Candle Making Inventory Software for Small-Batch Makers

If you are searching for candle making inventory software, you have probably outgrown the spreadsheet. The same goes for soap making inventory management: it is the same problem with different raw materials. You buy wax, fragrance oil, carrier oils, and lye in bulk, use them by the gram or ounce, pour or cut in batches, and need to know what each candle or bar really costs. Evenbatch is web-based inventory software built for small manufacturers of one to ten people who run their books in QuickBooks Online. This guide walks through how it handles recipes, batches, shelf life, and true unit cost - without touching your books until you say so.

When the spreadsheet stops keeping up with your batches

Most makers start the same way. A spreadsheet tab for supplies, another for recipes, a notebook for batch numbers. It works when you pour twenty candles a month. It stops working when you are selling at craft fairs, taking wholesale orders, and running your own online store at the same time.

The cracks show up in familiar places:

• You bought a case of wax and a drum of oil, but the spreadsheet tracks "some left" - the real remaining quantity is a guess.
• You set prices by feel, because nobody has ever added up the true cost of one candle or one bar, including the wick, the jar, the label, and the wax you spilled.
• Batch numbers live on masking tape and handwritten labels, so tracing a problem batch means digging through boxes.
• Shelf life for fragrance and carrier oils is tracked by memory, which means it is not really tracked at all.

None of this is a failure of discipline. Spreadsheets simply were not built to follow a lot of wax from receiving, through a recipe, into a finished batch, and out the door to a customer. Purpose-built candle making inventory software is.

Buy wax by the case, use it by the ounce

Maker math is unit math. You buy soy wax by the case or pallet, olive oil by the drum, fragrance by the 16-ounce bottle. Your recipes measure in ounces and grams. Every conversion you do by hand is a chance to get your stock counts and your costs wrong.

Evenbatch handles this with per-item unit conversions. You define how a purchase unit breaks down - for example, cases to eaches - and that conversion is used everywhere: purchasing, bills of materials, and sales. Receive a case of wax on a purchase order, and your recipes can draw from it in the units you actually measure. Your remaining quantities stay honest, and your cost per recipe unit is calculated from what you actually paid.

QuickBooks Online does not support units-of-measure conversion, so this gap cannot be closed inside QuickBooks itself. If you want the full picture of how unit conversions work with QuickBooks, see our guide to QuickBooks units of measure.

Your recipes become bills of materials with real cost roll-up

A recipe is a bill of materials. Eight ounces of wax, one ounce of fragrance, a wick, a jar, a lid, a label. In Evenbatch you enter that once, and it becomes the source of truth for both production and cost.

Here is what that gets you:

• Per-unit cost roll-up. Evenbatch adds up component costs and tells you what one candle or one bar actually costs. Pricing stops being guesswork; you can see your margin before you print the price tag.
• Scrap percentage. Spilled wax, oil left in the pot, trimmed soap ends - every maker loses a little material on each batch. Build that loss into the BOM so your costs reflect reality, not the theoretical recipe.
• Multi-level BOMs (1-2 levels). If you make a fragrance blend or a soap base first and then use it in finished products, the sub-recipe can be its own BOM inside the finished-good BOM.
• BOM versioning. Recipes change. If you edit a BOM after it has been used in transactions, Evenbatch creates a new version and preserves the old one, so the history of what you actually made stays intact.

When you run a production order, Evenbatch explodes the BOM, consumes components first-expired-first-out, and produces an output lot with the rolled-up cost attached. Every batch of candles or soap carries its real cost with it.

QuickBooks Online has no assemblies or bills of materials. Its "bundles" group items on sales forms, but they do not consume components, track builds, or roll up costs. For the details, see bill of materials for QuickBooks Online.

Lot tracking for consistency, shelf life, and the day something goes wrong

Small-batch products live and die on consistency. A fragrance oil lot that behaves differently in the melt, a carrier oil past its shelf life, a customer email about a candle that tunnels or a bar that went off early - in every case, the question is the same: which batch was that, and what went into it?

Evenbatch includes lot tracking on every plan, not as an add-on:

• Per-lot remaining quantities, so you know exactly how much of each wax or oil lot is left.
• Expiry dates on lots, with expiry alerts before material goes bad on the shelf.
• FEFO picking - first expired, first out - so production automatically uses the oldest usable material first. More on the method in our FEFO inventory management guide.
• One-click recall trace: pick a lot and follow it through production runs to the shipments it ended up in, then export the trace as a CSV.

That last one matters more as you grow. Regulators and large buyers expect lot-level traceability, and a wholesale account will not wait days while you dig through notebooks. With a recorded trace, "which customers got batch 2024-031" is an answer you can export, not a research project. See recall traceability with QuickBooks for a full walkthrough.

QuickBooks Online does not include lot or batch tracking on any plan; lot and serial tracking exist only in QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise with Advanced Inventory. Here is how the pieces compare:

More on the gap and how to close it: lot tracking for QuickBooks Online.

QuickBooks Online stays your books - and stays clean

If you have ever had software make a mess of your books, you are right to be careful. Evenbatch syncs with QuickBooks Online through Intuit's official API using OAuth 2.0, which means Evenbatch never sees your QuickBooks password. It pushes invoices, bills, and production journal entries to QuickBooks, and imports your items, customers, and vendors from it.

The sync is designed to earn trust, not assume it:

• A preview mode shows every change before anything is written to QuickBooks.
• Held changes wait for your explicit approval. Nothing is written silently.
• A full sync log records exactly what was sent and when.
• Item sync is create-only, so Evenbatch never overwrites an existing QuickBooks record.

Your accountant keeps QuickBooks as the books; Evenbatch handles the batches, lots, and recipes QuickBooks was never built for. For the bigger picture, see QuickBooks inventory for manufacturers.

One flat price, and a free way off the spreadsheet

Evenbatch is $49.99 per month, flat. Unlimited users, every feature included - lot tracking, BOMs, unit conversions, and the QuickBooks sync are all in the one plan. No add-ons, no per-user fees. There is a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, and cancellation is self-serve.

Getting off the spreadsheet is free too: CSV import of your items, BOMs, lots, and stock levels from spreadsheets or CSV exports of other tools, and a full CSV export of your own data anytime you want it. Data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest.

To be straightforward about scope: Evenbatch does not do production scheduling, warehouse bin locations or pick-pack, EDI, POS, or multi-currency. It is focused inventory software for small-batch makers who need recipes, lots, and clean books. Pricing details are at the pricing section.

See something outdated or incorrect on this page? Email support@evenbatch.com and we will correct it within 48 hours. Last updated: July 16, 2026.