Mezbano works out what a recipe costs by pricing each of its lines and adding them up. A line can be an ingredient or another published recipe, such as a sauce, so a dish can include prepared parts without listing their ingredients again.
If any line can’t be priced, the recipe’s cost is incomplete. Mezbano may show what it could add up, to help you find the gap, but it does not treat that as the recipe’s cost. An incomplete cost is left out of profit numbers, instead of making a dish look cheaper than it is.
Where each ingredient’s price comes from
For each ingredient line at a store, Mezbano looks for a price in this order:
- The store’s own price, set under Menu & costs, then Your own ingredient prices. While it is in effect on the costing date it is always used, even when a delivery is newer. A price with no start date applies to all dates, including past ones; it can have a last day, after which an earlier price of yours that has not ended applies again. Changing a price ends the old one the day before the new one starts.
- The store’s latest delivery of that ingredient on or before the costing date, for example from Record a delivery, however long ago it was.
- The brand’s ingredient price, set under Menu & costs, then Ingredient prices. It is used when the store has neither of the above for that date. At brand level (for example on the brand’s Menu costs), only the brand’s ingredient prices are used.
Once it has a price, Mezbano converts the amount in the recipe into the unit that price is for, and adds the ingredient’s waste percentage (the part that is trimmed or thrown away) as extra cost. Only the price chosen above is used. If its unit can’t be converted to the recipe’s unit, the line has no cost, and the cost breakdown says which price it was and what to add, for example “Store price per case can’t be converted to g — add a conversion”. Mezbano never falls back to another price, so a line never looks cheaper than the price you set.
Prices count from a date
Costs are worked out as of a date, not just “right now”. A store’s own cost and a brand’s ingredient price can each have a “Starts on” date (without one, the price applies to all dates, including past ones; pick a start date to keep earlier dates on the previous price), and Mezbano picks the one that counted on the costing date. Deliveries are matched by delivery date. “Today” is the store’s business day, which ends at 04:00, so a price set late at night belongs to the day you are closing.
Changing a price keeps its history. The new price starts today, or on a later date you choose, and the days before keep the price they had; each price screen shows the history. Waste is different: it describes the ingredient, so a change to it also applies when earlier dates are worked out again. When a recipe is published with every line costed, Mezbano keeps the full batch cost at that moment, and a version’s history shows that cost beside its cost at today’s prices.
Menu prices and recipe food cost
A menu price is before tax, and one price serves every way you sell, in the store and for delivery. Recipe food cost % is what a dish’s ingredients cost as a share of that price. It is not the monthly Food cost % in the P&L, which comes from the food bills you enter as expenses. The brand sets the good and warning levels for it under Brand settings (30% and 35% unless changed).
Costing uses the published recipe
Recipes have versions. Costing uses the version published for the costing date, and does the same for any recipe used inside it, never a draft that is still being edited. A version that starts on a later date does not take over early, and a recipe with no version published for that date can’t be costed.
A recipe used inside another one counts only when its published version has a complete cost, a batch size above zero, and a way to convert the amount used into the unit its batch is made in. Otherwise that line stays uncosted, so a half-costed part never makes the whole dish look cheaper.
Setting the prices that costing uses
- Bring in the brand’s ingredient prices from a spreadsheet: see Importing ingredients.
- Set the brand’s prices under Menu & costs, then Ingredient prices, and a store’s own prices under Menu & costs, then Your own ingredient prices.
- Record deliveries as they arrive. The newest one is used when it is newer than the store’s own cost, not older than the brand’s limit, and its units can be converted.