Any Restaurant Admin within the unit where the Commissary is located can:
- Create and edit Commissary Vendor Items
- Create and edit Commissary Vendor Recipe
Within the Commissary, it is Products that are ordered and delivered. To create Products that will then be available to be added to your order guide, you have two options:
1) Create a Commissary Recipe
Pros: Can use multiple products to generate the recipe and the price will update in real-time based on the prices of those individual ingredients
Cons: Can only include ingredients that are categorized as "Food" or "Beverage". Additionally, once it's been ordered or counted on inventory, these recipes cannot be deleted.
2) Create a Commissary Vendor Item
Pros: You can quickly create a vendor Item and set packaging and pricing for an existing product. The price can auto-update based on recent purchase price or can be set as manual (i.e. static).
Cons: The original vendor item packaging you create cannot be removed; only new packaging options can be added.
COMMISSARY RECIPES
Commissaries can generate Vendor Items directly from Prepared Items Recipes and then place them on the receiving units’ order guides. The price will dynamically adjust based on the most recent purchase price of the ingredients.
If you're new to recipes, start here: Getting Started with Recipes in MarginEdge
- From within the Commissary Unit, go to "Recipes" and create a new Prepared Item.
- Check the box that says “This is a Commissary Vendor Recipe”
- Choose a Category — this is the Category for the Product that will be used to place this on the Order Guide
- By default, we will generate categories using the ingredients of the recipe, splitting it up proportionally if needed.
- Packaging: this is nothing more than a label description for the order guide; it does not generate a conversion and does not need to be scientific. You can edit it later by editing the Vendor Item the recipe generated.
- Quantity and Unit need to be actual measurable amounts and will require a conversion if it can't be done automatically by the system. Once set, this cannot be changed later. You can add additional packaging options if needed by editing the Vendor Item the recipe generated.
- Price is automatically set in the recipe for the item
- You can set conversions if you are creating a large batch and selling it by the piece
- Once you save the recipe, it will automatically generate a new Vendor Item and a new Product!
Things to note:
- Item code is automatically created from the recipe name.
- If there is a change in the price of an ingredient in a Commissary Recipe, the price of the corresponding Vendor Item will update in all units in the company concept
- Recipes for the commissary can be restricted to the commissary if so desired. This means another unit won’t see the details of the recipe, but can still place an order for the product that has been generated by that recipe.
- Once a recipe's product has been ordered or counted on inventory, the recipe cannot be deleted.
COMMISSARY VENDOR ITEMS
To add a new Vendor Item, go to Vendors > Vendor Items and click on "Add new Vendor Item".
Here you can create this Item to your specifications.
- Select your Commissary Vendor.
- Give it an Item Name and Item Code. These can be whatever you want them to be - no rules here - but we recommend making them easily understandable for your team!
- Select the corresponding Product that it will be attached to so that inventory is adjusted appropriately.
- Set the Packaging. This is nothing more than a label description for the order guide; it does not generate a conversion and does not need to be scientific
- Quantity and Unit need to be actual measurable amounts and will require a conversion if it can't be done automatically by the system. Once set, this cannot be changed later. You can add additional packaging options if needed by editing this Vendor Item and clicking to "Add Packaging Options".
- Set the Price and Ratio (it will always be "1" for the first packaging created). The default settings for the Commissary will keep the price you define for the vendor item static. If, however, you want the price to auto-update based on recent purchase price, you can adjust those settings inside the Commissary Vendor. More information on that is here: Commissary Kitchens: Vendor Settings
- Decide here if you want this Vendor Item to automatically go on the Order Guide. You can always adjust this later.
Adjusting or Adding Packaging for a Vendor Item
If you need to change (or add a new option to) the packaging of a commissary vendor item you created, then you will need to edit/add new packaging and then adjust the order guide. Below are the steps:
1. Go to Vendors > Vendor Items and search for the item you need to adjust. Click to open.
2. Now choose the "Edit Vendor Item" button.
NOTE: On a Vendor Item that was created from a commissary recipe, you can adjust the packaging name but all other fields are uneditable and you must follow the steps to create new packaging. On a stand alone Vendor Item created just for the commissary, you can adjust all values of the packaging and do not need to create a new one unless you want two options.
3. Scroll down to the packaging options and click to "Add New Packaging"
4. Input the necessary information in the fields. Be sure to pay special attention to your conversion rate. In this scenario our original packaging was one liter, so a half gallon has a ratio of two.
5. Click SAVE when finished!
6. Now go to your list of Vendors and search for your commissary vendor. Click on the pencil icon to edit the Order Guide.
7. On the corresponding product, you will need to click the pencil icon to edit the product.
8. A box will pop up showing the packaging options available. If you do not want both options available, select just the one you want to keep and click SAVE!