Add a recipe to a menu item to cost it

What it does. A recipe breaks a menu item down into its ingredients, so Better Cater can calculate what that item costs you to make from its ingredient prices. Without a recipe, a menu item’s cost is a manual cost: a number you type in yourself.

When you’d use it. To see the food cost per serving on a dish you price per head, and the profit on any event that uses it.

Create a recipe

1. Go to Kitchen > Recipes.

2. Click New Recipe.
3. Enter a Name, and set Yield Quantity and Yield Unit to how much the recipe makes. For a recipe that costs a single menu item, set the yield to the number of servings in units of Each (ea): a batch that yields 10 servings gets a yield of 10 ea, so the recipe’s cost per unit lines up directly with the menu item’s cost per serving.

4. Click Save.

Count the batch in trays or platters

1. On the recipe, click Edit Details.
2. In the Batch fills row, type how many containers one batch fills and what they are: 2 and platters.
3. Click Save.

What you’ll see. The recipe page shows “1 batch fills 2 platters” under its yield. On an event that uses the menu item, the kitchen report counts that row in platters instead of batches, and the recipe sheet reads “Make: 28 platters” above ingredient amounts scaled to the event.

Add ingredients

1. On the recipe, click Add Ingredient.
2. Pick an ingredient from your catalog, or click Create New Ingredient to add one that isn’t there yet.

3. Set the Quantity and Unit for how much this recipe uses.

4. Click Add Ingredient. Repeat for every ingredient in the recipe.

A brand-new ingredient has no cost until you price it, so its Reference Info shows “unpriced” instead of a cost when you go to add it.

What you’ll see. Each ingredient lands in the Components table with its cost, and Total Cost and Cost per Unit update as you go.

Link the recipe to a menu item

1. Go to the menu item in Catalog > Menu Items. If it already has a manual cost, its Pricing section shows “Manual cost · Link a recipe.”

2. Click Edit, then click into the Linked recipe field and search for the recipe you built.

3. Select it from the results. The Cost field locks and shows the recipe’s cost per unit instead.

4. Click Update Menu Item.

What you’ll see. The menu item’s Cost now shows the recipe’s cost per serving, where it came from, and how the recipe’s yield maps to servings. Margin recalculates against that real cost.

Always make full trays or platters

A menu item can round the kitchen’s count up to the next full container its recipe fills. A dish whose recipe fills one half pan per 15 servings, on a 66 guest event, becomes 75: five full pans.

1. If the recipe’s Batch fills row is empty, fill it in with what one batch fills, like 1 and half pans.
2. Go to the menu item and click Edit.
3. Tick Round up kitchen counts.
4. Click Update Menu Item.

What you’ll see. On an event, the kitchen report, recipe sheet and shopping list work from 75, while the proposal and invoice still show the 66 the client ordered. A menu item without Batch fills on its recipe, or with no recipe at all, rounds up to a whole number instead.

Build a platter from other recipes

A platter that puts several dishes together is a recipe made of recipes.

1. Make each part its own recipe, like the short rib and the salmon for a duet plate.
2. Create a recipe for the platter itself, with its yield in servings like any other dish.
3. On the platter recipe, click Add Sub-Recipe, pick a part and set how much of it goes in one batch. Repeat for each part.
4. Link the platter recipe to the platter’s menu item, as above.

What you’ll see. The menu item page shows a Made from section listing what goes into one batch of the platter, each part linking to its recipe. On Kitchen > Recipes, the Dishes filter shows recipes linked to a menu item, and the Sub-recipes filter shows the parts used inside other recipes and not sold on their own.

Where cost and profit show up

Once a menu item is linked, every event that uses it pulls the recipe’s cost automatically. On the event’s Billing tab, the “Your profit” tile totals the event’s cost against its price, including this item, and shows the margin.

Good to know.

• The recipe’s total cost reads “N ingredient(s) not priced” until every ingredient has a cost, so a recipe with an unpriced ingredient understates its true cost until you price it.
• Unlinking a recipe (clearing the Linked recipe field) unlocks the Cost field and goes back to a manual cost you set yourself.
• A recipe can also be built from other recipes as sub-recipes, useful for a sauce or a component you reuse across several menu items.
• The container name prints exactly as you type it, so spell it the way it should read: “platters”, not “platter”.
• The kitchen report counts batches for a recipe whose yield is a count above one (12 each, 2 dozen), and containers for a menu item set to round up kitchen counts; a recipe that yields a single serving gets no batch count. Recipe sheets give every recipe its own card. The exception for both is a single-ingredient recipe with no notes or photo that yields exactly what went in, or a single serving: it is a cost-only recipe, so it gets no batch count and prints as one line under Other items.
• A set amount never rounds. It stays at the number you typed.
• The event’s cost and profit count everything the kitchen makes, so rounding up raises the food cost of every event that uses the dish.