# Keeping track of custom orders that arrive as DMs > Practical guidance from people who have run orders out of an inbox. Nothing here needs software to be useful. Last updated 19 August 2026. A DM inbox is a conversation, and a conversation has no state. That is fine at three orders a week and it is why you are losing track at fifteen. ## You are not disorganised, the tool has no memory Instagram DMs are built for talking to friends. No unread that survives opening a message to check a date, no field that says "deposit paid", no way to sort by the Saturday everything is due, no way to see three cakes for the 14th sitting in three separate threads. Holding that in your head works until roughly ten orders a week, and it stops without warning. ## The four things that actually go wrong - **The double-booked Saturday.** Two people asked about the same date a week apart. The second conversation had no idea the first existed. - **The order you forgot was real.** "Yes perfect, see you then" in a thread that then went quiet for six weeks. Nothing marked it as a commitment. - **The missing detail.** You have the flavour and the date and no idea whether she wanted writing on it. The answer is forty messages up, above three photos. - **The ghost.** Two weeks of planning, then silence. Not an organisation problem. A deposit fixes it. ## Ask everything up front, once The back-and-forth is a missing form. Most custom orders need the same eight or nine facts: date and pickup or delivery; how many people it feeds; flavour and filling; allergies, asked as its own separate question; writing and its exact spelling; a photo of what they have in mind; budget, or your starting price stated first; a phone number. Allergies buried inside "any other notes" get skipped, and that is the one you cannot afford to have skipped. ## One list, and one rule There should be exactly one place that answers "what am I making this week". Two places become two answers within a month. Then: **an order without a deposit is an intention, not a booking.** A verbal yes does not take a date off the calendar. Money does. That one line prevents both the double-booked Saturday and most of the ghosting. ## Decide your limit before someone asks Pick the number on a calm Tuesday: four cakes a weekend, two if there is a wedding. Then a Friday request is arithmetic rather than a decision about whether you are a good person. Set a lead time too. "Custom orders need two weeks" written down in advance is a policy; the same words invented on the spot are an excuse. ## Moving off DMs without losing anyone A form reads as a real business, and the person who drops out at a form is very often the person who would have disappeared at the deposit anyway. Keep answering in DMs, say why you are sending the link ("so I get your date and allergies right"), pin it in your bio, and do not force it on a regular who is already three messages in. ## This week, if you change nothing else 1. Write down every order you believe you have, with its date. 2. Compare that list to your DMs. The gap is the point. 3. Pick your maximum per weekend and your lead time. 4. Decide your deposit rule and say it in every quote. Related: and Source: