How costing works
Mezbano prices a recipe by costing each of its ingredient lines and adding them up. A line that points at another recipe (a sub-recipe) contributes that recipe’s own rolled-up total, so a pizza can be built from a dough recipe and a sauce recipe and still show one accurate cost.
Where each ingredient’s cost comes from
For every ingredient line, Mezbano resolves a unit cost from the best available source, in this order of precedence (highest first):
- Store cost override — a price you set for that ingredient at a specific store. This always wins, so a location can reflect what it actually pays.
- Recent store purchase — the most recent ingredient purchase recorded at that store on or before the costing date. When you log what you bought, your recipes follow your real prices automatically.
- Franchise baseline cost — a brand-level reference price for the ingredient. It is the fallback when a store has neither an override nor a purchase on file.
If none of these exist for an ingredient on the costing date, that line has no price and the recipe shows the cost as unavailable rather than guessing.
Effective dates
Costs are resolved as of a date, not just “right now”. Store overrides and franchise baselines each carry an effective-from date, and Mezbano picks the record that was in effect on the costing date. Purchases are matched by purchase date — the most recent one on or before that date wins. This means a recipe costed for last month uses last month’s prices, and updating a price today does not silently rewrite your history.
Costing uses the published version
Recipes are versioned. Costing always reads the published version of a recipe — and of any sub-recipe it references — not a work-in-progress draft. Edit and preview freely; when you publish, the new version is what costing and reports use from then on. A recipe with no published version yet is not costed.
Setting the prices costing reads
- Bulk-load franchise baselines from a spreadsheet — see Importing your ingredients.
- Set brand baselines and store overrides from the costing screens in the app.
- Record purchases as you buy, and store prices update themselves.