A recipe’s cost is way off
All plans
What to check when a recipe’s costing comes out a thousand times higher or lower than normal: actual weight, units and ingredient price.
What it is for
You open a recipe’s costing and the cost makes no sense: a cheesecake that should cost €11 comes out at €11,000, or a croissant at €0.0004. When the error is that big (a thousand times), there is almost always a figure entered in the wrong unit: the recipe’s actual weight, a quantity or an ingredient’s price.
Symptom
The total cost, the cost per kilo or per unit, or the recommended retail price come out wildly out of proportion, usually multiplied or divided by a thousand.
Causes, in the order worth checking them
The recipe’s actual weight
In Recipe data, the Actual weight (after baking or waste) divides the cost to work out the cost per kilo. A 1 where there should be 1,000 g sends the result up a thousand times. Check the figure and its unit.
The ingredient quantities
In the ingredients table, check that each quantity is in the right unit: 320 g of biscuit base, not 320 kg. Also check the Units obtained if the recipe is by units.
The ingredient’s price
Open the ingredient, Weight/price (Cost) tab. The Format is entered in the price unit (KG, LT or UD) and the Format price is what you pay for that format. A 25 kg sack at €30 is Format 25 and Format price €30, which gives €1.20/kg. If you enter 25,000 in Format, or the price of the sack as the price per kilo, the cost goes wrong. See The ingredient sheet.
| Ingredient | Quantity | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Cream cheese | 1,000 g | €6.90 |
| 2Recipe - Biscuit base | 320 g | €1.15 |
- 1Actual weight: the weight of the finished recipe.
- 2Sub-recipes: if the error is in the biscuit base, it carries over to every recipe that uses it. Check it too.
Solution
- Correct the figure and save: the costing is recalculated instantly, including in the recipes that use that recipe or that ingredient.
- To spot odd recipes at a glance, the administrator has Recipes › Recipe costing, with the profitability of all of them.
- If your account uses imperial units, remember that you see lb and oz: check that you enter the quantity in the unit the field shows.
To understand each line of the cost, read Recipe costing: how the cost is calculated.