Tips
Don't give it away!
Pricing a menu dish is part science and part art. CostGuard calculates what you are making on this dish and how much money you should be making. This gives you the science part of the menu price. For the art - look at your establishment's ambience, decor, service levels, and other factors to increase or decrease the Sells for Price of this item.
CostGuard has a feature that crunchs important financial calculations for each recipe. It calculates a suggested menu price based on your target percentages. Use this information to quickly analyze the contributions of each recipe. You can also use it to play “What If” scenarios such as changing the menu price, or changing the price of an ingredient.
This section appears for all types of recipes, but it is best used with a serving recipe. If you want to change the formulas or the percentage used in this screen, go to Recipe Setup Options. For more information on options, click here.
You need to enter at least one of the following Fields
Current-Sells For: if this is a menu item, type in the sales price here. You can also use the arrow to “spin the number up or down” a dollar at a time and see how it affects your final margin.
Food Cost % or Gross Margin %: Depending on which option you chose in Recipe Setup Options, this field calculates the actual percentage based on the portion cost and the sales price that you entered. You can also play “What if” games by spinning the percentage, and watching the Current – Sells For field show the Menu price with the current cost and that percentage.
When you enter one of those fields, it will save when you close the recipe file. If you are playing “what-if” make sure that you type in the original numbers before leaving.
CostGuard calculates these fields automatically.
Current Cost Field: This is the portion cost of the ingredients for this recipe. If this is a serving recipe, it will be the same as the portion cost in the previous section. The overhead percentage is included in this field; if you would like more information, click here.
Current Margin $: This is Selling Price minus Current Cost.
Target Sells For: Based on the formula and percentage that you selected in Recipe Setup Options, this field calculates the target menu price for this item.
Target Food Cost % or Gross Margin %: This field repeats the percentage that you chose in the Recipe Setup Options menu. If you have a Category for this Recipe and you created Target Food Cost % in the Recipe Setup, then CostGuard will use that percentage. For more information on setting these percentages, click here.
Target Margin Dollars: Subtract the Current Cost from the Target Sells for this result. This shows you how much you would make if you sell the recipe for the target sells for.