Tips

Remember that Food Cost and Labor Cost affect each other. Lasagna made from scratch will have a low food cost, but higher labor cost. A pre-made frozen Lasagna will have a low labor cost, but a much higher food cost compared to the homemade. You can use CostGuard to track labor by including labor as an Inventory Item. Just remember that Labor is included in the costs when you look at the percentages.

Recipe Setup - Options

The Recipe Options lets you set the formulas for your margins and target menu pricing.  As you enter in Recipes, the formula and percentage entered here will calculate the target sales price and gross margin dollars for you.  If you have corporate or owner dictated margin or food cost percentages this is where you will enter them.

1.       Click Recipe, click Setup, and click Options.

The Recipe Options popup will appear.

2.       You can choose between Food Cost or Gross Margin %.  Use the arrow to toggle and chose the one you want.  Use the mouse to move to the Default Percentage.  Type in the amount.

Type the percentage as a whole number, so 25% would be typed in as 25.  Food Cost Percentage is Food Cost/Menu Price for a dish, while Gross Margin Percentage is (Menu Price – Food Cost)/Menu Price.  Restaurants traditionally use the Food Cost Percentage, and Retail operations such as a deli selling pre-made sandwiches use the Gross Margin Percentage.  If you have a target Food Cost Percentage or Gross Margin Percentage, then type it in here.  Later, it will calculate the selling price of this recipe.

3.       If you want CostGuard to calculate Overhead percentage for all recipes, move down and click the box.

Overhead is a set percentage you can add to each recipe to cover other expenses and the cost of hard to measure ingredients.  For more information about overhead, click here.

4.       Move back up to set the Overhead Percentage for the Recipes.  Similar to Food Cost, type in a whole number.

CostGuard will add this percentage on to each item. 

5.       If you want to Count Prep Recipes when taking Inventory, keep the box checked. .

When the box is checked, Prep Recipes will print on count sheets when you take inventory.

6.       If you want CostGuard to Explode Prep Recipes when Requisitioning, check that box.

When you check this box, CostGuard will show you the details of the prep recipes when you create a requisition.  This is a handy feature to make sure all of the component ingredients are ordered.

7.       Click Ok to save the Options.  Click Cancel to abandon them.

 

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