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v26.3

Recipes and Costing

For whom: kitchen, bar and owner · Where: Admin → Articles → open article → Stock tab

A recipe tells DiKAS what a sold article is made of. When a Cuba Libre is sold, it is then not "one Cuba Libre" but 4 cl rum and 10 cl cola that are booked off the stock. In the same tab, DiKAS calculates what the recipe costs — and what the selling price leaves over.

Prerequisite

The sold article and every component need "Track stock" (Articles with stock tracking). For quantities in cl or grams, the component additionally needs Content per unit and Content unit.

1. Create a recipe

  1. Open the sold article (e.g. "Cuba Libre"), Stock tab.
  2. Scroll to the Recipe section.
  3. In the field "Add component", search by name or PLU. Arrow keys navigate, Enter accepts, Escape closes the list.
  4. In the new row, enter the quantity and choose the unit.
  5. Add further components, then Save.

The table shows per row: Component, Quantity, Unit, Net cost and a trash icon for removal.

If "Track stock" is missing on a component

A warning icon then appears in the row with the note "Track stock missing". The component is neither booked off nor valued — the switch needs to be switched on for that article.

If no component is defined, it says "No components — article is managed without a recipe." The article then books itself off.

2. The three quantity units

Three units occur in stock. Keeping them apart is the most important point of this page:

Unit Where it counts Example
Stock unit Stock level, stocktake, transfer 1 bottle
Content unit Recipes 4 cl (the bottle holds 70 cl)
Pack Orders from the supplier 1 crate = 12 bottles

The selection in the Unit column of a recipe row offers exactly two values: the component's stock unit and its content unit. This lets you write "1 bottle" or "4 cl" — DiKAS converts the stock level itself (4 cl ÷ 70 cl = 0.057 bottles).

Recipes may be nested — up to three levels

A component may itself have a recipe (sauce → stock → ingredients). From the fourth level on, DiKAS stops and reports this in the costing. A recipe that contains itself is also detected and not resolved endlessly.

3. What happens on a sale

When checking out, DiKAS deducts in this order:

  1. the sold article itself, if it tracks stock,
  2. its recipe components (up to three levels deep),
  3. the chosen article options, as far as they track stock.

Booking off always happens from the stock of the workstation at which the sale was made. A void books the same quantities back — even if the recipe was changed in the meantime: what is booked back is what was sold.

The sale always takes priority

If a quantity cannot be booked off, the sale goes through anyway and the receipt is complete. The stock level can thereby deviate from reality — the stocktake straightens that out.

4. Costing of the base recipe

As soon as a recipe exists, the box "Costing of the base recipe" appears below it. It calculates live while you change quantities.

Key figure Meaning
Current selling price gross / net The selling price as it currently stands in the article
Cost of goods net Sum of the component costs
Contribution margin Net selling price − cost of goods
CM ratio Contribution margin as a percentage of the net selling price
Cost-of-goods ratio Cost of goods as a percentage of the net selling price

Below is the price suggestion for the desired target contribution margin, e.g. "Price suggestion at 70 % target CM: €8.90 gross". The button "Apply to price field" enters the value into the form's price field — as everywhere, it is only saved with "Save".

Where the purchase price comes from

For each component, DiKAS looks for the price in this order:

  1. average purchase price of the main stock,
  2. average purchase price of another stock,
  3. cost per pack of the default supplier, divided by the pack factor.

If you have never booked in goods, costing is therefore based on the pack prices from the article.

Target contribution margin

Two choices are above the suggestion:

  • "Use business default" — takes the value from Admin → Settings → Operations → Costing defaults → Default target contribution margin (%). The default is 70 %, which corresponds to a cost-of-goods ratio of 30 %.
  • "Article exception" — a value of its own just for this article (1 to 95 %).

Which tax class the suggested gross price carries is also set in the costing defaults (Tax class of the price suggestion).

If the costing is incomplete

If a component lacks a purchase price, is deleted, does not have Track stock, or the recipe goes deeper than three levels, the yellow box "Costing incomplete:" appears with the list of reasons by name. Key figures and price suggestion are then locked, and the displayed cost of goods is a lower bound — the real cost of goods is higher.

If not a single component yields a valued stock line, it says "Nothing to calculate:".

Contribution margin is not profit

Extras and side dishes are not part of the base recipe and are not included. Staff, rent and energy have likewise not yet been deducted in the contribution margin.

Practical example: Cuba Libre

Rum 0.7 l (avg. cost €7.00 per bottle), cola 1 l (avg. cost €0.90 per bottle), lime (€0.30 per piece).

  1. Open the article "Cuba Libre", Stock tab, Track stock off — the cocktail itself has no stock.
  2. Recipe: rum 4 cl, cola 10 cl, lime 0,25 Stk.
  3. The box calculates: rum €0.40 + cola €0.09 + lime €0.08 = cost of goods €0.57.
  4. At a selling price of €8.50 gross (€7.14 net), that gives a CM ratio of 92 %.
  5. The suggestion at 70 % target CM would be considerably lower — so here the price is comfortably calculated.

From now on, every Cuba Libre sold deducts 0.057 bottles of rum, 0.1 bottles of cola and a quarter lime from the bar's stock.

When something does not work

Message / observation Cause and remedy
"Track stock missing" in a recipe row The component does not track stock. Switch it on for the component article.
"Costing incomplete:" The box names the components. Usually a purchase price is missing: maintain the pack on the article or book a goods receipt once.
"Nothing to calculate:" No component yields a valued stock line — check prices and Track stock.
"Recipe costing is currently not available." Temporary disruption. Reload the form; the recipe itself is not affected.
"No matching articles found." The search only finds articles that are not already in the list and are not the article itself.
The desired unit is not available for selection The selection offers stock unit and content unit of the component. If one is missing, it is not maintained on the component article.
The stock level drops by the wrong factor Check quantity and unit in the recipe row against Content per unit on the component article (0.7 l is something different from 70 cl).

Next steps