Ingredient price book
Put in each delivery as it comes. Every ingredient keeps its own price line, so you see the day something jumps, which supplier was cheaper last time, and how fast your own costs are rising.
Help and background Back to the tool
How it works
- 1 Sign in with your email. There's no password: a code comes to your inbox.
- 2 When a delivery comes, put in the supplier and a line for each thing on the invoice: what it is, what you paid and the pack size.
- 3 Next time, start typing a name and its pack comes back from last time, so only the price is left. Or fill in the whole of that supplier's last delivery in one go.
- 4 Each line says what it works out to per kg, per L or each, how that compares with last time, and whether another supplier was cheaper.
- 5 Your book shows every ingredient's price line, every jump, your suppliers side by side and your own inflation. Print an order sheet or save it all as a spreadsheet.
Free, with a free account. Your book is kept in your LocoTap account so it's on every phone and laptop you sign in on, and only you can see it. Prices are never put in a link or in our logs. Remove a price or an ingredient any time; deleting your account deletes the book. Signed out, you can try a made-up example, and nothing is kept.
Good to know
- How do packs of different sizes compare?
- Every price is turned into a price per gram, millilitre or piece, then shown per kg, per L or each (or per 100 g and per 100 mL for small packs). A 10 kg bag at one price and a 20 kg bag at another line up on the same scale. Once a thing is bought by weight it stays by weight, so its line never mixes kilos and litres.
- What counts as a jump?
- A rise from one price to the next of 10% or more, to start with. Set it to 5, 15 or 20% in the panel; it's kept on this device. Jumps get a red stamp in the book and their own list.
- What is "your own inflation"?
- For each ingredient you bought at the start of the span and again since, the price you pay now against the price you paid then. Each ingredient counts the same, however much of it you buy, and the overall figure is their geometric average. It's the change in what you pay, not a cost of goods: weight it by what you use before you set prices on it.
- "Cheaper last time" means cheaper now?
- Not always. It's the last price that supplier charged you, which may have moved since. Ask before you switch, and weigh delivery fees, minimum orders and quality too.
- Before tax or after?
- Either, as long as it's the same every time, so prices compare. Leave out deposits and delivery fees. This is a record of what you paid, not tax or accounting advice: your invoices are still the record to keep.
Where it fits in a restaurant
Every week Prices in, margins checked, the counts against the sales, and next week's pars.
Its work comes from
It hands its work on to
- Price & food cost calculator The last price of each ingredient Works now
- Menu margin alert Today's prices, against each dish Works now
- Food cost gap Deliveries, at what you paid Works now
- Bar inventory by weight What each bottle cost Works now
- Specials board builder What a special's ingredients cost Works now
A hand-off only moves when you press it, and never through a link: signed in, the next tool reads your account's book; signed out, it waits in this browser until the next tool picks it up.
Every week
More for this part of the day
Menu margin alert
Your dishes, costed from your price book. When a delivery comes in dearer, see which plates lost margin since you set their price, by how much and why, and the price that wins it back.
Save it: your dishes and their recipes, in your account
Food cost gap
Count what's on the shelf, put in what sold, and see what the kitchen used against what your recipes say it should have. The gap in dollars and points, the ingredients behind it, and what a plate really gets.
Save it: your stock counts and the gap over time, in your account
Bar inventory by weight
Put each open bottle on a kitchen scale and read what's left in it to the millilitre. Count the shelf in minutes, see what the bar poured against what the till rang, which bottles run heavy and by how much a pour, and what to order.
Save it: your bottles and shelf counts, in your account
Par levels by weekday
Put in what sold each day and see how much to prep for each weekday, from your own usual days. Holidays and Oktoberfest are on the calendar, odd days stay out of the sums, and the AI can draft how next week may differ.
Save it: your daily sales by item, in your account
Staff schedule maker
Build the week's shifts over your busy hours. It flags Ontario break, rest and overtime rules as you go, then prints for the back-room wall.
Save it: a shared staff calendar
Prime cost check
Put in a week's sales, what the food and drinks cost and everyone on staff, and see prime cost as a share of sales, with vacation pay, CPP and EI on top of wages. See which days ran heavy on staff, three ways to get to your own target, every week side by side, and print a report for the week.
Save it: your weeks, staff and rates