How do old invoices entered in prior periods impact completed counts and historical usage reports?
Counts are considered the canonical input regarding on-hand data and they therefore override quantity data from other previous transactions. We never change the quantity that you entered in a count. This applies only to quantities, not to prices.
Invoices (or sales, waste, or other transactions) affect the usage reports based on the date of the transaction, not the date the transaction was entered. So yes, entering an invoice today for a delivery that was received last month would reduce the variance in the variance report for last month. All reports are recalculated every time they’re generated.
Ex. an old invoice received now and entered with dates in a prior period
Assuming ingredients from that invoice were counted at the time and showed up as a positive variance would that variance now be reduced if the report was pulled and the invoice was no longer missing?
Do usage and inventory reports use the costs at that point in time (most recent invoice dated within reporting dates) or will it use most recent costing today?
For recipe costing we use the LIFO method, meaning that your recipes will display ingredient costs based on the most recent invoice for that ingredient.
For reporting we maintain historical pricing data and use the prices as they were during the date range of the report, not the prices at the moment that the report is generated. No need to generate and export the report to have a snapshot in time.
Will period specific reports need to be exported and saved to show a snapshot in time before costs are updated with new invoices?
Will it “use up” inventory at cost it was purchased at or all items at most recent cost or at cost counted?
Does timing of spillage/waste recorded matter for usage if it’s recorded within reporting dates and between count dates?
Ex. Recording spillage in last week of period before count date or two weeks before or a day before count etc.
Same as above. Waste tracking is counted based on the date of the transaction, not based on the date the transaction was entered. If you enter a waste transaction today with a date in November, that transaction will be included in reports for the date range Nov. 1- Nov. 30.
More clarity around the same items from different vendors (ex. tomatoes from Vendor 1 and Vender 2, where we wouldn’t know the source of tomatoes counted on the shelf and would mostly be interested in the total number of tomatoes on hand)
For the example of tomatoes from two different vendors (this should apply to 95% of your products where you won’t know the source of the product when it’s stored on the shelf), what you’ll want to do is add the most commonly ordered product to the real location, and the less commonly ordered product to the ghost location, and then turn on “Initialize Zero Counts” in the counts options. Your staff member taking counts will ignore the ghost location sheets and all tomatoes will be counted with the most recent price of the more commonly ordered product. Since reports consolidate the products and display them as top-level ingredients, your reporting data will still be accurate; it will just display “Tomatoes”.
Here is the only time when you’ll want to manually change out a product in the counts sheet, but that should be a serious corner case: two identical products have significantly different prices from different vendors AND it’s not clear which vendor the product is from when it’s on the shelf AND this happens often enough to have a non-negligible effect on price (NOT quantity) in usage reports.
Before taking counts, you’ll want to go toMenu > Counts > Products > Show Products Without Locations: ON. This will display any products that have been recently added to your database but don’t yet have a location. From there it’s simple to add them to the correct location OR to the ghost location if they already have a connected product in a location.
Will it show up at the top of the search list when adding items to count sheet or is the order alphabetical or random?
We don’t currently indicate which product was most recently ordered for a given ingredient, but that would definitely be part of the next iteration of our counting interface. For now, most users are comfortable with only one product per ingredient being counted and the rest being in the ghost location if it’s not clear which vendor the product is from.
Products are displayed in the order that they were added to the count sheets. There’s a search window at the top of each location for quickly finding a specific product. The order can be manually changed while displaying the count sheet and that new order becomes persistent for new counts. Products added on the fly default to the top of the sheet.
Will the person need to have knowledge of what was the most recent vendor invoice for a specific ingredient or is it simple to pick the correct listing.
What happens if it’s counted under the wrong vendor?
That’s pretty typical. Since products are consolidated into their top-level ingredients for reporting purposes, all reports will still be accurate.
Is there any type of W.I.P reporting?
The best practice for counting WIP is to create a prep recipe for each step of a recipe that would be in storage long enough that it would be part of a count. For example:
Create one prep recipe called Chicken in Buttermilk – this can be counted
Create one prep recipe called Chicken in Flour – this can be counted
Since the chicken is fried to order, the finished fried chicken will not be counted and therefore does not need its own prep recipe.
Diced onions that immediately get added to a pot for soup: not necessary to create a separate prep recipe.
Apples that get batch-baked at the beginning of the week and then added to apple pie every day: you’ll want to create a prep recipe for baked apples which can be counted.
Chicken that gets marinated in buttermilk overnight, and then coated in flour where it stays all day, and then fried to order. You’ll want to be able to count each step:
Quantity of ingredients used towards work in progress item or portion of completed recipe?
WIP items are considered normal prep recipes, which can be counted and reported on just like ingredients. If you want to report on them separately from other recipes, you can add them to a different group or category.
What is the best way to count work in progress items?
Is there a way of discontinuing ingredients or recipe’s or making them inactive to cut down on clutter over time? We don’t have an archive function right now, instead:
Merging duplicate ingredients: go to Menu > The Optimizer > Merge Ingredients. This will create multiple products under one ingredient.
Vendors can’t be automatically merged.
Is it possible to track labour?
Adding the average cost of a labor hour as an ingredient to a recipe is the best way to track labor.
Add labour as an ingredient to recipes? Ex. Average cost of labour hour allocated to time per recipe as an ingredient