Raw Material Management: The Complete A-to-Z Guide
How to track every ingredient from the sack it arrives in to the plate it leaves on — with real numbers, not theory.
What's actually being tracked
Two different things live side by side in your catalog. Mixing them up is the most common setup mistake.
| Term | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Product | What the guest orders and pays for | Margherita Pizza, ₹199 |
| Inventory Item | The raw material in the kitchen — never sold directly | Chicken, tracked in g |
| Recipe | The fixed link: this much raw material, every time this dish sells | 1 Pizza → 20g Chicken |
| Modifier | An optional, priced add-on a guest can choose per order | "Extra Chicken +₹30" → +15g Chicken |
A Recipe answers "what does this dish always contain?" A Modifier answers "what did this guest additionally ask for?" Both draw from the same Inventory Item, but they're configured — and deducted — independently.
Create the raw material
One entry per ingredient you want visibility into. Start with what actually runs out.
- 1
Open Inventory → Raw Materials
/inventory/raw-materials - 2
Click + Add and name it exactly as staff will search for it —
Chicken, notChicken Breast Boneless (2kg pack) - 3
Pick the unit staff actually weigh in — g, kg, ml, L, or pcs
- 4
Enter Opening Stock — what's physically on the shelf right now
- 5
Set a Reorder Level so a low-stock alert fires before you run dry mid-service
Why the unit matters
Attach a Recipe
The fixed cost of making the dish — what goes in every single time, before any add-ons.
- 1
Open Recipes → New
/pos/recipes/new - 2
Pick the product — and its variant, if it has one
- 3
Add an ingredient line: Inventory Item, Quantity, Unit, optional Wastage %
- 4
Leave Yield Quantity at 1 — it only rescales the cost report, never the stock deducted
- 5
Save, then Activate — a Draft recipe deducts nothing
| Dish | Recipe qty | Orders today | Chicken used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pizza | 20 g | ×1 | 20 g |
| Indi Pizza | 30 g | ×1 | 30 g |
| Burger | 10 g | ×1 | 10 g |
| Used | 60 g | ||
| Remaining of 1000 g | 940 g |
Link a paid add-on
A Modifier without an ingredient link only charges a price. Linking it makes "Extra Chicken +₹30" also draw down Chicken stock.
- 1
Open the modifier group's Edit screen
/catalog/modifier-groups/:id/edit - 2
Under the option (e.g. "Extra Chicken"), search and select the Inventory Item to link
- 3
Fill in the three fields that appear — read the diagram below first
- 4
Save
Qty per selection
5
Unit
g
Waste % (optional)
0
Left box = how much this add-on consumes. Right box = only extra prep loss on top of that — leave it at 0 unless this specific add-on genuinely wastes more.
Common mistake — seen on a live kitchen's setup
The deduction formula
Runs the instant a KOT is fired — no manual stock-out entry, for either a Recipe line or a linked Modifier.
Recipe line
Modifier line
Worked example — a Pizza with no recipe of its own, plus one "Extra Chicken" (15g, 10% wastage):
| Type | Note | Before | Change | After |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modifier Used | Extra Chicken — 15g × 1.10 wastage | 1000.000 g | −16.500 g | 983.500 g |
Reading the movement history
Every gram in or out is a row here — open a raw material and switch to its History tab.
Every row also carries Before → Change → After, who performed it, and which order it belongs to — enough to answer "where did this kilo actually go" without asking anyone.
What happens on a return
Approving a refund reverses stock proportionally — for the Recipe, and for any ingredient-linked Modifier that order line had selected.
Restore ratio
Return 1 of 2 Pizzas ordered with Extra Chicken, and exactly half the Chicken that order line consumed comes back — not the whole 16.5g, and not zero. A full return restores everything; a partial return restores its share.
Quick reference
| To… | Go to |
|---|---|
| Add or edit a raw material, see current stock | /inventory/raw-materials |
| See full movement history for one item | Raw material → History tab |
| Attach ingredients to a menu item | /pos/recipes/new |
| Link a paid add-on to stock | /catalog/modifier-groups/:id/edit |
| Browse every stock movement, org-wide | /inventory/ledger |
Before you save a Recipe or Modifier link, check:
Quantity typed into the wastage box. The left box is "how much," the right is "how much extra on top." A tiny deduction usually means these got swapped.
Add-on left unlinked to stock. "Extra Cheese" that only charges a price and never deducts stock is the single most common gap in raw-material tracking.
Recipe saved as Draft. A draft recipe is invisible to checkout — it must be Activated before it deducts anything.
Unit family mismatch. A weight quantity against a volume-tracked item is rejected at save time — that’s the ledger protecting itself, not a bug.
Frequently Asked Questions
It's tracking every ingredient — not the finished dish — as its own stock item, linking it to the recipes and paid add-ons that consume it, and having every sale automatically reduce the right quantity instead of relying on a manual stock register.
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