Ingredients

Plain-English summary#

Ingredients are the raw materials your recipes use — flour, tomato, cooking oil. In Foodops an ingredient is simply a normal inventory item with "Use as Ingredient" switched on ("Item is a raw material used in production"). Each ingredient has a unit (kg, litre, each — with optional alternate units and conversions), and its stock is tracked per location. Menu items use ingredients through their recipes, so one sale can reduce several raw-material stocks, and a change in an ingredient's supplier price flows into recipe cost.

When you'd use this#

• Setting up inventory tracking for a kitchen
• Tracking raw-material cost into recipe cost
• Doing stock counts at ingredient level (not menu-item level)
• Building a recipe and needing the ingredient picker to find your raw materials

How to access#

• Admin back office: Catalog → Items. Create the item and tick Use as Ingredient on the form. There's no separate "Ingredients" page — ingredients are items with this option on.

Walkthrough#

Marking an item as an ingredient#

1. Catalog → Items → add or edit an item.
2. Under What is this item used for?, tick Use as Ingredient ("Item is a raw material used in production"). It sits beside Sell as Menu Item. Set as Modifier is separate: it is inside the collapsed Codes, description and modifier use section. An item can have any combination. The ingredient toggle is hidden only for Kit/Bundle product types.
3. Set the unit (and the purchasing/inventory sections, as for any stocked item). Save.

Units and conversions#

1. On the item detail, the Units tab (headed Units & conversions) lists "Base unit and alternate units configured for this item." These conversions are used when a recipe uses a different unit from the one stock is held in.

Using ingredients in a recipe#

The Recipe tab only appears when the Enable Recipe Module setting is on (Settings > Outlets > General). It can be off, in which case menu items have no Recipe tab.

1. When it is on, a menu item's Recipe tab is a summary, not an editor. With no recipe it says "No recipe yet" and offers Create recipe; once recipes exist it lists them (name, number of ingredients, status, cost) with New recipe and Open in Recipes buttons.
2. The recipe editor is part of Costing, which is switched on per organisation. Where Costing is on, those buttons open the recipe in Recipes, and that is where you add ingredients and set each line's quantity and unit. Where Costing is off, the buttons lead nowhere useful (you land back on the dashboard), so Costing has to be switched on for your organisation before you can build recipes.
3. Recipe costing (Costing → Recipe Costing) lists ingredients with quantity and an optional unit-cost override. At least one ingredient is required. The Costing menu only appears when Costing has been switched on for your organisation (it is off by default), so you may not see it.
4. Selling the menu item reduces ingredient stock through the recipe — see Recipes for how deduction works.

Stock at ingredient level#

1. Ingredient stock works like any other item's stock: levels per location, stock counts, adjustments and transfers.
2. The item detail page shows "Set as Ingredient: Yes/No".

Key concepts#

• An ingredient is an item with an option switched on — everything else (units, stock, suppliers, cost) works like normal inventory.
• Three separate options — Use as Ingredient / Sell as Menu Item / Set as Modifier can be combined freely: a "Cheese Slice" can be sold, used in recipes, and linked to a modifier option at the same time. The Set as Modifier option links an item to a modifier option for inventory and reporting; it doesn't change how recipes use stock.
• Item pickers — lists of items can include or leave out raw materials.
• Units & conversions — an ingredient has a base unit plus alternates, so a recipe can use grams while stock is held in kg.
• Cost flow — ingredient cost feeds recipe cost, which feeds menu-item margin in costing reports.
• Foodops only — the ingredient option is part of Foodops's recipe and production features.

Common questions#

Q: How do I create an ingredient? A: Create a normal item in Catalog → Items and tick Use as Ingredient. Give it the unit you buy or count it in.

Q: Can an ingredient also be sold directly? A: Yes — also tick Sell as Menu Item. The options are independent; bottled water can be both sold and used in recipes.

Q: Why doesn't my ingredient appear in the recipe picker? A: Check that Use as Ingredient is on and the item is active. The recipe picker only searches items marked as ingredients.

Q: What unit should I give an ingredient? A: The unit you stock-count in (kg, litre, each). Recipes can use a smaller unit through unit conversions — see the Units & conversions tab.

Q: Does selling a menu item reduce ingredient stock immediately? A: Stock is reduced through the item's recipe — see Recipes for when that happens and how committed stock is reported.