Recipes & food cost

Give each dish and each POS option a recipe, so every sale takes its ingredients from stock instead of the dish and a return puts them back. Keep a raw material master with bigger units (a sack of 25 kg), see what each material was bought, returned, used and wasted for, and which dishes use it. Log waste by stage (raw material, food preparation, cooked food not sold, sent back by a guest) and read the waste report. See the food cost % of each dish, category and day, which dishes are stars, plowhorses, puzzles or dogs, and how far your stock counts are from what the recipes used. Part of the Recipes & food cost add-on for restaurants and cafes.

Steps

  1. Add your ingredients as products (rice, chicken, oil, cups …) with the unit you buy them in and their purchase price.
  2. Open Recipes & food cost, press New dish recipe and pick the dish. Add each ingredient with its quantity in grams, millilitres or pieces; for a bag, can or pack, type how many grams, millilitres or pieces are in one.
  3. For a batch (a pot of biryani for 20), set Portions it makes; set Preparation waste for trimming and bones. The cost of one portion and its share of the price show as you type. Press Save.
  4. For an option such as Extra rice or Extra shot, switch Recipes of to POS options and type the option's English name exactly as the POS shows it.
  5. On a product, tick Raw material and pick its group, where it is kept and its shelf life; add the bigger units it is bought in (Sack = 25 kg, Crate = 12 l). Recipes → Raw materials lists every raw material and recipe ingredient with what was bought before VAT, returned, used by the recipes and wasted in the period, the price change from the first to the last purchase, the days of stock left and the dishes that use it. Tap one to edit its group and units.
  6. On a purchase or purchase return, a product with bigger units has a button with the unit's name beside its Qty box: type how many sacks and the price of one, and the line becomes kilos at the price per kilo.
  7. Log waste on the Waste tab: pick the ingredient or dish, where it was lost (raw material in store, food preparation, cooked food not sold, sent back by a guest) and why; type it in any of its units, sacks included. It leaves stock straight away; a dish with a recipe is wasted as its ingredients at its portion cost. A wrong entry can be cancelled, which puts the stock back.
  8. Waste report shows the period's waste cost, its share of the sales before VAT, the average a day, and the waste by stage, by reason, by ingredient or dish and by day.
  9. Pick a period on Food cost, Menu engineering or Variance to see the figures.

Tips

  • A dish with a recipe stays in stock: each sale takes its ingredients instead. With Use it as the dish's purchase price ticked, the profit of every sale of the dish uses the portion cost.
  • Menu engineering compares each dish with the others: popular means it sold at least 70% of the average dish, profitable means it earns at least the average margin per portion.
  • Variance needs posted stock counts of the ingredients (the Stock counts add-on): a count short of what the recipes and waste explain shows as unexplained.

In the app, press F1 or ? on this screen to open this guide next to your work.

This guide belongs to the Recipes & food cost module. Learn more

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