Recipes, COGS, Suppliers & Auto-Reorder — Built In
Track every gram. Cost every plate. Re-order automatically when ingredients hit par. Inventory Depth turns Ordering.Tools into a back-of-house operating system — without bolting on a separate tool.
What is Inventory Depth?
Inventory Depth is the back-office layer of Ordering.Tools. While the standard Inventory module handles "is this dish currently available?" via on/off toggles and batch counters, Inventory Depth answers a deeper question: how much of each raw ingredient do we have, how much does each plate actually cost, and when should we re-order? It introduces an ingredients catalog (with base units, par stock and cost per unit), a recipe / Bill of Materials per product, automatic ingredient deduction on every order, supplier management with purchase orders, auto-generated draft POs when stock runs low, stock transfers between chain venues, audit-grade waste/theft adjustments, and cycle counts to reconcile drift.
Everything is gated by a single per-venue feature flag. If you do not need it, the entire section stays hidden — no clutter, no extra screens. Turn it on and a complete inventory operating system appears: ingredients, recipes inside the product editor, suppliers, purchase orders, transfers, adjustments, cycle counts, and a margins report telling you the food-cost percentage of every dish over any period.
Why Track Inventory Depth?
Know Your True Food Cost
Attach a recipe to each product and the system computes the real Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) per plate, updates it whenever ingredient prices change, and rolls it into a margins report you can filter by date range.
Auto-Deduct on Every Sale
When an order is confirmed, ingredients are deducted automatically by recipe — multiplied by quantity and modifiers — with one append-only audit row per ingredient. Voids, comps and cancellations reverse the deduction.
Suppliers + Auto-Reorder
Define preferred suppliers and pack pricing per ingredient. An hourly cron groups everything below par by supplier and creates draft purchase orders. You stay in control — drafts are never sent until you approve them.
Audit Trail You Can Defend
Every stock movement — receipt, sale, waste, theft, transfer, cycle-count correction — writes one append-only InventoryAdjustment row with actor, timestamp and reason. No silent edits, no untraceable shrinkage.
How Inventory Depth Works
Build the Ingredients Catalog
Create ingredients with a base unit (g, ml, each), par stock, reorder quantity, cost per base unit and a preferred supplier. Cross-domain conversions are blocked at validation time so you can never accidentally store "200 ml of flour".
Attach Recipes to Products and Modifiers
Each product gets a Recipe tab inside the editor. Add ingredients, quantities and yield. Modifiers can have their own recipes layered on top. The system caches COGS per portion and recomputes it whenever ingredient costs change.
Sell — Inventory Deducts Automatically
Recipe deduction fires on order confirmation (configurable per venue). The hot path stays under 200 ms — deduction runs fire-and-forget with idempotency guards, so retries never double-deduct.
Reconcile, Re-order, Repeat
Run cycle counts to reconcile drift; the auto-reorder cron creates draft POs when ingredients dip below par; receipts increment stock with weighted-average cost recalculation; the margins report tells you exactly which plates earn money.
Inventory Depth — Built for Restaurants
Ingredients Catalog with Cost History
A clean, searchable list of every raw material your kitchen touches, with live stock, par level, reorder quantity, supplier link and full cost history.
- Base-unit storage (g/ml/each) with safe display-unit conversions
- Soft-deactivation when used in recipes — prevents data loss
- Cost-history audit row written on every price change
- Storage area field — "Walk-in cooler", "Dry storage" — for cycle counts
Recipes & Live COGS
Bill of Materials per product (and per modifier). The system caches COGS in cents and recomputes it whenever any ingredient's cost moves.
- Yields support — one recipe can produce N portions
- Optional ingredients (do not fail order or count for COGS)
- Modifier recipes layered on top of base product recipe
- Live preview of food-cost percentage as you edit
Suppliers, Purchase Orders & Auto-Reorder
Manage suppliers, pack sizes and pack prices. Receive purchase orders with weighted-average cost roll-up. Auto-reorder cron creates draft POs grouped by supplier when stock dips below par.
- Auto-numbered POs (SO-YYYYMMDD-NNN) per venue
- Receive flow with per-line cost overrides + invoice number
- Hourly auto-reorder sweep with min-order-value gate
- Drafts always require manual SEND — no autonomous spending
Cycle Counts, Adjustments & Stock Transfers
Audit-grade tooling for everything that shifts stock outside of normal sales: waste, theft, expiry, manager corrections and inter-venue transfers in a chain.
- Mobile-friendly cycle-count entry — one ingredient per row
- Reconcile button writes one adjustment per non-zero delta
- Append-only adjustment log with reason codes (WASTE / THEFT / SPILLAGE / EXPIRY / COUNT_CORRECTION)
- Chain transfers with cost snapshots and auto-resolution of ingredient names on the receiving venue
Where Inventory Depth Pays Off
Food Truck on a Shoestring
20 ingredients, 12 dishes, one supplier. Recipes auto-deduct on sale; weekly cycle count catches drift; the margins report flags low-margin items before they sink your week.
Casual Dining with Rotating Specials
Daily specials get their own recipes; food-cost % updates the moment ingredient prices move; auto-reorder reminds you to restock proteins before service.
Multi-Site Chain with Central Kitchen
Stock transfers move ingredients from the central kitchen to satellite venues with a cost snapshot — no spreadsheet, no phone calls, audit log baked in.
Bar with Cocktail Recipes
Each cocktail's spirits, mixers and garnishes live in one recipe. Pour-cost % becomes a live KPI; spillage and breakage have their own adjustment reasons.
Catering & Events Operation
Event menus pull from the same ingredients catalog. Cost per plate is known before quoting the customer; consumption is reconciled the morning after.
Quick-Service Restaurant at Scale
Modifier-driven menus mean modifier recipes matter. The deductor sums modifier consumption onto base recipes per order so a "double cheese" upsell shows up correctly in COGS.
From Plate to P&L — One System
Most ordering platforms stop at "can we sell this right now?". Ordering.Tools' Inventory Depth module goes further: it answers "what does this plate actually cost, where did the stock go, and when should we re-order?" without forcing you to glue on a third-party inventory tool. Recipes, ingredient deduction, supplier ordering, transfers and cycle counts all live in the same admin, share the same audit log and respect the same per-venue access controls as the rest of the platform.
Real Food-Cost Tracking, Not a Spreadsheet
Each recipe stores its ingredients in base units (g/ml/each) with a yield. Whenever an ingredient's cost moves — manually edited, or rolled up from a supplier receipt with weighted-average cost — every recipe that uses it is recalculated. The margins report aggregates revenue, COGS, margin and food-cost % per product, filterable by date range. No more end-of-month spreadsheet panic.
Auto-Reorder That Respects Your Judgment
An hourly cron scans every venue with auto-reorder enabled, finds ingredients below par stock, groups them by preferred supplier, and creates draft purchase orders rounded up to pack sizes. It respects supplier minimum-order-values, skips items already covered by an open PO, and never sends without a human pressing "Send". The system is opinionated where it has data and silent where it does not — no autonomous procurement.
Audit Trail Built for Restaurant Reality
Restaurants live with negative pantry counts mid-shift, surprise breakage, after-service waste and the occasional staff comp. Inventory Depth's adjustment log is append-only and reason-coded so you can defend any number on any P&L. Cycle counts write COUNT_CORRECTION rows to reconcile drift; transfers write TRANSFER_IN/TRANSFER_OUT pairs; receipts write RECEIPT rows linked to the supplier invoice. Nothing is silently overwritten.
Run Your Kitchen Like a CFO Would
Inventory Depth is part of the Pro plan. Turn it on per venue, attach recipes to your top sellers, and watch food-cost percentage become a daily KPI instead of a quarterly surprise.