Community
Ask a questionRestaurant owners, comparing notes
Questions about running a restaurant on Get Menu, answered by the team and kept public so the next person finds them. Also see the help centre.
- 995 questions answered
- 18 topics
- Every question answered before it appears
How do I raise a purchase order?Open Menu, then Purchase orders. In New purchase order choose the Supplier, set Expected to the day you want it, add Notes if they need to know something, and press Create the order. It opens as a dra AnsweredWhy is one of my margins shown in amber?Because it is under fifty per cent. It is a nudge to look, not a rule. Some dishes are meant to be cheap and bring people through the door, and some are amber because a recipe line is wrong rather tha AnsweredThe delivery was short. What do I type?Type what actually came, not what you ordered. Short deliveries are normal and the whole point of receiving is that the shelf ends up telling the truth. The order closes with the real total, so your s AnsweredDoes the Reorder number know what I have already ordered?Yes. It is your par level, minus what is on hand, minus anything sitting on a draft or sent purchase order. It never drops below zero. So an ingredient you ordered on Monday stops asking to be ordered AnsweredMy shelf figure has gone negative. Is something broken?No, it is telling you something. The sale really happened, and refusing it at a counter with a customer standing there would be the wrong answer, so the number is allowed to go below zero. A negative AnsweredWhat is the difference between counting dishes and counting ingredients?A dish is what a customer orders. An ingredient is what you buy. Dish counts answer how many of this can I still sell, and they sell the dish out on their own at zero. Ingredients answer what is on my AnsweredWho on my team is allowed to change stock and ingredients?The owner and any manager login. Everything of consequence is written to your change log with who did it and when, so a stock take, a wastage record, a received delivery or a cancelled order all name AnsweredCan I still change a purchase order after I have sent it?You can no longer edit its lines, because a sent order is a promise to somebody else. You can still cancel it and you can still receive it. If your supplier swaps something or brings a different size, AnsweredI have my ingredient list in a spreadsheet. Can I upload it?Not today. Dishes can be uploaded from a spreadsheet, but ingredients and recipes are typed in on their own pages. For the twenty to eighty ingredients most kitchens actually need, it is an afternoon AnsweredNobody remembers to put a dish back on sale in the morning. Any help?Use the kitchen screen for the ones the cooks call out. Press Something has run out, pick the dish and choose None left, and it comes back on its own at the end of your restaurant's day. Nobody has to AnsweredWhat happens to my ingredients when a dish sells?The recipe comes off the shelf on its own. Sell one karak and the milk, tea and sugar in its recipe drop by exactly what the recipe says. Nothing is pressed and nothing can be forgotten. A dish with n AnsweredHow many ingredients should I actually put in?Between twenty and eighty covers most small kitchens. Put in what costs real money or really runs out: your proteins, your dairy, your oil, your packaging. Leave out salt, pepper and the pinch of pars AnsweredHow do I add a supplier?On Menu, then Ingredients & suppliers, scroll to the Suppliers panel, fill New supplier with the name, add a phone and email if you have them, and press Add supplier. Then set that supplier on each in AnsweredCan I see the food cost of my whole menu in one place?Yes. The Every dish table on Menu, then Recipes & food cost lists every dish with its price, its food cost, its margin and how many ingredients it uses, and the heading gives your average margin acros AnsweredHow do I know what to buy this week?Open Menu, then Ingredients & suppliers and read the Short line at the top. It names everything below par. The Reorder column beside each one tells you how much to buy to get back to par. That is the AnsweredThe invoice price is different from what I put on the order. Does that matter?It matters and the screen expects it. On Receive the delivery, type the cost per unit from the invoice beside each line. That is what moves the ingredient's average cost and therefore your food cost. AnsweredHow do I work out what a dish costs me to make?Give it a recipe. Open Menu, then Recipes & food cost, press the dish, and add each ingredient with how much one portion uses. The panel then shows the menu price, the food cost and the margin in mone AnsweredDoes Get Menu email my purchase order to the supplier?No. Sending it is still yours to do, by WhatsApp, email or a phone call, the way you do now. Mark as sent to the supplier is a note for your own diary so your list is right. What Get Menu does is the AnsweredCan I print a sheet to count with a pen?Yes, for dishes. Press Stock sheet (CSV) at the top of Menu, then Inventory. It gives you the category, the dish, the price, whether it is counted, how many are left, the alert level, how many sold to AnsweredI have several branches. Can I see which ones are running short?Yes, if your branches are grouped. Sign in with your usual email and password and open the branches screen: each restaurant shows how many ingredients are short, alongside its orders and revenue, with AnsweredWhere do I start with restaurant stock control if I have never done it?Smallest useful step first. Open Menu, then Inventory, and count the two or three dishes that genuinely run out, such as the cheesecakes you made this morning. Live with that for a fortnight. Then add AnsweredCan a recipe include a sauce we make in a batch?Not as a recipe inside a recipe. What restaurants do instead is add the batch as its own ingredient, say Garlic sauce in millilitres, cost it yourself from what goes into it, and use that in the dishe AnsweredCan I count only part of my store cupboard?Yes. In the Stock-take panel on Menu, then Ingredients & suppliers, type what you counted beside each ingredient and leave the rest completely blank. Blanks are left alone. So you can count the fridge AnsweredHow are purchase orders numbered?Each one gets its own number for your restaurant, PO-1, PO-2 and so on. They never repeat and they are never reused, so the number on your own paperwork always finds the same order. You can see them a AnsweredIf the price of milk goes up, do all my dishes update?Yes, on their own. An ingredient has one cost, and every recipe using it is worked out from that cost. Receive one dearer delivery of milk and every latte, every karak and every dessert with milk in i Answered
How it works
Answered, then published
- Anyone can ask — you do not need an account.
- Nothing appears on the forum until it has an answer beside it.
- Your contact details are removed before anything is published.
Prefer WhatsApp
Message us instead
If it is urgent, or specific to your account, WhatsApp is faster than the forum and we answer during working hours.