# Restaurant Costing — User Manual

Welcome! This guide will walk you through everything you can do with Restaurant Costing.
We've written it so anyone can follow along — no technical experience needed.

## What is Restaurant Costing?

Restaurant Costing (RC for short) is a tool that helps you:

- Track every ingredient you buy — what it costs, what's in it, who you buy it from
- Build recipes and see exactly how much each dish costs you to make
- Calculate nutrition for every recipe (calories, protein, fat, etc.)
- Manage inventory — know what you have, what you need, and when to reorder
- Print order sheets for your suppliers

Think of it as the brain behind your kitchen. Once your ingredients and recipes are in the system, RC does all the math for you.

## Getting Started — The Dashboard

When you first log in, you'll land on the Dashboard.
This is your home screen. It shows a quick snapshot of your data:

- How many ingredients you have in your library
- How many recipes you've created
- Your inventory count (how many stock counts you've done)
- Quick links to Ingredients, Recipes, Inventory, and Settings

From here, you can click Manage under any section to jump straight there.

> Tip: The version number (e.g. v1.2.0) is shown at the top of every page — useful if you ever need support.

## Ingredients — Your Food Library

Ingredients are the building blocks of everything. Every item you buy — from salt to steak — lives here.

### Viewing Your Ingredients

Go to Restaurant Costing → Ingredients in the left menu.

You'll see a list of all your ingredients with:

- Name — what you call it
- Product Type — the category (Produce, Meat, Dairy, etc.)
- Product Size — how much one unit is (e.g. "454 g" or "1 L")
- Food Cost — how much one unit costs you
- Sub Recipe — a checkmark if this ingredient is actually a recipe you make in-house

### Adding a New Ingredient

1. Click the Add Ingredient button at the top
2. A window (called a modal) will pop up
3. Fill in the fields:

Field | What to put
--- | ---
Name | The ingredient name (e.g. "Chicken breast, raw")
Product Type | What category it belongs to. Click the + to add a new type
Supplier | Who you buy it from. Click the + to add a new supplier
Area | Where it's stored (e.g. "Walk-in Cooler"). Click + to add
Reference unit | Is it weighed in g (grams), ml (millilitres), or counted as ea (each)?
Product Size | The package size you buy (e.g. "1 kg" or "4 L")
Weight | How much one reference unit weighs in grams
Package size (qty) | How many units are in the package you buy
Package cost | What you pay for the whole package
Food cost | What one unit costs (click Calculate to auto-fill from package cost ÷ size × weight)
Min Level | The lowest stock level before you should reorder

4. Click Save

> Tip: Don't know the food cost? Fill in the Package Cost and Package Size, then click Calculate — it does the math for you.

### Editing an Ingredient

Click any ingredient name in the list to open it. Make your changes and click Save.

### Deleting an Ingredient

Open the ingredient, scroll to the bottom of the window, and click the red Delete button.
It will ask you to confirm — this prevents accidental deletions.

### Copying an Ingredient

Click Copy to New at the bottom of the ingredient window. This creates a duplicate you can tweak — handy when ingredients are similar.

### Nutrition Info

For each ingredient, you can enter nutrition details per 100g (or per reference amount):

- Calories, Total Fat, Saturated Fat, Trans Fat
- Total Carbs, Fibre, Sugar
- Cholesterol, Protein, Sodium
- Vit A, Vit C, Potassium, Calcium, Iron

These are used later when calculating recipe nutrition.

### Filters

Use the Filters bar above the ingredient list to narrow things down:

- Search by name
- Filter by Product Type or Supplier
- Show Inactive — check this to see ingredients you've turned off

### Sub-Recipes (Made In-House)

Some ingredients aren't bought — they're made. For example, "Caesar Dressing" might be a recipe you make.
These are called Sub-Recipes. They show a checked box in the Sub Recipe column.

When you open a sub-recipe ingredient, most fields are locked — RC calculates the cost automatically from the original recipe.
Click Edit Source Recipe → to go to the recipe and make changes.

## Recipes — Building & Costing Dishes

This is the heart of RC. Recipes calculate exactly what each dish costs to make.

### Viewing Your Recipes

Go to Restaurant Costing → Recipes.

You'll see a list with:

- Recipe Name
- Menu Type — the category (Appetizers, Mains, Desserts, etc.)
- Sub-Recipe — a check if this recipe is also available as an ingredient
- Portions — how many servings this recipe makes
- Menu Price — what you charge for it
- Status — Active or Inactive

### Adding a New Recipe

1. Click the Add Recipe button at the top
2. Fill in the basics:
   - Recipe Name
   - Recipe Makes (Portions) — how many servings this recipe makes
   - Menu Type — what category it belongs to (you can manage these in Settings)
   - Menu Price — what the customer pays
3. Add ingredients — start typing an ingredient name and select it from the list. For each ingredient:
   - Quantity — how much you use (e.g. 200)
   - Unit — g, ml, or ea
   - The Cost and Nutrition columns fill in automatically from your ingredient library
4. Add method steps — click the method column next to each ingredient to type a step
5. Add Prep Labour — in the right column, click to add prep tasks with time estimates
6. Click Save

### Understanding the Costing Panel

On the right side of the recipe editor, you'll see a summary:

- Ingredient Cost — total cost of all ingredients per portion
- Prep Cost — labour cost per portion (based on your labour rate and minutes)
- Total Cost — ingredient cost + prep cost
- Menu Price — what you charge
- Gross Margin — profit percentage (menu price minus total cost)
- Food Cost % — ingredient cost ÷ menu price (industry target is usually 28–35%)
- Nutrition / portion — calories, fat, protein, etc. per serving

> Note: If an ingredient is missing nutrition data, you'll see a red warning. The nutrition numbers won't be accurate until you fill in the missing info on that ingredient.

### Sub-Recipes (Using a Recipe as an Ingredient)

If a recipe is also used as an ingredient in other recipes (like a sauce or dressing), check Add as Ingredient near the recipe name.
This makes the recipe available as an ingredient everywhere else, with its cost and weight calculated automatically.

### Scaling Recipes

To see what a recipe costs at different portion sizes:

1. Click Scale Recipe
2. Enter the number of portions you want
3. Check Print Scaled Recipe when printing if needed

### Printing a Recipe

Click Print next to any recipe in the list. This opens a clean printer-friendly view.

### Setting a Recipe Inactive

Open the recipe and click Set Inactive at the top. Inactive recipes are hidden from most lists (you can check "Show Inactive" to see them).

## Inventory — Stock & Ordering

Inventory helps you track what you have in stock and what you need to order.

### Creating an Inventory Count

1. Go to Restaurant Costing → Inventory
2. Click New Inventory
3. For each ingredient, enter:
   - Order Qty — how many you need to order
   - The current stock level is shown for reference
4. Ingredients are grouped by their Area (e.g. Walk-in Cooler, Dry Storage) to make counting easier
5. Click Save

### Viewing Past Inventories

The Inventory list shows all your past counts with the date.
Click Edit to review or change a past inventory, Delete to remove it, or Print/Order to generate order sheets.

### Print/Order — Ordering from Suppliers

The Print/Order window groups items by supplier, so you can:

- Print an order list for each supplier
- Email an order to suppliers who accept email orders
- Print All — everything at once
- Print Not Ordered — only items you haven't ordered yet

Suppliers marked "Email Orders" will show a Resend Order button instead of Print.

> Tip: Check Do Not Print Empty Rows to skip suppliers with no items to order.

### Editing Areas

Click Edit Areas on the Inventory page to manage your storage locations. Areas help organize your inventory counts.

## Settings — Customizing RC

Go to Restaurant Costing → Settings to adjust how RC works.

### Display Settings

- Hide Nutrition — check this if you don't use the nutrition features. It hides all nutrition fields across the plugin.

### Management

Quick access to:

- My Restaurant Info — your business name, address, phone, email, and logo
- Manage Suppliers — add, edit, or remove suppliers
- Manage Areas — add, edit, or remove storage areas
- Manage Users — control who can access RC (see User Roles below)
- Manage Menu Types — add or remove recipe categories (Appetizers, Mains, etc.)

### Backup & Restore

See the Backup & Restore section below.

### Ingredients Data

- Upload foodmaster.csv — replace the main ingredient database file
- Re-import — import the ingredient file into RC. Check "Skip existing" to only add new items
- Export CSV — download all your ingredients as a spreadsheet file

### View Plug-in Details / Changelog / EULA / User Manual

Click these buttons to see information about the plugin, what changed in each version, the license agreement, or this manual.

## Backup & Restore — Protect Your Data

Making regular backups is important. RC makes it easy.

### Creating a Backup

1. Go to Settings → Backup & Restore
2. Click Download Backup
3. A `.sql.gz` file will download — this is a compressed copy of all your data
4. Store this file somewhere safe (not on your website)

### Restoring from a Backup

Warning: Restoring replaces ALL your current data. There's no undo.

1. Go to Settings → Backup & Restore
2. Click Choose File and select your `.sql.gz` backup
3. Click Restore Backup
4. Confirm that you want to replace your data

## Import / Export

### Importing from FoodMaster CSV

If you have ingredient data in a spreadsheet, you can import it:

1. Go to Settings → Ingredients Data
2. Click Upload to replace the CSV file, or check Skip existing and click Re-import to add new items without changing existing ones
3. The system will add new ingredients and update existing ones

### Exporting Ingredients

1. Go to Settings → Ingredients Data
2. Check Export Sub-Recipes if you want to include recipe-based ingredients
3. Click Export CSV to download

### Exporting Suppliers

On the Suppliers page, click Export CSV at the bottom to download your supplier list.

## User Roles — Who Can Do What

RC has three user levels:

Role | What they can do
--- | ---
Manager | View ingredients, recipes, inventory. Run reports and print orders
User | Basic access — view recipes and ingredients
Admin | Full control — everything including settings, users, and deleting data

Users are managed in Settings → Manage Users.
Only Admins can add, edit, or remove users.

## Common Questions

Q: I added an ingredient but it doesn't show up in the recipe search.
A: Make sure the ingredient has a name and was saved. Try refreshing the page.

Q: The nutrition numbers look wrong.
A: Check that all ingredients in the recipe have their nutrition info filled in. If any are missing, you'll see a red warning message.

Q: I deleted something by accident.
A: If you have a backup, you can restore it. Otherwise, you'll need to re-enter the data.

Q: How do I change my restaurant name / logo / contact info?
A: Go to Settings → Management → My Restaurant Info.

Q: I added a Menu Type but it doesn't appear on the recipe page.
A: Refresh the page. Menu Types appear in the dropdown when adding/editing a recipe.

Q: My recipe says "Not accurate" in red.
A: This means one or more ingredients are missing nutrition data. Edit the ingredient and add its nutrition info.

Q: How do I hide nutrition if I don't need it?
A: Go to Settings → Display Settings and check Hide Nutrition.

Q: Can I use RC on my phone?
A: Yes — the inventory entry page is designed to work well on phones for counting stock on the go.