This article covers your foundation for building recipes -- your Recipe Types.
Important: Recipe input should wait until we've processed your first set of invoices--this typically happens in the first week or two as a new MarginEdge customer.
Video Instructions
Understanding the three default recipe categories
Prep Items: A good place to start. This recipe type is the only type of recipe that can be used in other recipes. These could be anything from dressings, sauces, bases, fabricated portions of meats or seafood, cocktail mixers, and batch recipes. Basically, you want a prep item for any recipe you may want to include in another recipe, or for a portion larger than the one you serve on your menu.
Menu Items: these are the actual items or “plates” shown on your menu as appetizers, salads, entrees, desserts, etc. These are sometimes called plating procedures, as they are often a description of how to assemble a final plate and will typically include the combination of multiple prepped items. Menu items are generally single servings of items as they would appear on your menu.
Bar: these are recipes for any cocktails or drinks used at the bar. Essentially, Bar Items and Menu Items work the same way in the software, but they're different places to hold your recipes to help keep your menus easy to organize.
Recipe Setup is First
MUST HAVE
Recipe Types
Before you can enter any recipes, you will need to first create "Recipe Types" to match each of our three recipe categories. Every recipe you create, whether it's a Menu, Prepared or Bar Item recipe, has to be associated with a Recipe Type. Recipe Types provide a way of organizing your recipes.
- Menu Items and Bar Items will likely match what is seen on your menu and your POS
- Prepared Items will be groups of recipes that do not show up on your menu, but show up in other recipes
From Recipes > Setup click "Manage Recipe Types". You will click to "Add Recipe Type" for each new one created.
Here are some examples of Recipe Types:
| Recipe Category | Examples of possible Recipe Types (they will be different for everyone) |
| Menu Items | Appetizers, Salads, Soups, Sandwiches, Entrees, Late Night Menu, Kids Menu |
| Prepared Items | Batch Recipes, Dressings, Line Recipes, Bases, Seasonings, Dips (the sub-recipes that do not have a POS button) |
| Bar Items | Signature Cocktails, Margarita Mixes, Happy Hour Cocktails |
NICE TO HAVE
Equipment
On the Setup page, you can add equipment that will be used in your recipes. For any piece of equipment you add, you can provide a name, a description, and a photo. As you add new equipment, it is available to select during the creation of any recipe.
As you start to add equipment to recipes, you can always return to the Recipes > Setup area to see what recipes are associated with a piece of equipment. Select "Manage Equipment", and select any piece of equipment to view the list of all recipes that use it.
Allergens
If you want to track any potential allergy information, you can add any allergens through the Setup page. Once an allergen has been added, you can associate the allergen with a product. To do this, use the Products page to find the product, then click the "Edit Product" button. On the Edit Product page, a "Manage Allergens" button on the bottom right of the page allows you to associate one or more allergens to that product.
Once you have your desired allergens in the system, and Products that have allergens associated with them, every recipe will give you a list of allergens based on the products added to the recipe!
More information here: Allergens, Recipes and Products
Step 2: Create Recipes
Creating a Recipe: Video / Help Article
Copy & Paste with AI: Video / Help Article
Central Settings: Allergens and Restrictions
Allergens in Recipes: Video / Help Article
Restrictions: Video / Help Article
Tricky but Critical: Conversions and Yields
Conversions: Video / Help Article
Yields: Video / Help Article