Can I cost by supplier pack size?
Yes. Enter each ingredient the way you buy it: a 10 kg bag, a 2 L bottle, a box of 12. Easy Flow works out the cost per gram, millilitre or item from there.
Features · Catering recipe costing
Catering Recipe Costing
Cost every recipe from what you actually pay. See the food cost and margin on every menu item, and turn upcoming orders into a prep list your kitchen can work from.
A platter usually gets priced once, when it goes on the menu. Then beef goes up, cream goes up, and the margin you priced in quietly shrinks.
A costing spreadsheet helps until it falls behind. Recipe costing lives in the same system that takes your orders. Every cost is worked out from your current ingredient prices.
How does recipe costing work?
Add your ingredients as you buy them. Enter the pack size, the pack price and how much is usable after trimming. A 1 kg bag of onions for $3 might be 80% usable once peeled.
Build your recipes. Say what one batch makes, like 10 portions or 2 litres of sauce. Then add the ingredients and sub-recipes that go in. The cost updates as you type.
Link recipes to your menu. A 10-serve lasagne tray uses 10 portions of lasagne. A grazing platter can draw on several recipes. Each item then shows its food cost, food cost % and margin.
Worked example
Your Napoli sauce makes 2 litres for $8.40. Your lasagne uses a litre of it, plus beef, pasta sheets, mozzarella and cream. That's $33.10 a batch, or $3.31 a portion.
Link it to your 10-serve lasagne tray at $110. The tray shows a food cost of $33.10, a food cost % of 30.1% and a margin of $76.90.
Then your butcher puts beef up from $14 to $16 a kilo. Change it once. The lasagne goes to $35.50 a batch and the tray to 32.3%. Every other dish with beef in it updates too.
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Lasagne · makes 10 portionsUpdated with today's prices
Napoli sauce (1 L)$4.20
Beef (1.2 kg)$16.80
Pasta sheets (500 g)$3.40
Mozzarella (400 g)$5.20
Cream (300 ml)$1.90
Onion (150 g, 80% usable)$1.60
Batch cost$33.10
$33.10
Food cost
30.1%
Food cost %
$76.90
Margin
Food cost, food cost % and margin, worked out from your current ingredient prices.
Turn tomorrow's orders into a prep list
Pick Today, Tomorrow or This Week. The recipe worksheet reads your paid and confirmed orders and works out what the kitchen needs:
- Production: what to make, in the order to make it. Sauces come before the dishes that use them, with batch counts, scaled quantities and your method.
- Pick list: every ingredient, totalled and sorted by supplier, in the unit you buy it in.
- Not covered: anything ordered that doesn't have a recipe yet, so nothing gets missed.
Three lasagne trays going out tomorrow? The kitchen sees 3 litres of Napoli to make first, then 3 batches of lasagne. The pick list has 3.6 kg of beef, 2.25 kg of tomatoes, 1.5 kg of pasta sheets, 1.2 kg of mozzarella, 900 ml of cream and 450 g of onions (360 g once peeled).
Filter by menu category to print a sheet for just the hot food or just the sweets. The printed copy has tick boxes and no costs, so it can go straight on the bench. You can also download it as a PDF.
Frequently asked questions
Does it allow for trim and waste?
Yes. Give each ingredient a usable yield, like 80% for onions once peeled. Costs allow for the loss, and the pick list tells you how much to pick so you end up with enough.
What happens when my prices change?
Change the price once. Every recipe, sub-recipe and menu item that uses it updates straight away.
Does it handle kitchen measures like cups and spoons?
Yes. Grams and kilos convert automatically, and so do millilitres and litres. Spoon and cup measures convert too. If a recipe asks for tablespoons of something you buy by the kilo, it's flagged for you to fix, not guessed.
Can my kitchen staff use it?
Yes. Staff can view recipes and print worksheets. Only owners and admins can change recipes and prices.
Want to see a costed menu?
Book a 15 minute demo and we'll walk you through a full recipe book, costed down to the portion.
Book a 15 Minute Demo