Recipes

What it does

A recipe says what one serving of a menu item uses. Once a dish has one, selling it deducts its ingredients from stock automatically, and the dish stops being orderable when any ingredient runs out — the cashier is warned at the register, and guests never see it on the QR menu. Recipes are what turn Inventory from a manual record into something that keeps itself up to date as you sell.

Getting started

1. Set up your ingredients as products first — see Inventory. A recipe can only refer to products you already track.
2. Go to Menu → Catalog and find the item you want a recipe for.
3. Tap Recipe / Food cost on the item's row. The window opens on the Recipe tab, with one row per ingredient. A Manual cost tab sits beside it — see Food Cost for when to use it.
4. Tap Add ingredient and pick a product, then enter how much one serving uses and choose the unit. Each product can only be added once — if it's already on the list, it won't be offered again.
5. Optionally enter a Waste % for ingredients where part of what you take is lost — peeling, trimming, evaporation. The window shows the resulting Drawn from stock figure so you can see exactly what will leave the shelf.
6. Save. From that moment, every sale of that item deducts these ingredients.
7. If the item has variants — sizes, for example — the item itself has no price or recipe of its own. Open the size/variant list and give each variant its own recipe by tapping Recipe on that variant's row. A large pizza is not a small one, so nothing is inherited from the parent item.
8. To stop tracking a dish, open Menu → Food cost, select the dish's row and tap Delete — confirm once, and its ingredient list is gone. You can reach the same result from inside the recipe window instead: clear every ingredient and save. An emptied recipe removes itself right away, without a separate confirmation, because saving nothing already is the decision.

Key things to know

• If adding an ingredient shows no units to choose from, and a message says the unit is out of date, the product's original unit was later changed or removed in the menu's unit settings, so nothing currently matches it. Ask whoever manages your catalog to put the product's unit right, then come back and add it to the recipe — if it already holds stock, its recorded quantities may need converting at the same time. See Inventory.
• Every variant has its own recipe, and nothing is inherited. An item with three sizes needs three recipes if all three should deduct stock. A variant without a recipe deducts nothing.
• Combos have no recipe of their own. They deduct through the items they are made of, so give the components recipes and the combo takes care of itself.
• Waste % increases what is taken from the shelf, not what the recipe says a serving uses. 150 g at 10% waste draws 165 g. Enter the amount that ends up on the plate and let the waste figure account for the rest.
• Ingredients are deducted once per order line — either when the order is sent to the kitchen or when it is paid, whichever happens first. An order that is sent and then paid does not deduct twice. An item added to an order after it already went to the kitchen still deducts when the order is paid.
• A dish that can't be made shows an out-of-stock badge everywhere it's picked from — the catalog, the menu preview, and the register's own item list — and the register also warns the cashier when it's added to an order. A modifier that's run out gets the same warning wherever it's picked, since a modifier has its own recipe and can run out independently of the item it's added to.
• The register warning is advice, not a block. The cashier can always proceed — sometimes the shelf has something the system doesn't know about, and refusing the sale would be worse than being slightly wrong. What proceeding does is record a shortfall, which is your signal that a recipe, a delivery, or a count needs looking at.
• The warning is checked against the whole order, not one line at a time. Two different dishes that both use carrot may each be possible on their own and impossible together — that is caught. The check runs again just before the order is submitted, because another till may have taken the last portion while this order was being built.
• Running out is not the same as taking something off the menu. An item you switch off by hand stays off when a delivery arrives, and an item that runs out comes back by itself once it's restocked. The two never overwrite each other.
• Guests never see a dish that can't be made. On the QR menu an unmakeable item is always unavailable, whatever your settings say — a guest ordering by phone can't be warned and asked to decide, so there is nothing to opt into.
• Removing a recipe makes the item unconditionally available again. With no recipe there is nothing that can run out. Deleting it from the Food Cost page asks you to confirm first, because that's hard to undo; clearing every ingredient in the recipe window and saving reaches the same result immediately, since an empty ingredient list already is the decision.
• A recipe also shows what a serving costs to make, and what share of the price that is — on the Recipe tab. There's a second tab, Manual cost, for pricing the dish by a number you type instead; the ingredient list is kept either way and keeps deducting stock. See Food Cost.
• Tapping outside the recipe window doesn't close it. This is deliberate, so an accidental tap never throws away what you were typing — use the ×, Cancel, or press Esc.
• Two settings on Inventory → Configuration change how this behaves, and both start switched off:
  • Hide items that cannot be made — intended to remove an unmakeable item from the register instead of warning about it. The setting is saved, but the register does not act on it yet: today a cashier always sees the item and always gets the warning. The QR menu hides unmakeable dishes from guests either way.
  • Put ingredients back on a refund — when on, returning a sale restores its ingredients. Leave it off if returned dishes were already cooked, because putting them back would count stock nobody can serve.
• Refund restoration is proportional and goes back where it came from. Returning one of two portions restores half of what that line drew, to the same deliveries it was drawn from, at the price it left at — so a return never quietly re-prices your stock. Returning the second portion later restores the rest.
• Rejecting a dish in the kitchen always puts its ingredients back — this isn't a setting. A rejected dish was never served, so unlike a refund it's put back automatically, whether or not "Put ingredients back on a refund" is switched on. If the food genuinely had already been cooked before it was rejected, write it off instead so the loss stays visible.

FAQ

Q: I'm adding an ingredient and the unit list is empty, saying the unit is out of date. What do I do?
A: The product's original unit was later changed or removed in the menu's unit settings, so nothing currently matches it. Ask whoever manages your catalog to put the product's unit right, then come back and finish adding it to the recipe. It is not a change to make on your own: if the product already holds stock, its recorded quantities may need converting in the same step. See Inventory.

Q: Do I have to write a recipe for everything on the menu?
A: No. Items without a recipe simply don't affect stock when they sell. Start with the dishes whose ingredients are expensive or run out often, and add more when you see the value.

Q: Where do I edit a recipe — in Inventory or in the menu?
A: In the menu. "What is in this dish" is a question about the dish, so recipes are edited from Menu → Catalog, on the item's own row, even though the stock they consume lives in Inventory.

Q: My item has small, medium and large. Do I write one recipe or three?
A: Three — one per variant, on each variant's row. There is no inheritance from the parent item, because portion sizes are exactly the thing that differs.

Q: What is Waste % for?
A: For ingredients where part of what you take never reaches the plate — peel, trim, evaporation. Enter what a serving actually contains and set the waste percentage; the window shows you the true amount that will leave the shelf.

Q: A dish sold but nothing was deducted. Why?
A: Most likely the item has no recipe, or the variant that was sold has none of its own. Check the item's row in the catalog, and the row of the specific variant that was ordered.

Q: Were ingredients deducted twice — once when it went to the kitchen and once when it was paid?
A: No. Each order line is deducted once, at whichever of those two moments comes first. The second one does nothing.

Q: The cashier sold a dish we didn't have the ingredients for. What happens to stock?
A: What existed is taken and the missing remainder is recorded as a shortfall, so no lot ever goes negative. A shortfall means the recipe, the deliveries or the counting is off; it shows up on Inventory → Shortfalls and stays there until someone marks it reviewed.

Q: Can I stop cashiers from selling something we can't make?
A: Not yet. Hide items that cannot be made in Inventory → Configuration is meant to do exactly that, but the register does not act on the setting yet — the cashier is warned and decides. Guests ordering from the QR menu never see the item, regardless of the setting.

Q: Why is an item hidden from the QR menu when that setting is off?
A: Because the setting is only ever about the register, where a cashier can be warned and decide. A guest ordering from their phone can't be asked, so an unmakeable dish is always unavailable to them.

Q: We restocked, but the dish is still unavailable. Why?
A: Check whether someone switched the item off by hand in the catalog. A manual off-switch and running out of stock are tracked separately on purpose, so a delivery never re-enables something a manager deliberately pulled from the menu.

Q: Should I turn on "Put ingredients back on a refund"?
A: Only if a returned dish really can be sold again — a sealed bottle, an untouched packaged item. If returns are cooked food, leave it off, or your stock figures will include portions nobody can serve.

Q: A guest returned one of the two portions they ordered. How much goes back?
A: Half of what that line originally drew, returned to the same deliveries at the same cost. If they return the second portion later, the rest goes back then.

Q: The kitchen rejected a dish. Does that affect stock?
A: Yes, automatically — the ingredients it drew go straight back to the shelf, because the dish was never actually served. This happens every time, regardless of your refund setting. If a dish is rejected after it was genuinely already cooked, write it off instead so the loss is recorded rather than hidden.

Q: Where do I see the shortfalls that have been recorded?
A: On Inventory → Shortfalls. Each row names the product, how much the order needed, how much there was, and how short it came up. Mark a row reviewed once you've looked into it — that changes no stock, it just clears it from the list. See Inventory.

Q: Can I use the same ingredient twice in one recipe?
A: No — each product can only appear once. If you need more of it, adjust the quantity on that one line instead of adding a second.

Q: I removed a recipe by mistake — can I undo it?
A: No. Deleting one from the Food Cost page asks you to confirm first; clearing every ingredient in the recipe window and saving removes it immediately, with no confirmation step. Either way, you'll need to rebuild the ingredient list from scratch.

Q: Where's the "Remove recipe" button in the recipe window? It used to be there.
A: It moved. Deleting a recipe is now a Delete action on the dish's row in Menu → Food cost, so it's a decision you make about the dish, not one buried inside the window you use to edit it. You can still drop a recipe from inside that window — clear every ingredient and save.

Q: I tapped outside the recipe window and it stayed open. Is that a bug?
A: No — tapping outside a window never closes it anymore, on this window or any other, so an accidental tap can't discard what you were typing. Use the × or Cancel, or press Esc.