Add a recipe to a menu item to cost it

In this video, you'll learn how to use the Kitchen in Better Cater to price your ingredients, manage your vendors, build recipes, connect recipe costs to menu items, and see the profit on your events.

Click Kitchen in the top menu. Ingredients, Vendors and Recipes work together to answer one important question: what does this dish actually cost to make?

The Kitchen is where ingredient costs become recipe costs, recipe costs become menu item margins, and those margins tell you the profit on an event.

Start with Ingredients. Each ingredient is something you buy or use in recipes, with a base unit, a vendor, and a current cost per unit.

Open an ingredient to see its current pricing and where it is used. Pricing shows the base unit, the cost per unit and when it last changed, and Used In Recipes shows which recipes are affected when that price changes.

Click New Ingredient to add one. Enter the name, then choose the Base unit, the unit you use inside recipes, like ounce, pound, each, cup or gallon.

The base unit can be different from the case, bag or bunch you buy from your vendor, and that difference is what turns a purchase price into a recipe cost.

Select the vendor if you know it, then save. A new ingredient has no cost until you record a purchase, so that comes next.

Click Edit and open the Purchase panel. Use I bought to enter how many packages you purchased and what you call that package, such as case, bag, bunch, bottle or clamshell.

The package name is what can appear on your shopping list. Each one has is how much of the base unit is inside one package, so basil in four ounce clamshells, with ounce as its base unit, has four in each one.

Total paid is the amount you paid for the purchase, and Bought from records the vendor. Record Purchase then works out the cost per base unit your recipes use.

Click Kitchen, then Vendors. Vendors keep your suppliers organized, and each one shows how many ingredients come from that supplier, so when prices change you can see what may need attention.

Click Kitchen, then Recipes. Recipes are costed batches, so each one shows what a single batch yields and what one unit of that batch costs.

Click New Recipe to start one. Enter the recipe name and the yield, the quantity and unit one batch produces. Notes and a photo are optional.

Open a recipe to see its Yield, Total Cost and Cost per Unit. We add up the components for the batch cost, then show the cost of each unit the recipe produces.

If one batch plates ten servings, set the yield to ten Each, and Cost per Unit becomes your cost per serving, which is the number a menu item can use.

The Components table is where the recipe is built. Each row is an ingredient or a sub-recipe, with the quantity used and the cost it adds to the batch total.

A sub-recipe is another recipe used inside this one, like a sauce, dressing, stock or spice mix. Add Sub-Recipe puts one in, so you cost it once and the recipes that use it pick up that cost.

Add Ingredient opens your ingredient list with each current cost beside the name. Enter the quantity and unit this recipe uses, and Reference Info shows what that ingredient costs as you type.

Recipe cost is auto-calculated from the components. To override it, click Edit on Total Cost, switch the Calculation Method to Manual cost and type the batch total yourself, for a dish you cost another way.

Now for the payoff. Once your recipes are costed, those costs can flow into menu items, into margins, and into the profit on an event.

Open a menu item linked to a recipe. Pricing shows Price, Cost and Margin side by side, so you can see what the client pays, what the dish costs you, and what is left after cost.

When a menu item is linked to a recipe, the Cost is controlled by that recipe instead of typed by hand. The lock shows where it comes from, with the batch and the recipe named underneath.

Margin shows how much of the price is left after the item cost. Use it to spot dishes that may need a price change, a recipe adjustment, or a different portion size.

To link a recipe yourself, click Edit, search the Linked Recipe field, and choose the recipe. Once linked, the menu item cost comes from that recipe.

When that menu item goes onto an event, the event picks up the cost it carries that day. Open the event, click Billing, and Your profit shows how it looks after those costs.

Refresh costs updates the event with your current item costs. An event keeps the costs it had when its items were added, so you choose when to update them. What your client pays never changes.

That's the Kitchen. Use it to keep ingredient prices current, build recipe costs you can trust, connect those costs to menu items, and know what an event earns before and after the job.

That's it. If you have a question, email us at support@bettercater.com. Thanks for watching.