Running a guest coffee bar

Regulars and roasters drop sealed bags of roasted beans at your café. You serve them as a rotating guest coffee and pay the person who dropped the bag only for the grams you actually use. You never buy stock up front and you're never stuck with a bag that didn't sell.

1. 1A contributor offers you a bag at a price per gram they set, online with photos or at the counter.
2. 2You approve the ones you want before they buy them, or decline. When a bag arrives, you check the seal and roast date and accept it at that price.
3. 3Accepted bags wait in your queue until a guest slot is free.
4. 4You serve it as the guest coffee and weigh the bag at closing each day.
5. 5Regulars earn café points as the grams are used. Roasters are paid on one invoice per bag once it comes off your bar.

Register your café with its name, an email to sign in with and a page address. The page address becomes your public page, for example beansdrop.com/c/your-cafe.

We then email you a link to confirm that address. Open it and press Confirm my email to sign in.

New cafés wait for BeansDrop to approve them. While you wait you can sign in and set things up. Once you're approved, your public page goes live and you can add bags.

In Settings you can change your café's name and how many guest coffee slots you run. Most cafés start with one or two.

Also in Settings, paste your café's Google Maps link (open your café in Google Maps, tap Share, copy the link). BeansDrop reads the pin from it, and once you're approved your café shows on the Discovery map whenever it has a bag on the bar or in the queue.

On Account you can change your email or password, download everything we keep about your café, or close the account. Closing works once nothing is left on your bar or in the queue, no offers are waiting, you owe nobody points or money, and no roaster's leftover is waiting for your answer to buy it or return it.

We email you when a contributor offers you a bag or withdraws one, when a bag you approved doesn't arrive in time, and when your account signs in on a new browser. For roasters' bags we also email you when a bag comes off by itself 45 days after roasting, when a roaster sends an invoice, 3 days before it's due and on the due date, when a roaster says the money hasn't arrived, and when their receipt is in. The emails come in the language you last used the site in.

• One or two guest coffee slots. Extra bags wait in a queue.
• A second grinder. Swapping your main grinder between house and guest beans slows the bar down. A single-dose grinder is ideal, because you weigh each dose with no purging. A hopper grinder kept only for the guest bean also works.
• A weigh-in at closing. Once a day, weigh each guest bag and save its weight on BeansDrop. No counting cups. Dial-in and grams sold by weight are part of what the bag lost.

You decide what goes on your bar, and you can decline any bag for any reason. The pilot rules are a good starting point.

• Sealed and unopened, with a roast date printed by the roaster.
• Roasted 3–21 days before it's dropped off, so it's ready to rest and serve.
• As much per drop as you set in Settings, in bags of 200g or more. Pick about what you sell before the beans go stale. The bags can be different coffees.
• Not from a roaster who has asked for customer-dropped bags of their coffee to be declined.

Contributors can offer you a bag from their account, often before they buy it. Offers show up on your Drops page.

1. 1Read the offer. It shows the coffee, roaster, bag size, their price per gram, 1 to 3 photos of the bag or its shop listing, and any message for you. The roast date is there if they already have the bag.
2. 2Choose Approve if you want it. Set how fresh it must be, for example roasted within 30 days of drop-off, and add a message if you like. They then have 14 days to buy it and bring it in. Or choose Decline and say why if you like, for example that the price is too high.
3. 3When the bag arrives, check the seal and roast date, then choose It's here, accept. Type the roast date from the bag and it joins your queue at their price.

Once you approve a bag, you can only turn it away at the counter for one of three reasons. The seal is broken or the bag was opened, the roast date is outside the window you set, or it isn't the coffee you approved. Choose Turn away and pick the reason. A full bar isn't one of them, so approve only what you'll have room for. If a bag doesn't arrive within 14 days, the approval runs out and we tell you both.

A bag that's already at the counter doesn't need approving first. Accept it straight away. Every answer can carry a message, and the contributor sees it in their account and in their email.

The Taking new drops switch at the top of the page pauses new offers when your queue is full. Your public page then says you're not taking drops right now. Offers already waiting or approved stay there.

When someone walks in with a bag, you can add it straight to your queue from the On bar page. There are two ways to find their account.

• Scan a code. Ask them to open Show my code in their account and scan it with your phone or tablet camera. Their page opens with their balance at your café and Add a bag from them.
• Add a bag and type the email they registered with.

A counter code works once and lasts about two minutes, so it can't be reused from a screenshot. If it has expired, ask them for a new one.

The contributor sets the price per gram when they offer a bag. You accept at that price or decline, so nothing goes on your bar at a price you didn't agree to. Once you accept, the price is fixed and can't be edited. For a bag you add at the counter, agree the price with them and type it in.

Regular

Their value per gram. They earn points at your café at 120% of it for every gram used.

Roaster

The price per gram they'd charge a café, set in their offer, VAT included if they're VAT registered. You pay it for every gram used, on one invoice per bag.

The contributor sets the price, but know roughly what you're happy to accept so you can answer offers quickly. Tell your regulars too, so they offer prices you'll accept. For example, Standard around 2 THB per gram, Premium around 3 and Rare around 5.

Your On bar page is what your public page shows. Each guest slot holds one bag, and the rest wait in the queue.

• Put on slot moves a bag from the queue onto a free slot. Serving the oldest roast date first keeps things fresh.
• Save weight on each guest slot at closing. What the bag lost since its last weigh-in is added to its grams used, dial-in and grams sold by weight included.
• Bag finished weighs the empty bag and takes it off the bar. On a roaster's bag with 15g or more left, it also asks whether you buy the rest at half the roaster's price or return it. Back to queue swaps a bag out for later.
• Use Edit to fix a bag's details. Once a bag has been weighed, its grams used only changes with weigh-ins.

Nobody counts doses during the rush. Once a day, at closing, each guest bag goes on your scale and you save its weight on On bar. What the bag lost since the last weigh-in is that day's grams used, whatever you brewed with it, dial-in and grams sold by weight included.

1. 1When a bag goes on a guest slot, weigh it full before the first dose, packaging and all. Type the number under On the scale now and press Save weight. That's its starting weight.
2. 2At closing, put the bag back on the scale (with none of its beans left in the hopper) and save the weight. BeansDrop takes it from the last weigh-in and adds the difference to the bag's grams used.
3. 3When the bag runs out, press Bag finished and weigh the empty bag. That counts its last day, and the packaging's weight never counts as coffee. If a roaster's bag still has 15g or more left, choose whether you buy it or return it to the roaster, then press Finish bag.

The Contributors page shows what each contributor has earned at your café and what you still owe them.

• When a regular uses points, choose Points used and enter the number of points.
• Each roaster's bag is paid on its own invoice once it comes off your bar. It shows under Roaster invoices with the total to pay, VAT included if the roaster is VAT registered. Once the roaster uploads their invoice, pay it within 15 days by bank transfer or PromptPay, then press Upload payment proof to add your slip. We remind you 3 days before it's due and on the due date. The roaster then uploads their receipt or tax invoice, which closes it.
• If the roaster presses Not received, their note shows on that invoice. Check the transfer, then press Upload new proof.
• When you finish a roaster's bag with 15g or more left, choose whether you buy the rest at half the roaster's price or return it. Less than that counts as used up. A bag still queued or on the bar 45 days after roasting comes off by itself and waits at the top of Roaster invoices for the same answer. The roaster collects returned beans within 14 days, or they stay with you at no charge.

Points used also works from a scanned counter code, which is quicker when someone pays for a coffee with points. A roaster's row says Paid by invoice. It only shows Cash paid while you still owe that roaster for bags finished before invoices started.

An example for one 500g drop at a Standard tier of ~2 THB/g. Swap in your own prices and costs.

Cups

~25 after dial-in

Drink sales

~2,750 THB at ~110 THB a drink

Bag value

~1,000 THB

Points you issue

~1,200 points, spent against menu prices

Set aside for those points

~1,200 THB, about ~44% of guest sales

That money isn't yours yet. You owe it until the points are spent, when it pays for what they buy like a cash sale. Only points that expire unspent leave it with you. Follow one bag through the points system, from the drop to a latte paid with points.

Two different 250g coffees need two dial-ins, so expect about 23 to 24 cups instead of 25.

A roaster's bag comes off the bar by itself 45 days after its roast date, queued or on the bar, unless you finish it first. If 15g or more is left, you answer buy or return, in the finish dialog or under Roaster invoices on your Contributors page. Buy the rest at half the roaster's price, or return it. The roaster collects returned beans within 14 days, or they stay with you at no charge.

A regular's bag doesn't come off by itself. Take it off by hand when it reaches 45 days after roasting. For what's left, you decide. Buy it with points at 50% of its value, or tell them it's theirs to collect. They have 14 days from when you tell them. Beans not collected by then are yours, at no charge.

Once you're approved, your public page shows what's on your guest bar and what's next. A regular's nickname appears only if they chose one. Their name, balance and phone number never do.

Regulars can press Follow on your page. Each time you put a new coffee on a guest slot, everyone following hears about it in BeansDrop, and On bar shows how many people follow you, never who. Putting a bag back in the queue within 15 minutes takes the news back, so a slip doesn't reach anyone. Ask regulars to follow. The banner's QR code takes them straight to your page.

Under Media, Bar banner prints a banner for the bar, sized from a small card up to A4. It can carry a QR code to your page, so it stays useful after the bag runs out, and a buy-a-bag QR code for the roaster.

Social post makes posts for Instagram, Facebook and LINE from the coffee on your bar. Make one for a new arrival, the lineup, last cups or a call for drops, as a feed post, story or carousel. AI can write a first draft in your brand voice (set it in Settings), 30 drafts a month, and you can change every word. Photos you add stay on your device.

Reel or TikTok turns the same words into a short animated 9:16 video, 10 to 20 seconds, with a scene per coffee. It downloads as an MP4 without sound, so you can add a trending sound in Instagram or TikTok.