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How to use the Recipes feature

Track your menu item costs with the Recipe feature

Quick answer: Select Recipes in the sidebar, choose the outlet and click Create new. Enter the recipe name and portion, then add ingredients from your inventory items or sub-recipes. Then follow the steps below.

Product: Nomni Procure
​Applicable to: Desktop

The Recipes feature lets you build recipes for your menu items using ingredients you're already buying using Nomni Procure.


Key features

By comparing the recipe cost and the retail selling price of the menu item, you'll get the food cost percentage that will help you determine whether you're pricing the menu item correctly.

Nomni Procure Buyer Hub Recipes list with the recipe cost and food cost columns highlighted

Regular users of the invoice digitisation feature already benefit from seeing the latest prices of these items. Because the recipes are made up of the items in the market list, the cost and food cost percentages columns on the screen above will be constantly updated based on the latest market list prices.

You can also create sub-recipes for certain items that may not appear on the menu but have to be prepared in your kitchen and later used as ingredients in the recipes.

The Add to Favourites (star button next to the recipe) feature allows you to prioritise frequently edited Recipes or sub-recipes. This action will move the selected recipe to the top of the list.

You can utilise filters to customise your view:

  • Type: View only Recipe or Subrecipe.

  • Food Cost: View only Recipe or Subrecipe outside the food cost threshold (see below)

  • Tags: View only Recipe or Subrecipe with selected tags.

  • Show Favourites only: View only your favourite Recipe or Subrecipe.


Things to know before you start

  • All ingredients must be inventory items or sub-recipes. For ingredients outside inventory, you have to add it first from market list. You can do this directly from the recipe page—see Step 4 in the section below for details.

  • Ingredient quantities can be specified in any UOMs. See Step 5 in below section for more info.


Add an item to an inventory list

Follow these steps:

  1. Click Inventory in the side navigation bar.

  2. Select an outlet, then click Add SKU.

  3. Select the inventory list you want to add the item into.

  4. We'll show all items that are not in the selected list. This may include some items that are in Inventory already but are not in this list. You can filter the list by supplier or to only display items that are not in the Inventory at all (ie. not been added to another list).

  5. Select the checkbox next to the items you would want to add to the list, then select the Unit of Measurement (UOM) to be used in Inventory. You may also be asked to provide a conversion rate for the selected UOM if it's not the UOM you are using in your orders.

  6. As you select the items, you may notice that some items have a "In X list" label below the SKU name. These are items that are already in Inventory but added to another inventory list. The "Inventory UOM", its conversion rate and the "Par" value of these items are not editable on this screen.

  7. Once you are done, click the Done button to add the items to the list.

Full guide: inventory items.


Creating recipes

  1. Select Recipes on the sidebar navigation, then select the outlet/location the recipe is for.

  2. Click Create new.

  3. Enter the recipe name and the portion that this recipe makes.

    Click Create new
  4. Start adding ingredients. You can select inventory items or any sub-recipes you've created.

    If you're adding an item not already in the Inventory, the "Add item to Inventory" window will appear, prompting you to add it first. If the Inventory UOM is different from the market list UOM (the unit size used for ordering), you will also be ask to provide a unit conversion rate.

    Nomni Procure Buyer Hub Add item to Inventory dialog with the unit conversion fields

    After clicking Next, click Save to confirm.

    Nomni Procure Buyer Hub confirmation dialog for the new inventory item
  5. Even when adding items already in the Inventory, in the recipes you can select a different UOM to use only in the recipes. For example, you may have added "Soy Sauce" which uses the "btl" UOM in the Inventory, but for this recipe you need to specify the quantity in "ml". You can select "ml" in the dropdown list and we'll ask you to provide a conversion rate to "btl".

    💡 TIP: Click the "Flip units" button if you want to convert from "btl" to "ml" instead.

    Click the 'Flip units' button if you want to convert from 'btl' to 'ml' instead
  6. Continue with the same steps until you've added all the ingredients required. If you need to remove the ingredient, click the Trash Can icon on the left.

  7. As you add the ingredients, you'll notice on the top right of the screen, the Recipe cost and Cost per portion values change.

    1. Enter the retail price of this menu item (per portion) and see the Food cost % below it change. This is what your menu item actually costs with respect to the selling price.

    2. You can view how much each ingredient costs per portion by clicking the blue link next to Cost per portion.

  8. You can also add some notes or cooking instructions in the text field at the bottom right corner, but this is optional.

  9. When you're done, click Save.


Duplicating data from another recipe

If you are creating another recipe with similar details to another previously created recipe, you can use this feature to quickly load data from another recipe:

  1. When creating a recipe, click the Copy data from... button at the top.

  2. In the Recipe dropdown list, select the recipe to copy.

  3. Click Next. Data from the copied recipe will be loaded.


Setting the threshold for highlighting high food costs

Typically, the ideal food cost percentage for restaurants is in the range of 20-30%. This ideal percentage will vary from business to business.

In the list of recipes, food cost percentages higher than the threshold are highlighted in red like this:

By default, the threshold is set at 22%. To change this value, click Settings, and change the value in the field:


Creating sub-recipes

Sub-recipes are similar to recipes, but there are differences:

  • They can be added to recipes as ingredients.

  • They are meant for non-menu items, hence they are created without specifying retail prices.

  • You can define the recipe yield in another UOM (see scenario #2 below).


It is suitable for:

  1. Items that may not appear on the menu, but have to be prepared in your kitchen and later used as ingredients in the recipes.

  2. When you need to add ingredients to recipes using a UOM different from the inventory UOM (to do this, set the sub-recipe yield in the desired UOM).

  3. When there are common ingredients and quantities used in several recipes - in this way, it works like ingredient templates that you can include in recipes.


The steps to create a sub-recipe are similar to recipes:

  1. Select Recipes on the sidebar navigation, then select the outlet/location the recipe is for.

  2. Click Create new.

  3. Enter the recipe name, but DO NOT enter the portion. Instead, tick the This is a sub-recipe checkbox below the recipe name.

    Click Create new
  4. Doing this will change the Portion field to Yield instead. Enter the yield for this sub-recipe (the yield is the quantity that will be produced by following the recipe).

    Nomni Procure Buyer Hub sub-recipe form with the Yield field highlighted
  5. Start adding ingredients. You can select inventory items or any sub-recipes you've created. If you're adding items not already added to the Inventory, you will be asked to add it to the Inventory first.

Continue with the same steps until you've added all the ingredients required.

6. You can also add some notes or cooking instructions in the text field at the bottom right corner, but this is optional.

7. When you're done, click Save.


Using tags to manage recipes

If your outlet has a large number of recipes in Buyer Hub, you can use a tagging system to organise them more efficiently.


Assigning tags

  1. On the recipe creation page, tap the Tags field.

  2. If existing tags are available, a list will appear.

    tap the Tags field
  3. To add a new tag, enter the desired name. If the tag does not exist, tap Add new to create and assign the tag.

    Nomni Procure Buyer Hub recipe details with the Add new tag option highlighted
  4. There is no limit to the number of tags that can be assigned to a recipe or sub-recipe. To save it, click Save.

You can also bulk assign, change, or reset tags by ticking recipe/sub-recipe, and click Edit Tag.

click Edit Tag

Filtering by tags

When at least one recipe or sub-recipe has tags assigned, the Tags filter will be available.

Nomni Procure Buyer Hub Recipes list with the Tags filter open

Tap Tags to view the number of recipes or sub-recipes assigned to each tag. Use the checkboxes to filter recipes based on tags. Tap Reset to clear all selected filters.

Tap Reset to clear all selected filters

Related article

  • Tracking inventory of recipes: Click Actions next to a recipe/sub-recipe in Inventory (You may need to scroll to the right to see this button). Select Record a production.


Need help?

Email support@nomni.ai or call 1300 445 483.

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