Items and Recipes

Items are the dishes and products you serve — Paneer Butter Masala, Mineral Water Bottle, Gulab Jamun. Each item belongs to an Item Type, has a unit and a rate, and (if you cook it) a Recipe listing the materials it consumes. Items are the building blocks of every menu, and recipes are what make raw-material and cost calculations possible.

Item Types and average consumption#

Set these up first: Application Setup → Item Types Table.

An item type (e.g. Sweets, Main Course, Beverages) carries:

• a unit (e.g. g, ml, pcs) in which its consumption is measured, and
• an average consumption per guest — set under Application Setup → Average Consumption.

The average consumption is what drives suggested menu quantities: Sweets 80 g/guest × 200 guests becomes the total sweets for an event, shared among the sweet dishes on the menu. See Events and Menus → Quantities.

An item's unit must be convertible to its item type's unit. Otherwise the item shows a warning like "…'s unit is not compatible with … the unit used to mention the average consumption" and gets no suggested quantity.

Item Description Table holds optional descriptions (e.g. Jain, Spicy) you can attach to items for the printed menu.

Add an item#

1. Application Setup → Items Table → Add Item (or Insert).
2. Basics: Item Name, Item Type, Item Desc (optional), Sub-menu (default grouping on menus), Unit. When the unit is a counted one — Plate, Piece, Cup — the form also shows Weight per Plate : (or per Piece, as the unit is named). Enter what one of them weighs, e.g. 350 Gram. This is what lets Neviscater relate a plate to the item type's per-guest consumption in grams, check the recipe against it, and convert the recipe if the unit is ever changed. For an item measured in kg, gm, lt or ml the field is hidden.
3. Rates: Specified Rate — the rate you quote per unit (see below). Making Cost — labour/fuel/overhead per unit, added to material cost.
4. Sourcing: Made in-house (from a recipe) (default), Bought ready made, or Bought as a service. The last two show a Rate : field for what you pay — it is required (Market Rate is required for market items / Service Rate is required for service items) and becomes the item's selling rate — and, when vendor management is on, a Vendor : picker pre-filled from the item type's default vendor.
5. Save.

Other ways to fill the table quickly:

• GenAI Items → Generate 50 new items creates items from a description of your cuisine; Generate items recipes (10 max) and Generate itemware (10 max) fill in recipes and equipment for selected items.
• Copy Recipe / Paste Recipe duplicates a recipe between similar items. When the two items are in different units the quantities are converted on the way — see Copy and paste a recipe.
• Application Data → Import Regional Database loads a ready-made item set.
• Push to Global Store shares an item and its recipe with the Neviscater global library (used by regional imports).

Veg / Non-Veg#

Each item can be marked Veg, Non-Veg or Egg, or left Not marked. The mark is a fact about the dish and lives on the item — not on its item type or sub-menu — so menus can show or separate the kinds without re-cutting your masters.

• In the item drawer: the Veg / Non-Veg row shows one chip per kind — Veg (green), Egg (amber), Non-Veg (red). Click a chip to set the mark; click it again, or clear, to go back to Not marked.
• In the list: every item has a small square before its name — green, amber or red for a marked item, grey for an unmarked one — so names line up and an unmarked dish is easy to spot.
• Many items at once: Veg / Non-Veg on the Items Table toolbar opens a dialog with every item under its item type, each with the same chips and a search box. A changed row turns yellow, the group heading counts what is in it (12 items · 9 veg · 3 not marked), and the chips on the heading mark every visible item in that group in one click — handy for an item type such as Chicken Starters. Save tells you how many changes it is about to write.
• Unmarked means veg: most caterers only mark the non-veg and egg dishes. On a print an unmarked item sits with the veg ones and carries no mark.
• The marks size the quantities too: when an event records its Non-Veg Guests, non-veg and egg dishes are sized for those guests only, while veg and unmarked dishes are sized for everyone — see Events and Menus → Veg and non-veg guests. An unmarked non-veg dish is therefore over-sized until you mark it.
• Shown only when it applies: Preferences → General → What we cook decides whether the marking appears at all (Pure Veg hides it everywhere) and which marks are offered (Veg + Egg does not offer Non-Veg). Marks already on items are kept whatever you choose, and a mark the setting no longer offers still shows on the item that carries it.
• On menus: Preferences → Printing → Veg / Non-Veg on menus decides whether printed menus show the marks, split each sub menu into Veg / Egg / Non-Veg sections, or set the kinds side by side in columns — see Printing and PDF Templates → Printing preferences.
• The Items List import, the XML backup and the Regional Database datasets carry the mark too — see Data saving and restoring → Items List. When you import a Veg & Non-Vegetarian dataset while What we cook is Pure Veg or Veg + Egg, the import drawer offers to set it to Veg + Non-Veg; if you decline, the marks are stored but stay hidden until you change that setting.

Item properties#

Open an item and use the tabs:

Consumption weightage#

Default 100 %. Within one item type on a menu, the type's total quantity is split in proportion to each item's weightage. Give a popular dish 150 % and a side dish 50 % to shift the quantities without changing the total.

Quantity per guest#

Blank by default: the item is sized from its Item Type's average consumption, shared with the other dishes of the type on the menu. Enter a figure here — in the item's own unit, e.g. 0.08 for an item sold by the Kilogram, 2 for one sold by the Piece — and the item is sized on its own instead: figure × guests (× the non-veg guests only for a non-veg or egg dish when the event has a split). It then takes no share of its type's total. This is the first rule a menu's Qty Hint tries; see Where a hint comes from.

Suggest quantities with AI on a menu writes its accepted figures here too, marked as an AI estimate with the date. Retype the figure to make it your own; clear it to go back to the type's average.

Items as ingredients#

Tick This item can be a recipe ingredient too for preparations such as Gravy Base or Sugar Syrup. Other items' recipes can then include it, and raw-material calculations expand it down to its materials.

Recipes#

A recipe is the list of materials needed to make one unit of the item — one kg, one litre, one plate, one piece, whichever the item's unit is. You do not have to write it that way, though: see Writing a recipe for a batch below.

1. Open the item → Recipe tab.
2. Click Add material (the + icon), choose the Material from your Materials Table, enter the Quantity and Unit.
3. Repeat for each ingredient. The Material Cost updates as you go.

Writing a recipe for a batch#

Nobody cooks one kilogram of paneer butter masala or one gulab jamun, and a recipe per one unit means numbers like 0.012 kg garam masala that no cook can check. So the top of the recipe drawer says Quantities below make [ 1 ] Kilogram — change the 1 to the batch you actually cook, say 10 Kilogram or 100 Piece, and write the recipe for that batch: 12.5 kg paneer, 120 gm garam masala.

• Neviscater stores and uses the recipe per one unit as before — orders, raw material lists, kitchen plans and costs all work exactly as they did. The batch only sets the scale the recipe is shown and typed at. The Material Cost line under the table is for the batch; the Making Cost, Calculated Rate and Quoted Rate below it stay per one unit, as the item is sold.
• Lines are shown in the unit they read best in: 1000 gm or more as kg, less as gm, and likewise ml and lt. Type 1500 Gram and the line reads 1.50 kg; type 0.5 Kilogram and it reads 500 gm. Editing a line opens it in the unit shown. Lines in other units (Piece, Bunch, Bottle) are shown as entered.
• Set the batch first, then type the recipe. Changing the batch later does not change what is stored: a recipe typed for one kilogram and then shown for ten simply reads ten times bigger, which is the right answer. Correct the lines if they were typed at the wrong scale.
• The batch is in the item's own unit. If the item's unit is changed, the batch is re-counted along with everything else (10 Kilogram becomes 100 Piece of 100 Gram). A pasted recipe is shown at the batch of the item it lands on.

Tips:

• A recipe line's unit must convert to the unit its material is kept in: gm or kg for a material kept in kg, ml or lt for one kept in lt. A material kept in packs with a pack size (1 Bottle = 750 Mililitre) can be measured either in Bottle or in ml / lt — the unit list for that line offers both. See Materials → Pack sizes.
• A line whose unit does not convert (Gram of a material kept per Bunch with no pack size) is not an error, but it costs nothing and counts as nothing — the recipe gets a warning, see below.
• For an item sold per Plate or Piece, keep the Weight per Plate on the item up to date; the recipe is checked against it.
• Items with no recipe show a No recipe has been provided warning in lists and contribute nothing to raw materials. That is fine for bought-in items; for in-house items it means the material list will be incomplete.
• Use Delete Recipe to clear it and start again.

Recipe warnings#

A warning triangle on the item's Recipe button (hover for the text) and a notice at the top of the recipe drawer flag two things:

• Units that cannot be converted: Paneer ( Gram here, kept per Packet ) … — one or more lines are measured in a unit that does not convert to the material's unit. Such a material costs 0 in this recipe and is counted as 0 in raw material quantities. Measure the line in the unit the material is kept in, or give the material a pack size (1 Packet = 200 Gram) so the line converts.
• The recipe's materials weigh 2.4 Kilogram, but one Plate is set to 350 Gram — the materials add up to far more (over three times) or far less (under a tenth) than the stated weight of one plate or piece. Usually the recipe was typed for a batch without setting the batch at the top of the drawer, or the weight per plate is wrong. When a batch is set, the warning speaks in those numbers (… weigh 240 Kilogram, but 100 Plate is set to 35 Kilogram). Only lines measured by weight or volume are added up; a line like 2 Piece of lemon is ignored for this check.

Neither warning changes anything by itself; the recipe is yours to correct.

Importing recipes from a spreadsheet#

Many recipes at once come in through Application Data → Import Database → Recipes List: one line per material, the item named once with its lines below it, and a Makes column for the batch the recipe was written for. The import shows a preview and writes nothing until you confirm. See Data saving and restoring → Recipes List.

Copy and paste a recipe#

Copy Recipe on one item and Paste Recipe on another copies every line. If the two items are in different units, the quantities are converted so the pasted recipe still makes one unit of the item it lands on — a recipe written per Kilogram pasted on an item sold per Plate of 350 Gram has every quantity multiplied by 0.35, and the message says so: Recipe of … pasted and converted: it is per Kilogram, … is per Plate ( 350 Gram ), so every quantity x 0.35.

When the conversion is not possible (one item is per Plate with no weight per plate stated) the recipe is pasted unchanged and the message warns: pasted as it is … the quantities could not be converted. Check them, or set the weight per unit and paste again.

Changing an item's unit#

Every figure on an item is per one unit of it: the recipe makes one Plate, the specified rate is per Kilogram, menu quantities say how many Pieces, stock counts Pieces. Changing the Unit alone would leave all of those numbers meaning something else, so when you choose a different unit and Save, Neviscater works out what the change means and shows it in a notice under the unit before anything is saved.

When a conversion is possible, the notice lists exactly what will change, for example changing Paneer Butter Masala from Kilogram to Plate of 350 Gram:

• Recipe: 6 materials, every quantity x 0.35 so that it makes 1 Plate
• Rate: 800 / Kilogram becomes 280 / Plate ( unless you typed a new rate )
• Making cost: 60 becomes 21
• Quantities and rates in Menu Items (3), …: 1 Kilogram becomes 2.857 Plate — the menus, catalogs, orders and actuals using the item
• Stock: 10 Kilogram becomes 28.57 Plate (only when the item tracks stock)

Tick Convert and change the unit and click Save. Saving without the tick does nothing except remind you: Tick the box to convert, then Save. A specified rate or low-stock threshold you retype in the same save is kept as typed rather than converted.

Purchase order lines are not touched: each line keeps the unit it was written in.

Correcting the weight of a Plate or Piece#

Changing only the Weight per Plate — say from 350 Gram to 400 Gram — on an item that has a recipe raises one question: is the plate really bigger now, or was the number wrong? The recipe is written per plate, not per gram, so Neviscater cannot tell. Two options appear under the weight field and Save applies whichever is selected:

• Only correcting the weight - keep the recipe as it is (selected by default) — the recipe and costs stay; only the stated weight changes.
• The Plate itself is bigger now - scale the recipe and making cost x 1.1429 — every recipe quantity and the making cost are multiplied by the ratio of the two weights, so the recipe now makes the bigger plate.

The Specified Rate is never changed by either option. After the save the recipe is re-checked against the new weight and warned about if they disagree (see Recipe warnings).

Rates: specified vs calculated#

• Calculated Rate = Material Cost (recipe quantities × material rates) + Making Cost. It is recomputed whenever a recipe or material rate changes.
• Specified Rate is the rate you use when quoting; Neviscater never overwrites it. Update it with Update Specified Rate when costs change.

Items are flagged (Some items have inconsistent rates) when:

• the specified rate is zero but there is a calculated rate or a recipe, or
• the calculated rate is higher than the specified rate (you are quoting below cost).

Update items rates recalculates all calculated rates after you change material prices.

Ready-made and service items#

Set Bought ready made for items you buy finished (bottled water, packaged sweets) and Bought as a service for things a vendor does (live counters, ice-cream carts). These items:

• are excluded from raw-material calculations,
• appear under Procurement on the menu with their Vendor and rate, and
• can be tracked as stock (Stock tab) if you keep them on hand.

Item stock, expiry and printing#

Items you keep in stock work like materials: tick Track Inventory on the item, set a Low Stock Threshold, and add or subtract stock from the stock figure on the row. Perishable items can carry a Shelf Life (in hours or days) so their stock gets expiry dates and expired stock can be written off in one click — see Stock Expiry and Shelf Life.

When inventory tracking is on, the same filter chips as the Materials Table sit above the list — All / In Stock / Low Stock / Expiring / Expired, with live counts — and the Print button produces an items list honouring the active filter, optionally with Stock Quantity. See Materials and Inventory.

Common questions#

The item shows no suggested quantity on menus. Its unit is not convertible to the item type's unit, or the type has no average consumption.

Material cost is zero. The recipe is empty, or the materials have no Rate in the Materials Table.

Can I delete an item? Not while it is used on any menu, recipe or catalog; remove it from those first. The same rule applies to materials.

I want to sell an item per Piece that was per Kilogram, but it is already on orders. The change is refused because the orders' quantities are in Kilogram. Create a new item for the per-Piece version (copy and paste the recipe — it is converted on the way) and use it on new menus; the old item stays for the orders that have it.

What does the warning triangle on the Recipe button mean? Hover over it. It names either recipe lines whose unit cannot be converted to the material's unit, or a recipe whose materials weigh far more or far less than the stated weight of one plate or piece. See Recipe warnings.