Vault: where a bakery keeps its certificates, insurance, contracts and staff documents
The Vault
Keep every document your bakery has to produce on request in one place: your food business registration or licence, food safety certificates, insurance policies, supplier and venue contracts, and staff training records and IDs. The Vault holds them with their expiry dates, lets you decide which staff can see each one, and gets contracts signed online without printing anything. It is on every plan, with unlimited files.
The documents that get asked for
The same handful of documents comes up again and again: when a council or environmental health officer visits, when an insurer renews, when a wedding venue wants your public liability certificate before it lets you deliver, and when a cafe signs up for wholesale. They are usually split between an inbox, a desktop folder and a drawer, and the one somebody asks for is always the one that expired last month.
What a bakery keeps depends on where it trades:
- Australia. In NSW, most bakeries must appoint a Food Safety Supervisor, keep a copy of the supervisor's certificate on the premises, and renew it every five years. Other states have their own rules under the same national standard.
- United Kingdom. Food businesses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, including home bakers, must register with their local authority at least 28 days before trading. Keep the confirmation with your hygiene records.
- New Zealand. Bread bakeries usually operate under National Programme 2, registered with the local council and checked at least once every three years. Keep the registration and the last verification report together.
- United States and Canada. Permits, cottage food registrations and inspection reports vary by state, province and county.
The rules change, so check with your local authority.
Expiry at a glance
Give a document an expiry date and a lapsed one stands out before a venue asks for it. The current copy of anything is one search away.
Staff see what they need, and only that
A bakery with a team has documents everyone should read (the cleaning policy, the allergen procedure) and documents only the owner should see (insurance details, staff IDs, contracts with prices in them). Each document has a level:
- Internal: the whole team.
- Confidential: managers and the owner.
- Restricted: the owner only.
Insurance, contracts and ID documents start at Confidential. Staff only see documents at or below their level, so a new starter sees the right ones from day one. Team members view a copy watermarked with their name, the time and your business name; only the owner and managers can download the original. Every view is logged, so you know who opened a document and when.
Contracts signed in the same place
Wedding contracts, wholesale agreements and catering terms can be sent for signature straight from the Vault. The customer signs on their phone, and the signed PDF files itself back into the Vault and onto the customer's record next to their order. See contracts and agreements signed online.
Food safety program documents and daily records belong with your checks, in Compliance. For a fuller checklist of what to keep, see where should a bakery keep its food safety certificates, insurance and staff documents.