Prep items and batches - gravy, marinades and sauces

A prep item is something your kitchen makes in bulk from other stock items and then uses in dishes: a makhani gravy base, a tandoori marinade, a sugar syrup. Giving it its own recipe means the ingredients come off stock when you make a batch, the prep item has a cost, and dishes simply use the prep item.

Prep is part of Inventory & recipe costing, included in the Growth plan and above, and in the free trial.

Set up a prep item

1. Add a stock item with the kind Prep (Inventory → Stock → Add stock item) and choose its unit, for example litres.
2. Open Inventory → Kitchen → Prep. The new item appears with Set up recipe (owners and managers).
3. Enter how much one batch makes (in the prep item's unit, for example 10 l).
4. Add the ingredients of one batch. Each quantity is in that ingredient's recipe unit, for example 2,000 g of onion when onion is stocked in kg with a recipe unit of g.
5. Save.

A prep item can use other prep items, but a recipe can't loop back on itself.

Make a batch

1. Open Inventory → Kitchen → Prep and tap Make a batch on the prep item. Owners, managers and inventory clerks can all do this.
2. Enter the Number of batches, or the Quantity wanted: typing one fills in the other from the batch yield.
3. The list shows what will be used. An ingredient shown as short means stock will go below zero. The batch is still allowed, like a sale, so you can record what really happened and fix the stock later.
4. Tap Make batch.

In one step AirQR takes the ingredients off the shelf (each as a Prep batch movement), adds the prep item, and values it at what the ingredients cost. If there was prep already on the shelf the cost is averaged, like a delivery. Owners and managers see the batch cost and cost per litre; clerks never see money. Tapping twice does not make two batches.

The Production log on the Prep tab lists every batch with who made it and when.

Using a prep item in a dish

Add the prep item to a dish's recipe like any stock item. When the dish is sold, the prep item is deducted. Its ingredients are not deducted again, because they came off when the batch was made. The dish's food cost follows the prep item's cost.

Seeing it in reports

On Inventory → Reports, the Consumption report shows what was used in prep and what was made. In Theoretical vs actual, ingredients used to make prep count as expected use, so making batches does not show up as missing stock.

Troubleshooting prep

• Make a batch is greyed out or says add the prep recipe first: the prep item needs a batch yield and at least one ingredient.
• I can't edit the recipe: only owners and managers can.
• Wrong batch recorded: a batch can't be undone. Record the difference with wastage or a stock count and a note.