New Feature: Enterprise Menu Recipe Management
Posted by Jeff Schacher on Mon, Oct 13, 2008 @ 10:33 AM
I'll be honest, this one was tough. Inventory and recipes can be tricky by default, but we decided to really challenge ourselves.
We set out to solve two problems:
Problem #1 - You are an operator and you decide to change a few recipes. In many inventory systems, you would need to create a new menu item in your POS and "retire" the old one. To solve this dilemma, we created "recipe versions". With "recipe versions", you just enter the date when you want the new recipe to start and we handle the reporting behind the scenes to use the right recipe for the right dates.
Problem #2 - You are a multi-unit operator and you have a menu item or two that has slightly different recipes depending on the location or region. To solve this dilemma, we create "recipe variations". With "recipe variations", you can add additional recipes for an item and assign which recipes belong to which stores. This way there are no POS hacks needed and you can see an accurate above-store product mix with theoretical usage and costs.
To complete the solution, we allow you create versions on variations and you can create as many as you want. Do you have daily specials that change frequently and are different in every store? You can have "Fish Special" in the POS, and have a variation for each store and a new recipe version every day.
We're excited about this and we know our customers are. The bottom line is "no more POS hacks for recipe changes", you can manage your recipes in your inventory system, what a great idea.