Recipe Costing 101

Recipe costing is an important piece of the restaurant business; if you’re not utilizing it, then you may be costing yourself tens of thousands of dollars in lost profit each year. We’re going to go into more depth as to what recipe costing is, what it has to offer, and what not doing it could be costing you.

What is Recipe Costing?

Recipe costing is just as it sounds: determining what the cost of each recipe is by summing the individual elements of a recipe and their respective costs. That’s a simple explanation of what recipe costing is, but there’s a lot that goes into it.

Why is Recipe Costing important?

Without recipe costing, you would have no idea how much you stand to make from selling a particular dish. You could, in fact, be selling it at a loss and not have any idea you’re doing so until it’s too late. By not recipe costing, you won’t know how much each dish needs to be sold for in order to break even, let alone turn a profit.

How can you make Recipe Costing easier?

Recipe costing can be made easier by using applications to help you streamline the process and give you steps to follow. There are a number of different applications that offer this feature, including Optimum Control. The recipe costing features offered in Optimum Control allow the results to be used across other features offered within the software.

What should you look for in a software solution?

The process and software should be straightforward and easy to use, but robust enough to give you the information you need. By making the process convoluted and confusing, it defeats the purpose of using software. It should also be accurate; we recommend costing out a recipe by hand, and then use the software to ensure they’re close if not the same.

If you’re looking for recipe costing features and inventory management software, then Optimum Control has a solution for you. We have software for single-location establishments, multi-unit organizations, and multi-revenue center locations. Contact us today for more information.

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