Three ideas
Product — sold to the guest (latte, burger, Coke can).
Ingredient / stock item — bought and stored (flour, milk, cups).
Recipe — optional. How much ingredient one product uses. You can run the till without recipes.
Track stock vs don’t
Don’t track menu items you never count (latte, burger). No fake 9999 qty.
Track packaged goods you count (Coke can, water bottle). Sales deduct; returns restore.
Units and purchase packs
Keep stock in pcs, g/kg, or ml/L. aPOS converts 1 kg = 1000 g and 1 L = 1000 ml.
Inventory unit = how you keep stock. Purchase pack = how you buy (1 Case = 250 straws). Enter the pack price for the whole pack.
Opening stock
Count the shelf, then post opening qty and a real cost. Do not post fake POS quantities.
Weighted average cost
If the next delivery costs more, aPOS averages the stock you still have. Example: 100 pcs at Rf 1.00 plus 50 pcs at Rf 1.40 becomes 150 pcs at Rf 1.13.
Recipes (optional)
A latte might use 18 g coffee, 180 ml milk, 1 cup, 1 lid. Type those amounts for one drink. On sale, those ingredients deduct and food cost can be calculated. The latte itself does not need its own stock count.
If the kitchen card is for a tray of 10 Babka Buns (510 g flour, 100 g sugar, 1.5 g salt), divide first and type 51 g / 10 g / 0.15 g per bun. aPOS does not currently have a “This recipe makes 10” field — you divide, then enter one item. See Recipe batch yield.
Saving a recipe does not create stock. A Production batch is the bake: expected 10, actual 9, or “today we made 30”.
Finished Products you make should not get a fake purchase price. Enter 0 if the form still requires the field. Direct cost comes from the recipe or from production / WAC. Item Type decides this, not a category name such as Baked Treats.
Modifiers
Extra cheese + Rf 10 can add price and consume 20 g cheese.
Semi-finished and production
Flour + butter + sugar → dough → Production batches → croissants in stock. Sales deduct produced stock, not the raw recipe again.
Daily Prep and waste
For items you bake each morning: open Daily Prep, enter how many you made, sell as usual, then close with Staff consumption / Waste / Carry forward. Untracked menu items stay count-only. Use Waste & Consumption for ad-hoc waste.
Stock update and counts
Manual Stock Update for receive, remove, waste, damage, correction, and set count. Stock Counts reconcile when you choose — not required every shift.
Payment commission
Cash, card, and BML can have different fees. Due has no gateway fee until you collect.
Monthly business costs and True Cost
Rent, electricity, salary, work permit, staff food, internet — allocated so profit is not “after ingredients only”.
Example: Rf 50 selling − Rf 18 ingredients − Rf 1 fee − Rf 8 overhead share = Rf 23 true profit.
Estimated = month still collecting. Finalized = month closed. Untracked menu items may show Cost incomplete — the till still works.
Statuses: Profit, At cost, Below cost, Cost incomplete. The band is the larger of 1% of GST-exclusive revenue and Rf 0.50.
Suggested setups
- Small café: menu untracked, canned drinks tracked, no recipes.
- Restaurant: finished products + recipes, ingredients tracked.
- Bakery: ingredients → semi-finished → production → finished stock.
- Hybrid: all of the above in one business.
Migrating
Nothing changes by itself. Classify, count, set packs, post opening, add recipes later. Fake historical stock must not become opening inventory.
Common mistakes
- Creating Case as a unit instead of a purchase pack.
- Entering pack price as price per piece.
- Opening qty 9999.
- Cream cheese in pcs instead of grams.
- Finished products without recipes, expecting ingredient deduction.
- Double-counting production.
- Treating GST-inclusive price as true revenue.
- Editing a finalized True Cost month casually.
Quick-start checklist
- Decide tracked vs untracked.
- Confirm units (pcs, g, ml).
- Add purchase packs.
- Count and post opening.
- Optional: recipes, payment commissions, monthly costs, True Cost.
In-app this page stays at /business/restaurant-inventory-guide (restaurant login). Public URL: /help/restaurant-inventory/guide.