Which items track stock
What decides whether a sale takes something off the shelf. Track stock on an item, raw materials and a dish's ingredients, a question's answer that Deducts stock, sets, and the one rule that joins them.
On this page
Not everything you sell sits on a shelf. A can of drink does: you buy it, count it and sell it as it is. A plate of nasi lemak does not: nobody counts plates, but the rice and chicken in it are counted. This guide says how you tell the system which is which, so the Store Room counts the right things.
Three settings decide it, all on the menu's own screens: Track stock on an item, a dish's Ingredients, and Deducts stock on the answer to a question. An item with none of them is sold without touching stock. That is most of a real menu, and it is fine.
Before you start
- Stock must be in your plan. While it is not, Track stock, the Ingredients tab and Deducts stock are not shown at all.
- You need Items, Edit (and Modifiers, Edit for the answers) in your back office access group.
The one rule
When a bill is paid, each item on it is looked at in this order:
- It tracks stock: the item itself comes off the shelf. Its recipe, if it has one, is not used.
- It has ingredients: each ingredient comes off, by the amount one dish uses.
- Neither: nothing moves.
Then each answer the guest chose (Extra shot, Add egg) that Deducts stock takes its item off, by the same rule.
Tracking wins over the recipe on purpose. A bottle of house syrup you make has a recipe (sugar, water) and a shelf of bottles. The sugar left the store when the batch was made. Selling a bottle takes the bottle off and stops, so the sugar is never taken twice.
Track stock: an item counted on the shelf
Tick Track stock for anything you buy and sell as it is: a can, a bottle of beer, a packet of chips, a jar of sambal. Every sale takes one off; a delivery puts them on.
- Type: Normal, Combo / set, Open price or Raw material. It decides whether the item can track stock at all.
- Track stock: tick it to count this item on the shelf. Greyed out for a set.
- Unit: the unit it is counted, delivered and sold in, such as BTL. Choose it before the first delivery.
- In the menu, under MASTERS, click Menu, then Items.
- Click the item's code. The General tab opens.
- Tick Track stock, beside Type.
- Check its Unit.
- Click Save.
From then on the item is on the delivery note's and the count sheet's lists, and each sale takes it off. It appears in the Store Room once it has moved for the first time.
Raw materials and a dish's ingredients
A dish cooked to order does not track stock. What it is made of does: its ingredients.
- Make each ingredient an item of Type Raw material, with its Unit (KG, LTR). A raw material is never sold or shown on the POS. See Add a raw material.
- Tick its Track stock too. Then you can receive it on a delivery note and count it on Count a Shelf: both list only the items that track stock.
- On the dish, open the Ingredients tab and say what one dish uses: 0.15 KG of rice. See Items: Ingredients tab.
Each sale of the dish then takes its ingredients off the shelf of the outlet that sold it. On the item's stock card they read Consumed, with for Nasi Lemak Ayam in the Note.
A dish that both tracks stock and has ingredients deducts the dish. Its Ingredients tab says so in amber: This dish is counted in stock in its own right, so a sale deducts THE DISH, not the ingredients below. Untick "Track stock" beside the Type on the General tab if you want the ingredients to come off instead.
Answers that deduct stock
A question on a dish (a modifier) can have answers that use stock of their own: Extra shot uses a shot of espresso, Add Guinness a bottle.
| Code · Optional | Name / Kitchen name | Price +/− | Deducts stock1 | Default | On |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D01 | GUINNESS / Kitchen name (GUINNESS) | 12.00 | D01 — GUINNESS | ☐ | ☑ |
| T01 | TIGER / Kitchen name (TIGER) | 10.00 | T01 — TIGER | ☐ | ☑ |
| NO | No beer / Kitchen name (No beer) | 0 | — | ☑ | ☑ |
- Deducts stock: the item this answer takes off each time it is chosen, one for each dish on the line. — takes nothing.
- In the menu, under MASTERS, click Menu, then Modifiers, and click Edit on the group.
- On the answer's row, choose the item in Deducts stock.
- Click Save.
The answer's item goes through the same rule as a dish: if it tracks stock, it comes off itself; if it has ingredients, they come off. On the stock card the line reads Consumed, with the dish in the Note. See Modifiers.
Sets
A Combo / set has no shelf of its own, so its Track stock is greyed out, with the line A set has no shelf of its own: its stock moves through the items chosen in it. Each dish chosen in the set moves its own stock, by the rule above.
A set's own Ingredients are for what the set itself uses whichever dishes are chosen: the box, the bag, the tray liner.
Kept bottles
Only an item that tracks stock can be kept for a customer: a whole bottle the customer paid for and left with you. See Custody (kept items).