Outgrowing QuickBooks? Streamline CPG Operations with Guidance.
Stop manual tracking. Get real-time inventory, COGS, and traceability designed for growing food brands.
Apply as Design Partner →The operational challenges CPG Brands Outgrowing QuickBooks face:
Inaccurate inventory tracking leads to stockouts or waste.
Manual COGS calculation is time-consuming and error-prone.
Lack of lot traceability complicates recalls and compliance.
How Guidance solves this
One platform connecting every operational workflow your brand needs.
Real-Time COGS Calculation
Accurately track ingredient costs and profitability with automated, dynamic calculations for every batch.
Advanced Inventory Management
Gain precise control over raw materials, finished goods, and multi-location inventory without spreadsheets.
End-to-End Lot Traceability
Effortlessly track ingredients from farm to fork, ensuring compliance and quick recall capability.
Co-Packer & Production Oversight
Manage co-packer inventory, production runs, and material balance all in one centralized platform.
“Guidance was built by the CEO of Claros Farm to solve the exact operational challenges faced when scaling an organic CPG brand.”
Common questions from CPG Brands Outgrowing QuickBooks
How does Guidance differ from QuickBooks for CPG?
QuickBooks is a general accounting tool. Guidance provides specialized operational features like inventory, COGS, and traceability essential for CPG brands.
Is Guidance suitable for small CPG brands?
Guidance is designed for growing CPG brands that have outgrown basic accounting software and need dedicated operational control. It scales with your business.
Does Guidance help with FSMA 204 compliance?
Yes, Guidance provides robust lot traceability and data management features specifically designed to help CPG brands meet FSMA 204 requirements.
Ready to Ditch QuickBooks for Smarter CPG Operations?
Apply as a design partner to help validate the commercial rebuild and shape the release for brands like yours.
Apply as Design Partner →When QuickBooks Stops Being Enough
QuickBooks is an excellent accounting tool. It is not an operations platform. The moment your food brand starts managing multiple SKUs, co-packer relationships, and lot traceability requirements, you will hit the ceiling of what QuickBooks can do.
The Core Problem: QuickBooks Tracks Money, Not Inventory
QuickBooks can tell you how much you spent on ingredients last month. It cannot tell you how many pounds of organic oats you have in the warehouse right now, which production run used Lot #2024-07-A, or what your true COGS is after accounting for yield loss at your co-packer.
The Spreadsheet Bridge
Most QuickBooks-dependent food brands build a complex network of spreadsheets to fill the gaps. One spreadsheet for inventory, one for BOMs, one for production runs, one for lot tracking. These spreadsheets are fragile, error-prone, and require hours of manual maintenance every week.
The Right Architecture
The correct approach is to keep QuickBooks as your financial ledger and add a purpose-built operations platform alongside it. Guidance handles inventory, production, COGS, and traceability, then syncs the financial data back to QuickBooks automatically. You get the best of both worlds without ripping out your accounting system.
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Built by a CPG Founder
Help shape the commercial release.
A working prototype validated Guidance's core operating model. The commercial rebuild is translating that proof into production-ready workflows with CPG design partners.
Apply as Design Partner →