Ingredients and Recipes

Ingredients and recipes estimate how much of each ingredient your sales used, which helps with prep, purchasing, and spotting waste. Open Menu > Ingredients in the Back Office  to manage the list.

This tracks usage, not what you have on hand. For a running count of a dish, use Stock.

How it works

1. Add the ingredients you want to track. You can track a few key items, such as proteins, or your whole pantry.
2. Give each dish a recipe: the ingredients it uses and how much of each.
3. The Item Sales Report multiplies each recipe by the number of dishes sold and adds up the usage per ingredient.

Recipes belong to dishes only. Modifier choices can’t have recipes, so an add-on such as extra cheese isn’t counted.

Read the ingredients list

The list shows active ingredients sorted by name, with these columns:

• Name — the ingredient name.
• ID — your own code for the ingredient, such as a supplier item number.
• Unit of Measurement — the unit recipe quantities and usage are in, such as lb or oz.
• Base unit — the unit you count it in, if set.
• Price — the cost per unit, shown on the usage report.

Click a row to edit it. Click the trash icon to archive it. See Archive or restore an ingredient.

Add an ingredient

1. Click +.
2. Enter a Name of at least two characters, and an ID. Neither can exactly match another ingredient’s.
3. Enter the Unit of Measurement, such as lb, oz, or each.
4. Enter the Price per unit. It can be 0 but not negative.
5. Optional: choose a Base unit and add packs. See Set a base unit and packs. On a new ingredient, switching to a different kind of base unit clears the packs you entered.
6. Click Save.

If the name or ID matches an archived ingredient, the form tells you. Turn on Show archived and restore that one instead.

Set a base unit and packs

The Base unit is the unit you count the ingredient in. Choose one from these groups:

• Weight — gram (g), kilogram (kg), ounce (weight), or pound (lb).
• Volume — milliliter (ml), liter (l), or fluid ounce.
• Count — each.

The base unit is optional, but once you save one, it can’t be set back to Not set.

Packs describe how much one pack holds, such as case = 24 each. Once a base unit is chosen, the Packs section appears.

1. Click Add pack.
2. Enter the Pack name, such as case.
3. Enter the Quantity and choose the Unit.
4. Click Save.

Pack rules:

• Up to 20 packs per ingredient.
• Each pack needs a name of up to 40 characters, and no two packs can share a name.
• A pack can’t be named after a unit, such as lb or each.
• The quantity must be more than 0.
• The pack’s unit must be the same kind as the base unit: weight, volume, or count.

Change the base unit

Switching to another unit of the same kind, such as lb to kg, needs nothing extra.

Switching to a different kind, such as weight to count, asks “How many <new unit> is one <old unit>?” Enter the conversion, and your saved packs are converted when you save. If the ingredient itself is different, add a new ingredient instead.

Save any pack edits before switching to a different kind of unit. Until you do, the Base unit list only offers units of the current kind.

If someone else changed the ingredient’s base unit or packs while you were editing, the form closes and the list reloads. Open the ingredient and make your change again.

Archive or restore an ingredient

Deleting an ingredient archives it, after you confirm. It’s hidden from the list, and recipes that already use it keep it, labeled as archived. Usage reports keep showing it as long as a recipe includes it.

An archived ingredient can’t be added to a new recipe line or edited. To bring it back:

1. Turn on Show archived. The count shows how many are archived.
2. Click Restore on the ingredient.

If every ingredient is archived, the list is empty and asks you to show archived ones.

Add a recipe to a dish

1. Open Menu > Menus in the Back Office .
2. In the dish row, click the carrot icon. It’s green once you’ve saved a recipe for the dish.
3. Click + Ingredient, choose the ingredient, and enter the Quantity used in one dish.
4. Repeat for each ingredient, then click Save.

Enter quantities in the ingredient’s Unit of Measurement, from 0.01 to 1,000. For example, if beef is measured in oz, enter 6 for a 6 oz patty. Click the trash icon to remove a line.

Recipes at multiple locations

Each location has its own ingredients list, but a recipe belongs to the dish. When several locations carry the same dish, they share one recipe, and saving it changes it for all of them.

The recipe editor offers only your location’s ingredients. If another location added its own ingredients to a shared dish’s recipe, remove those lines before you can save. The usage report still counts them, with that location’s name and price.

Review ingredient usage

1. Open Sales > Stats in the Back Office and pick the period in the Item Sales Report.
2. Go to the Ingredients card.
3. Click CSV or PDF to export.

The card lists each ingredient’s unit, price per unit, and quantity used. It’s empty until your dishes have recipes. The period can be up to 100 days, and canceled orders are left out.

Usage is worked out from today’s recipes and prices, even for past periods. Changing a recipe quantity or an ingredient’s Price changes the numbers for earlier dates too. Export the report before you change recipes if you want to keep the old figures. See Ingredients in Sales Stats.

Ingredients created by stock tracking

When you start tracking a dish’s stock, Back Office adds an ingredient named after the dish, measured and counted in each. It appears in this list with no ID or price, so enter an ID before you edit it. Renaming it also renames the dish’s stock row.

Archiving it doesn’t stop tracking, and the dish keeps its count. But if you stop tracking the dish and turn it back on, Back Office reuses this ingredient. It refuses while the ingredient is archived or its base unit isn’t each. Restore it, or set the base unit back to each, first.

Tips

• Start with your highest-cost or most-wasted ingredients.
• Pick one Unit of Measurement per ingredient and use it in every recipe.
• Compare usage with your purchases weekly to spot waste.

Related links

• Manage your menu — dishes, recipes, and stock tracking.
• Stock — track a running count for dishes.
• Sales statistics — the ingredient usage report.