Costing is available to:
Plans: Starter and Scale
Team Members: Account Owner, Editors, and Managers
Introduction
To get your recipes properly costed, follow the below steps:
Import your invoices (or manually set ingredient costs in meez)
Fix any items needing attention that come up from the import
Fix any remaining errors that might display on the recipe itself
The below sections provide a deeper dive into each of these steps.
Step 1: import your invoices
For meez to properly calculate recipe costs, it needs to know what you paid for each ingredient in the recipe. Knowing that will result in an accurate and personalized recipe cost to you.
There are 4 ways to get your invoices into meez:
You can manually set the ingredient costs in meez
You can import your ingredient costs to meez via a spreadsheet
If you decide to import your invoices, make sure you read this article that explains how to use our import template
You can enable one of our integrations, which will sync your invoices and purchase data with meez automatically
You can utilize our invoice processing service and let us import your invoices for you (any invoice at any format - screenshot, spreadsheet, emails - we got you)
Step 2: fix any items needing attention
If you import your costs, use one of our integrations, or use our invoice processing service - you might need to address some items that need attention once your invoices are imported to meez.
During the import, any cost that meez was able to process properly will apply to the corresponding ingredient automatically. You will be able to see the cost on the ingredient under the Cost tab when the import is complete.
Any cost that meez was not able to process properly will go to the New Purchase Item tab on your homepage. Items in this tab require attention from you before they can be used for any cost related calculations.
There are two main reasons why meez could not automatically process a cost:
The purchase item name in the invoice/import is too vague and could not match any of your ingredients. To fix this issue use the Search for ingredient to map to search box to look and select the corresponding ingredient
The purchase UoM is new and not yet defined. The purchase unit refers to the unit that was referenced in the invoice. For example: if you purchased a case of tomatoes, the purchase unit will come through as "case". To calculate the recipe costs accurately, meez needs to know what "case" means. Are there 15 tomatoes in the case? Are there 5 tomatoes in the case? Without knowing this meez will not be able to calculate the cost of a single tomato. To fix this issue click on the unit and define the pack-size or create it as a new unit.
Please also review the addressing needing attention items for imported purchase costs for more information.
Step 3: fix any lingering issues that display on the recipe
Once your invoices are imported to meez and your needing attention items are resolved - you will start seeing costs being calculated in your recipe. You might, however, also see some additional cost related errors. To get the most accurate recipe cost - we highly recommend resolving these errors.
The most common errors you will see on recipes are:
Ingredient not yet set with purchase cost. This error means that when you imported your invoices - this ingredient was not included, hence it was never set with a cost. To solve this you can set the cost for that ingredient manually or import another invoice that includes costs associated with that ingredient
Ingredient is missing unit conversion. This error means that the ingredient UoM Equivalency is not properly set. Think of it this way: if you buy 10 lemons (i.e purchase unit is "each"), and your recipe calls for 1/2 cup of lemon juice, meez needs to know how many lemons are needed to fill 1/2 cup with lemon juice in order to calculate the cost of 1/2 cup of lemon juice. The UoM Equivalency defines that relationship. To solve this set the UoM equivalency on the ingredient or on the ingredient prep action.
For additional help, look at this example from the FAQ article of how to properly set your ingredient UoM Equivalency
Have more questions? Check out the top 4 reasons why recipes aren't costing and our FAQ article for more help.