fascinating. It’s a tough business, so the people who are in it are really passionate, and that’s why I wanted to build Wherefour specifically for food companies rather than adapting it to a generic ERP market,” said Brown, who has 24 years of experience designing and building custom software for large consumer brands. “A lot of food entrepreneurs are excellent at what they do, but may not have a background in business or are trying to manage everything on spreadsheets, which won’t scale well as the business continues to grow. We’ve spent two years in development and beta testing so we can provide owners with truly easy access to the tools they need to run their businesses successfully.”

More information about Wherefour is available at wherefour.com or by calling 415-930-4028.