Recipes, wells and stock

A recipe says what a product pours: which stock items, how much, and which line a brand choice replaces. Wells are your house pour for each spirit; recipes that follow a well move with it when you change the bottle. When a check is paid, the recipes decide what comes off stock. Stock items themselves are on Inventory items and stock.

Recipes

Each product can have one recipe: a list of stock items, each with a quantity and a unit, how many servings it makes, and notes. The back office shows each drink's cost and its pour cost (cost as a percentage of the menu price). When the check is paid, the recipe's quantities come off stock.

Who can do this: admins and managers.

Find a drink's recipe

1. In the back office, go to Menu › Recipes.
2. Search with Search product, or filter All products, With recipe or No recipe.
3. Each row shows the menu price and either "cost …" or "no recipe", with a pour-cost badge such as "22% pour" — or "22% pour · incomplete" when an ingredient has no cost on file. A recipe with no lines shows Empty.
4. Click the row (or Add recipe) to open the editor.

Create a recipe

1. Open the product from Menu › Recipes and click Create recipe.
2. Add each ingredient: pick an item in Add an item…, type the Qty, pick the Unit and click Add.
   • Wells are in the same list as "Tequila well", "Gin well" and so on, with today's bottle beside them. Pick one to add a line that follows the well (see Wells).
3. Set Yields if the recipe makes more than one serving (a batch), and Notes for the method. Both save when you leave the field.

Change or remove a line

1. Edit the line's Qty and click away, or pick another Unit. It saves at once.
2. If the drink has modifier groups, set Swapped by to the group whose choice replaces this line, or Never swapped.
3. To remove a line, click Remove ingredient on its row.

Delete a recipe

Click Delete recipe and confirm. The product stays on the menu; from then on it takes nothing off stock.

Units, costs and pour cost

• Units: oz, ml, dash, g and each. A line's unit must measure the same thing as the item's stocking unit: volume (oz, ml, dash), weight (g) or count (each). The unit list only offers units that fit, and a mismatch is refused with a message that says which kind of unit to pick.
• Conversions: 1 oz = 29.5735 ml; 1 dash = 0.92 ml.
• A recipe lists each item once: "That item is already in this recipe."
• Line cost = the quantity, converted into the item's unit, × the item's cost per unit. Cost per serving = the line costs added up ÷ Yields, rounded once to the centavo: "Cost per unit (yields 1)".
• A recipe's cost always uses today's item costs, from Inventory › Items.
• Pour cost = cost per serving ÷ the product's menu price × 100, rounded. The badge is green up to 20%, amber up to 30% and red above.
• An ingredient with no cost makes the percentage look better than it is, so the badge says "incomplete" and the editor names it: "… has no cost on file, so the pour cost is lower than the truth. Set its cost under Inventory → Items."
• Only active products are listed, and the editor only offers active stock items.

What Swapped by does

Swapped by marks the pour a brand choice replaces. In the editor's words: "when an option from that group (linked to a bottle) rides the line, the chosen bottle depletes instead of this one — at this row's quantity."

The same mark also tells Barform:

• which option is the drink's house pour in the iPad picker;
• which line a custom drink's new spirit replaces;
• which pour a pour-priced upcharge is worked out from.

Only the modifier groups attached to the product are offered under Swapped by. See Modifiers and the iPad picker.

Wells

A well is your house pour for one kind of spirit — Tequila, Gin, Bourbon — and the bottle it is today. Recipe lines can follow a well. Change the well's bottle once and every drink following it pours the new bottle, with its costs updated, in one step.

Who can do this: admins and managers.

Add a well

1. In the back office, go to Menu › Recipes › Wells and click Add a well.
2. Name it. The suggestions: Tequila, Mezcal, Vodka, Gin, White rum, Aged rum, Bourbon, Rye, Scotch, Cognac, Orange liqueur, Sweet vermouth, Dry vermouth.
3. Pick the Bottle from your stock.
4. Under "Drinks that pour … and will follow the well", tick the drinks that should follow it. Every active drink that pours that bottle starts ticked, except a neat pour sold under the bottle's own name: "a guest who orders it by name wants that bottle."
5. Click Create well. A message confirms the well and how many drinks follow it.

Change the well's bottle

This is what wells are for.

1. Click Change bottle on the well's row. The dialog says which bottle it pours today and how many recipes follow it.
2. Pick the New bottle. Only bottles measured in a compatible unit are offered.
3. Read the preview: each following drink with its Pour and its cost Now and After — cheaper in green, dearer in amber.
4. Click Switch to … (the new bottle's name). A message confirms the new bottle and how many recipes were updated.

See and manage a well's drinks

1. Click the well's row to open it.
2. On the left, "Drinks following the … well" lists each drink with its pour and cost. The X on a drink stops it following the well; it keeps the bottle.
3. On the right, "Also pour …, but don't follow the well": tick drinks and click Follow the well (N).

Rename or delete a well

Use the ⋯ menu on the well's row: Rename, or Delete. Deleting asks you to confirm: "Its drinks keep pouring the same bottle; they just stop following a well."

Wells inside a recipe

• A line that follows a well shows the "… well" badge, such as "Tequila well". Click it to open Wells. The × beside it stops the line following ("Stop following the … well (keeps this bottle)").
• A line that pours a well's bottle without following it shows Follow the … well.

How wells work

• Each well's row shows its bottle, what a 45 ml (1.5 oz) pour of it costs, and "Following: N".

• A line that follows a well always pours the well's bottle. Stock, recipe costs and the iPad all read the line's bottle, so they all change with the well.

• A bottle change moves the well and every following line at once, at the same quantities. It's refused, naming the drink, when:

  • a following drink measures the line in a unit the new bottle isn't stocked in: "… measures this well in a unit that bottle isn't stocked in."; or
  • a following drink already pours the new bottle on another line: "… already pours that bottle on another line. Remove that line from its recipe first."

  The preview shows both before you confirm ("Can't switch yet: …").

• Only a line that already pours the well's bottle can start following it: "Only a drink that pours the well's bottle can follow it."

• Well names are unique (capitals don't count) and 1 to 60 characters long.

• The bottle must be one of your active stock items: "That bottle isn't in your stock." A bottle a well pours can't be deleted from stock. It can be archived, and the well's row then says "Bottle archived".

• Deleting a well never changes what any drink pours.

• Neat pours sold under the bottle's name are left out on purpose. Tick them only if they should change too.

What comes off stock when a check is paid

When a check is paid in full, Barform takes each line's recipe off stock, using the bottle the guest actually chose. Comped drinks come off stock too; mistakes voided off the check don't. It happens on its own, and it never holds up a payment.

When. At the moment the check is paid: when its payments, account charges included, cover the total. Not payment by payment: a check paid in parts comes off stock when the last part is paid. A check charged to a customer account comes off stock when it's closed.

If the check reopens. When voiding one of its payments reopens a paid check, exactly what it took goes back on stock. When it's paid again, whatever is on it then comes off: drinks added after the reopen come off, drinks removed don't. If it's closed as an empty table instead, nothing more comes back. See Payment corrections.

Which lines. Every line that isn't voided, plus comped lines — a comped drink was poured. A line voided as a mistake takes nothing, and so does a product with no recipe.

How much. For each ingredient of the line's recipe: its quantity × the line's quantity ÷ the recipe's Yields, converted into the item's stocking unit, added up per item and rounded to three decimals.

Brand choices. A chosen option that's linked to a stock item replaces the recipe line marked Swapped by that option's group, at the recipe line's own quantity. With several marked lines in one group, the first choice replaces the first marked line (in recipe order), the second choice the second, and so on. Options not linked to a bottle, groups with no marked line and extra choices change nothing: the recipe pours as written.

For example, a Whiskey Sour's recipe pours 60 ml of the house bourbon on a line marked Swapped by "Whiskey". A guest picks the premium bourbon option, linked to its own bottle: 60 ml of the premium bourbon comes off stock instead of the house bourbon.

Options that serve several drinks. An option with Pours the recipe × multiplies the line's whole recipe, brand choices included: a "4 people" fountain option set to 4 takes four pours, a half pour set to 0.5 takes half. The line's quantity multiplies on top, and several such options on one line multiply together. See Modifiers and the iPad picker.

Pour-priced upcharges change the price, not the stock. The upcharge is worked out from the marked line's pour, but the chosen bottle still comes off at that line's quantity.

Custom drinks. A custom drink built from a menu drink pours that drink's recipe; if the bartender changed the spirit, the new spirit replaces the drink's spirit line at the same measure. A drink from scratch pours its spirit at your from-scratch pour (60 ml unless you changed it in Settings › Venue › iPads and service › Custom drinks). See Custom drinks.

See it in Inventory

In the back office, go to Inventory › Activity and pick Sale (or All reasons) in the reason filter — the list starts on Everything except sales. Each paid check makes one movement per item, with the reason Sale, recorded under the check's server. Each item's quantity on hand is on Inventory › Items.

Limits

• A pour that can't be converted — a recipe in ml against an item counted by the piece, say — is skipped. It's never taken off as a wrong number, and it never stops the payment.
• Stock can go below zero.
• Items left off the recipe (ice, juice, garnish) never come off stock.
• A recipe change affects only checks paid after it. Nothing is recalculated backwards.

Related

• Items and stock
• Modifiers and the iPad picker
• Custom drinks
• Stock counts
• Waste