Lesson · The points system · Page 1 of 2
Follow one bag, gram by gram.
Mint drops a bag of beans at a café. Bank, who has never met Mint, buys a latte made from it. A few weeks later Mint drinks a latte made from Ploy's beans, and pays with points.
Here's where every baht goes on the way, for the café and for Mint.
The setup
Three people and two places for money
Mint
Drops a 500g bag valued at 2 THB/g, and earns points at 120% of that value for every gram used.
Bank
A walk-in. Pays cash for a latte made from Mint's beans.
Ploy
Drops another bag later on, and earns points on it the same way.
The points jar
Part of each guest cup's price goes in here, kept apart for the points the café owes. It belongs to the regulars until they spend their points.
The till
The café's own money. The rest of each price goes in here. Milk, cups and wages come out of it, and what's left is profit.
The points jar and the till are a way to picture it. A real points jar can be a separate bank account, or a line in your books you never spend from.
The price
Count the beans once
The café didn't buy Mint's beans. It pays for them with points, a little for every gram used. So the points are the bean cost, and a latte made from Mint's beans is priced like this.
Don't count the beans twice
It's easy to add the beans as 20 THB and pay Mint's points on top. That prices the latte at 126 THB, 30 THB more than it needs to be, for beans the café never paid for.
- Points for Mint10g of beans × 2 THB/g × 120%
- 24 points
- Set aside for those pointsFrom the price, into the points jar
- 24 THB
- Milk, cup and the rest
- 40 THB
- Break evenInto the points jar + the rest
- 64 THB
- Menu price64 THB × 1.5, a 50% markup
- 96 THB
Try it
Follow the money
Step through two lattes, one paid in cash and one paid with points, one move at a time. Watch the money, the points and the bags travel between the people, the counter, the points jar and the till.
Step 1 of 15
Mint drops a bag
Mint leaves a sealed 500g bag. The café checks it and puts it on the guest bar. Nobody owes anybody anything yet.
Walk-ins paid
0 THB
0
Mint
0 points
0
Ploy
No bag yet
0
The counter · No lattes yet
No guest bag yet
Points jar
The regulars' money
0 THB
0
Till
The café's money
0 THB
0
- Baht
- Points
- A bag of beans
Every gram
Dial-in, scraps and leftovers
Mint earns points on every gram the café grinds, not only the grams that end up in a cup. Grams that never get sold still earn points, so the cups that do sell have to cover them.
- Dial-in
- The first grams ground to set up the grinder for a new bag. They earn points, but nobody drinks them.
- Cups
- Grams brewed into drinks and sold. 10g a latte here.
- Scraps
- What's left after the last whole cup. Too little for a latte, but it still earns points.
- Leftover at day 45
- A bag comes off the bar 45 days after roasting. The café can buy what's left at half the bag value, paid in points. If it doesn't, Mint has 14 days to take it home.
Mint's 500g bag
- Dial-in 35g
- Cups 460g
- Scraps 5g
Mint takes anything left home, so it costs the café nothing.
- Cups sold465g ÷ 10g, whole cups only
- 46
- Points Mint earns500g × 2.4 points/g
- 1,200 points
- Points per cup sold1,200 points ÷ 46 cups
- 26.1 points
- Break evenInto the points jar + 40 THB for the rest
- 66.1 THB
- Menu price at a 50% markup
- 100 THB
96 THB with no dial-in or scraps.
Grams nobody drinks, paid for by the cups sold
Try it with your own numbers
The café calculator works the same way, with your own dose, dial-in and costs.
In short
- Points are what a regular's beans cost the café. Count them once, as the bean cost.
- The part of each price that pays for points goes into the points jar. It's owed, not earned.
- When points are spent, their money comes out of the points jar and splits like a cash sale. The café's share goes into the till, and the new bag's share goes back into the points jar.
- Every gram used earns points, sold or not. Spread dial-in and scraps across the cups.