Wastage Report

The Wastage Report shows how much food, raw material, or prepared-item value was thrown away (wasted) across your executed orders, so you can see where cost is being lost and act on it.

This guide covers what the report is, how wastage data actually gets created, how to read and use the report screen, how to export it, and where it fits alongside other reconciliation features.

1. What "wastage" means in Neviscater#

Wastage is not something you type into a form directly. It is calculated automatically from the difference between:

• what your recipes/menus say an order should have consumed (the planned quantity), and
• what your staff record as actually left over after the order runs, when that leftover is marked as thrown away rather than kept.

So the Wastage Report is really the output of a two-step process:

1. Planning — happens automatically when you execute an order.
2. Reconciliation — a person on your team enters the real, leftover quantities after the event, using the Material Actuals, Item Actuals, and Disposable Actuals screens on the order.

Until step 2 has been done for an order, that order's wastage figure is not available — the report will show it as "Needs Update" rather than a number, because the numbers can't be trusted yet.

Important: Wastage value is tracked only for Materials (raw ingredients) and Items (prepared/menu items). Disposables (cutlery, packaging, and other operational resources) go through a similar reconciliation screen, but any leftover disposable quantity is always simply credited back to your stock — it is never counted as "wastage value" and will not appear anywhere on the Wastage Report.

2. How wastage records are created — step by step#

Step 1: Order execution freezes the "planned" quantities#

When you change an order's status to Executed, Neviscater automatically:

• Calculates the material and item quantities that should be consumed, based on the order's menus, recipes, and events.
• Deducts those planned quantities from your stock (for materials/items with inventory tracking turned on).
• Saves a "planned" row for every material and item involved in the order, ready to be reconciled.

At this point, nothing has been marked as wasted yet — the planned numbers are just waiting for someone to confirm what actually happened.

If you re-execute the same order later (for example, because the menu or guest count changed), the planned quantities are recalculated and re-frozen. If the order had already been reconciled before that, the previously saved actuals become stale — flagged with a ⚠ warning — because they no longer match the current plan and need to be re-entered.

Step 2: Recording actuals ("reconciliation")#

On an executed order's Manage Order page, under the Execution tab, you'll find four buttons (visible only to Admins and users with the Manage Inventory permission):

Opening Material Actuals or Item Actuals shows a table with one row per material/item used in the order, with these columns:

• Material/Item — the name (with a ⚠ badge if the row is stale and needs updating)
• Unit
• Inv — whether this material/item has inventory tracking turned on (Y/N)
• Planned — the quantity the system calculated should have been used
• Leftover — enter here how much is left over / unused. This is the only number you type in — you do not need to calculate "actual used" yourself.
• Wasted — a checkbox
• Notes — an optional free-text note (up to 1000 characters)

How to fill it in:

1. Leave Leftover as 0 for any row that was fully used as planned — no action needed.
2. If some quantity is left over, type it into Leftover. The Wasted checkbox will automatically tick itself.
   • Leave Wasted checked if that leftover is being thrown away / written off as a loss. This is what counts toward the Wastage Report.
   • Uncheck Wasted if the leftover is being kept or returned (e.g., unopened stock going back into storage) — in this case it is credited back into your stock instead of being counted as wastage.
3. If more than the planned quantity was actually used, enter a negative number in Leftover. This is recorded as extra consumption (over-usage), not wastage.
4. Add a note if useful (e.g., "spoiled," "spilled," "returned to store") — this is the only place to record a reason; there is no separate "reason" dropdown.
5. Click Save Actuals.

Saving does two things: it stores your entries as the order's official reconciliation, and it adjusts your stock records — crediting back anything kept, and debiting stock further for any over-usage.

Until this save happens for an order, that order shows as Pending reconciliation on the Wastage Report. If the order is re-executed afterward, it shows as Needs Update until reconciled again.

3. Finding and reading the Wastage Report#

Where to find it#

Left-hand navigation → Reports → Wastage Report (URL: /wastage-report).

You'll only see the Reports menu, and be able to open this page, if you are an account Admin or have been granted the Manage Inventory permission. Ask your account administrator for this permission if you don't see the menu.

Filters#

At the top of the page:

• Quick Range — a dropdown of common date ranges: Today, This Week, This Month, Last Month, Last 3 Months, Last 6 Months, Last Year, or Custom Range (pick your own From/To dates below).
• From / To — the date range to report on. By default this is set to the last 3 months, since wastage reconciliation often happens days or weeks after an order date — a short default range can miss data that just hasn't been entered yet.
• Customer — filter to a single customer, or leave as "All Customers".
• Only orders with wastage — tick this to hide orders with zero wastage (or that don't need attention), and see only the ones that matter.

Click Apply to run the filters, or Reset to go back to defaults.

Summary tiles#

Seven KPI cards summarize the filtered date range:

A red value means there's wastage to look at; an amber/gold "Pending Reconciliation" count is a nudge that some orders still need actuals entered.

Chart#

Above the tables, a bar and pie chart pair show the top 6 contributors for whichever tab is currently open:

• By Order tab → top 6 orders by wastage value (labeled by customer and date)
• By Material tab → top 6 materials by wastage value
• By Item tab → top 6 items by wastage value
• Expiry Write-offs tab → top 6 materials/items by written-off value

The chart updates automatically when you switch tabs. It's hidden if there's no chartable data for the selected filters.

The four tabs#

By Order — one row per order:

A dash (—) in Materials/Items/Total/Wastage % means that category isn't reconciled yet for that order — check the Status column.

By Material — one row per material, aggregated across every order in the filtered date range: Material name, Unit, Qty Wasted, and Value, sorted by value (highest first).

By Item — same idea, aggregated by prepared/menu item.

Expiry Write-offs — see below.

Every table is sortable and searchable (click column headers / use the search box), same as other list tables in the app.

The Expiry Write-offs tab#

Order wastage comes from actuals; expired stock is wastage that never touched an order, so it gets its own tab. Every time expired stock is written off from the Materials or Items table, a row appears here: Date, Type (Material/Item), Name, Unit, Qty Written Off and Value. The value is frozen at the rate in effect when the write-off happened, so later rate changes never rewrite historic wastage. The Expiry Write-off Value summary card totals the period, and the chart shows the top contributors.

The date-range filter applies to this tab; the Customer and Only orders with wastage filters do not, since write-offs are not tied to orders. Expiry write-offs are also not included in the CSV/PDF exports yet, which cover order wastage only.

Viewing a single order's wastage detail#

Click More… → View Wastage Report on any order row (or use the Wastage Report button on the order's Execution tab) to open a side drawer showing:

• Total Wastage Value for that order, with its percentage of total item & material cost
• A Materials section listing each wasted material (name, unit, wasted quantity, value)
• An Items section listing each wasted item the same way

If a category isn't reconciled yet, that section explains why instead of showing a number (e.g., "Order not yet executed" or "Material Actuals needs updating - 2 rows.").

4. Exporting the report#

Both exports respect whatever filters (date range, customer, "only orders with wastage") are currently applied on the page.

Export CSV#

Click Export CSV to download a spreadsheet-ready file with: Order Date, Order Details, Customer, Materials Wastage, Items Wastage, Total Wastage, Wastage %, and Status.

Download PDF#

Click Download PDF to open a panel where you choose which sections to include:

• Orders table
• Materials breakdown
• Items breakdown
• Include charts

All four are checked by default. Click Generate PDF to produce a formatted report (with the same summary tiles and charts as the on-screen version) suitable for printing or sharing. Generation can take a few seconds for larger date ranges.

Both Export CSV and Download PDF are disabled if there are no rows to export for the current filters.

5. Dashboard widget (optional)#

You can optionally show a compact Wastage summary tile on your main Dashboard, with a period selector (This Month / 3 Months / 6 Months / Year) and a View Full Report → link straight to the Wastage Report page.

This is off by default. To turn it on:

1. Go to Settings → Tools → Preferences (/user_options).
2. Open the Dashboard tab.
3. Tick the Wastage checkbox and save.

Note: this setting only controls whether the tile appears on your Dashboard — it does not affect who can open the full Wastage Report page (that's controlled purely by the Manage Inventory permission, see below).

6. Permissions#

There is a single permission that controls everything related to wastage:

• Manage Inventory

Users who are account Admins, or who have been granted Manage Inventory in their role, can:

• See the Reports → Wastage Report menu item and open the page
• Use Export CSV / Download PDF
• Open the Material Actuals, Item Actuals, Disposable Actuals, and Wastage Report drawers on individual orders

Users without this permission won't see these menu items or buttons at all. If they try to access a wastage URL directly, they'll be redirected with a "You do not have permission to manage inventory" message.

Ask your account Administrator to grant Manage Inventory (via Roles & Permissions in Account Administration) to any staff who need to reconcile actuals or view wastage reports.

7. How this connects to other features#

• Order status / Execution: An order must be Executed before it has any planned quantities to reconcile. If you roll an order's status back from Executed, all its planned and actual quantities are removed and its stock is reversed — the order will show no wastage data again until it's re-executed and reconciled.
• Stock / Inventory: Every time you save Material or Item Actuals, your stock levels are adjusted — kept leftovers go back into stock, and any over-usage is deducted, in addition to whatever wastage is recorded. This keeps your stock counts accurate even as wastage is tracked.
• Disposables (Cutlery & Operational Resources): These have their own Disposable Actuals reconciliation screen with the same "planned vs. leftover" workflow, used purely to keep stock counts accurate. They do not have a "Wasted" checkbox and never contribute to the Wastage Report — don't expect to see cutlery or packaging figures there.
• Recipes & Menus: Planned quantities come directly from your recipe setup (for materials) and event menus (for items) — if your wastage percentages look off, it's worth double-checking recipe quantities and menu assignments first, since that's the baseline the report measures against.

8. Quick troubleshooting#