Article Contents
Introduction
With the Cost Calculator tool, you can try out changes to existing POS Items or cost out new menu items without impacting your data.
You can change ingredients, the quantity, or even the menu price to achieve a desired cost percentage using your latest item costs.
Think of it as a sandbox to see how the changes impact the costs of your menu before committing to them.
If you wish to move forward with the changes, you can then apply them to the existing POS Items when ready.
Creating a Draft POS Item
To use the cost calculator, you'll need to create a draft POS Item. You can either:
Create a copy of an existing POS Item or
Create a new Draft POS Item
Copying from an Existing POS Item
To create a copy of an existing POS Item as a draft:
On the "POS Items" tab, place your cursor over a POS Item and click the blue arrow button that appears
Click "Clone as draft" from the menu
Click "OK" on the confirmation window
The draft POS Item is created and you can start making changes to it (change ingredients or their amounts, price etc.)
Creating a New Draft POS Item
To create a new draft POS Item:
From the POS Items page, click the "Cost Calculator" tab
Click the "New draft POS Item" button
Give the draft POS Item a name and click "Save"
The draft POS item is created and you can start adding ingredients to cost it out
Adding/Updating Recipe Mapping
With the draft POS Item created, you can:
modify the existing ingredients if it was copied from an existing item, or
start adding ingredients if new
Any changes made here do not affect your data. This is a sandbox to experiment with POS Item costs and menu prices.
As you update ingredients, you can also modify the menu price to see how that impacts the overall cost percentage of the item.
Note: Changes to the menu price are only for testing purposes. If you want to change the price of a menu item you will need to update it in your POS system.
As an example, we cloned the "Cosmopolitan" menu item that currently uses Tito's:
By replacing it with Absolut, we can see how this changes the cost of the item:
As another example, we created the Double Cheddar Bacon Burger and added all of the ingredients to cost it out:
By knowing the cost of the menu item ($3.78), we can determine the best menu price.
You can add a value in the "Price" field and it will show you the resulting cost percentage. In the example below, the price was set to $18, with a cost percentage of 21.02%.
You can also enter a cost percentage in the "Target Cost" field and it will suggest the price to achieve it. In the example below, the target cost was set to 20%, which puts the price at $18.92. This could then be rounded up as needed.
Note: If you change the ingredients after setting a target cost, click the recalculate button. Otherwise setting a new target cost will also recalculate the price.
Copying Mapping to Existing POS Items
If you decide to move forward with the changes or the new costed-out menu item, you can copy the ingredients from the draft POS item to the real one.
To copy the ingredients:
On the "POS Items" tab, place your cursor over a POS Item and click the blue arrow button that appears
Click "Import ingredients from another POS item"
In the search window, click the "Draft POS Items" tab
Enter the name of the draft POS Item with the same name as the real POS Item and click the result
The confirmation window shows the ingredients that will be copied to the item. If the real POS Item already has ingredients added, they are replaced with the mapping from the draft POS Item. Click "OK"
The ingredients are added to the selected POS Item. In this example, the Tito's in the Cosmopolitan POS Item was replaced with Absolut and the costing updates to reflect this change
Note: When you edit a POS Item, those changes only apply to data in unlocked inventory periods. To learn more, see:
Archiving Draft POS Items
After copying the mapping, we recommend archiving the draft POS Item. This isn't required, but will keep the Cost Calculator tab clear.
To archive a draft POS Item, click the checkbox beside it and then "Archive" on the side menu.
