A menu that knows what each drink costs

What was asked for

Recipes could already say what their ingredients cost. A drink costs more than its recipe once it is sold, though. It goes out in a cup with a lid and a sleeve, and a shop that gives away milk alternatives and flavors pays for those too. The ask was a menu kept apart from the recipes: which recipes are sold, at what price, and the true cost of serving each one.

What the menu shows

The Menu sits in a new Operations section of the sidebar, beside Recipes and Economics. Its first page lists everything you sell by category, with each size and its price. Owners and admins also see what each size costs and what it keeps, like Costs $1.06 · keeps $3.59 (77%). Opening an item shows every part of that cost: the recipe, anything added on top of it, what it is served in, and each free choice at how often it is chosen. Anything that cannot be costed yet, like a lid with no price, is named with a link to where it is fixed, and the size reads as the least it costs until then.

Putting recipes on the menu takes one pass. Tick the recipes you sell, type a price for each size and pick what each is served in. Something sold as it is bought, like a bottled drink, can be added as an item of its own. A seasonal drink can be taken off the menu and kept for next year.

Costs are worked out from your latest supplier prices, the same way recipes are costed, so a price change on an invoice moves the menu the next time it opens.

Packaging and free extras

Packaging is set up once and picked for each size. A set lists what one sale uses and how often, so a sleeve used on 60% of hot drinks, or a cup skipped by people who drink from a mug, is counted at its share. Cups bought by the sleeve can be counted one at a time with the same Add a unit step the recipes use.

Options are the choices customers make, like milk and flavors, offered on the items you choose. A choice either adds something, like two pumps of vanilla, or replaces an ingredient, like oat milk instead of whole milk, using the amount each size already calls for. You say how often each is chosen and whether it is charged, and every item that offers it counts that share of its cost. Each item also shows the most it can cost, with the dearest choice in every group.

Who sees what

Menu stays off until an owner turns it on in Feature settings. It needs Recipes and Inventory, since it costs from them.

• Everyone on the team sees the menu, its sizes and prices, and the options with any charge
• Costs, margins, how often options are chosen, and packaging are for owners and admins
• Changes are made by owners and admins, and the demo shows the menu without changing it

What comes next

The menu shows what a sale keeps after the cost of goods. Next is a unit economics page that adds labor, rent, card fees and everything else, to show profit, the sales a day it takes to break even, and what prices would need to be.