I Have Finalised My Candle Formula — How Do I Convert the Formula into a Raw-Material Purchase Order for the Next 30 Days of Production?

A finalised formula is already half a purchase order

Most makers who have finished development have a formula card that reads something like this: 200 g fill, CSI 464, 8% fragrance, Eco Thin C1 wick on a sticker, White Matte Glass Jar. That card is a bill of materials for one unit. Every number a purchase order needs can be derived from it — but only if the card states its quantities in grams and pieces rather than in habits ("one jug of wax", "a splash of oil"). So the first job is to rewrite the card as a per-candle BOM: grams of wax, grams of oil, wicks, stickers, jars, and anything else that goes into every candle.

The CSI convention, used on every page in this series, is that fragrance load is a share of the finished candle. A 200 g candle at 8% contains 200 × 0.08 = 16 g of oil and 200 − 16 = 184 g of wax. The habit that over-buys wax is to multiply candles by fill weight and call the result "wax": for this plan's 240 candles that is 48,000 g of wax with 3,840 g of oil bought on top, when 240 candles can only ever hold 44,160 g of wax. The shortcut over-orders 3,840 g — about 8.7% — before a single allowance has been added. Why a 200 g jar holds less than 200 g of wax walks through it slowly.

Two honest notes on that card. First, CSI does not publish a fill weight or internal diameter for the White Matte Glass Jar: the 200 g is your weighed fill from development, which is exactly why a finalised formula is the right starting point. Second, the wick line is only a production line because it passed your burn tests in this jar with this wax and these oils. CSI publishes no wick-size-per-diameter chart, so a wick that has not passed full-life testing does not belong on a 30-day order — the post on delaying bulk buys until the wick passes covers that case.

Step 2: the 30-day production plan, by SKU

A purchase order covers a production plan, not a sales hope. For this page the plan is the reader's example: 240 candles over the next 30 days — 100 Japanese Cherry Blossom, 80 Lemongrass and Lime and 60 Dark Vanilla Oud. Those splits are illustrations; put in your own. Where the plan comes from — last month's sales, a forecast, a growth curve or a confirmed order — is the subject of the next three posts: units sold → monthly requirement, 500 a month across five SKUs and 20% monthly growth without overstock.

Write the plan per SKU even though the wax, wicks and jars are shared. The oil is not shared, and every allowance that depends on whole candles — quality-control pulls, rejects — happens per pour, which means per fragrance. Weekly, this plan is about 25 Cherry Blossom, 20 Lemongrass and Lime and 15 Dark Vanilla Oud candles; most small workshops pour each fragrance once or twice a week, so that is the batch size the QC allowance below is built around.

Step 3: the allowance stack, in one fixed order

Four allowances turn a plan into a production quantity. They are labelled working assumptions on this page — use your own if you have run enough batches to know them. The order matters because each one describes something different: QC candles are candles, rejects are a share of candles, pour loss is a share of what you melt, and breakage only happens to glass.

Step 4: subtract what is already on the shelf

A 30-day order is for the gap, not the whole month. Count what is on the shelf the day you order — and count it in the same units as the BOM. The example stock below is illustrative: 3,200 g of CSI 464 left in an open bag, 180 g of Cherry Blossom, 35 wicks, 12 jars and 20 stickers. Anything already promised to an open order is not stock; take it off before you subtract.

Three things to notice in that table. The oil lines land almost exactly on the need because the allowances are already inside the gross figure: Lemongrass and Lime rounds to 1 × 1 kg + 4 × 100 g + 1 × 15 g with 0.6 g spare, and Dark Vanilla Oud to 2 × 500 g + 1 × 50 g + 1 × 15 g. Those are the cheapest in-stock covers, not the only sensible ones — if you would rather carry a little headroom into next month, the cheapest cover with 50 g extra is 1 × 1 kg + 1 × 500 g (₹7,800.00) and 2 × 500 g + 1 × 100 g + 1 × 15 g (₹6,385.02). Second, the jars come as 25 × pack of 10 + 1 × pack of 5; the pack of 10 at ₹708.00 is the same ₹70.80 a jar as the pack of 5; the bigger pack only saves handling. Third, the wicks: the Thin C1 10-pack was out of stock when we re-checked on 4 October 2026, so small top-ups come in 20s.

Step 5: the 30-day purchase order

Here is the order as you would place it, CSI lines first and the example non-CSI lines below them. Non-CSI costs are placeholders for your own quotes and are deliberately kept out of the CSI subtotal. GST, freight and labour are not included anywhere on this page.

At this order's own pack rates, the material cost of one candle is ₹248.48 for Cherry Blossom, ₹256.86 for Lemongrass and Lime and ₹261.93 for Dark Vanilla Oud — wax at ₹0.51/g, oil at the per-gram rate of the packs actually bought, the ₹5.90 wick and the ₹70.80 jar. Those exclude stickers, packaging, labour, freight and GST. If the per-candle figure surprises you, the first-1,000-candles list shows how it falls as a range grows, and the cash-locked-in-inventory post shows which of these lines are worth buying less often.

Buy now, buy after testing

Everything for the three finalised SKUs can be bought today: the wick passed, the oils passed, the wax and jar are the ones in the formula. The fourth fragrance is different. Raat Ki Rani (Night-Blooming Jasmine) goes on this order only as 1 × 50 g for 3 trial candles (49.9 g with allowance). Its production quantity is bought only after those candles have cured and passed the same burn and throw checks as the other three — and if they need a different wick, that wick's production pack waits too.

In rupees: ₹65,244.94 today for the finalised range and ₹370.00 for the trial. If the trial passes, its production oil for, say, 60 candles is a separate order next month — turning a new product idea into a BOM shows how to build that line before you buy it.

The CSI products on this order

Which step of the procurement system is your question

This page is the hub for the cluster "CSI shopping cart → procurement system". Each post below takes one step of the pipeline in the diagram and goes deeper, with its own scenario and its own priced order. If your question is about one step, go straight there; if you want the whole system as a sheet, start at the complete procurement system.

The other four clusters in this series start earlier in the journey: 100 × 200 g lavender candles in 8 cm jars for single-batch BOMs; 500 × 100 g wedding candles in two fragrances for large confirmed orders; ₹10,000 to start a candle business for budget-led first inventories; and a 200 g luxury lavender candle in frosted glass for development kits before a formula is final.

Frequently asked questions