Top two cost related errors on recipe pages
Ingredients are displaying a "cost not set yet" error
If you see one of the below messages on the recipe cost tab:
It means that one of the below is happening:
Your ingredient might be missing costs. To add costs to the ingredient follow the steps outlined here
You might have variations of the same ingredient with different names in meez, but have only costed one of those ingredients. Best practices in this case would be to merge those ingredients into one. Click here to see how
Ingredients are showing with a "-" instead of a cost
If you see one of the below messages on the recipe cost tab:
It means that one of the below is happening:
Your recipe is missing qty or unit for the ingredient. Make sure that your recipe includes both a qty and unit as both are needed for cost calculations. Click here for more
Your ingredient might be missing the unit equivalency needed to calculate costs. Go to the ingredient page and click on the "UoM Equivalency" tab to view and update the ingredients unit equivalency. Click here for more
Fixing the top two cost related errors on recipe pages
Your Ingredient doesn't have a purchase cost and/or purchase unit
All ingredient cost calculations come from one place - your purchase cost. In order to break down the cost of an ingredient into the ounces, tablespoons, or grams used in your recipe, you (and meez) need to know two things:
How much did I buy? (purchase unit)
How much did I pay for it? (purchase cost)
If one of these is missing, there's no way to see how much the ingredient costs in your recipes. In that case, just add the purchase cost and purchase unit to the ingredient like this:
IMPORTANT: If you've imported your purchase costs with a spreadsheet, or if you have a purchase integration that automatically syncs your purchase data from another source, you'll need to visit the New Purchase Items Table to map your purchase items to ingredients in your account. Click here to learn more about the New Purchase Items Table.
You have more than one name for the same ingredient, but you've costed only one of them
If you're sure you've added the purchase cost and purchase unit to the ingredient (either by adding them manually - as above - or by mapping them to an ingredient in the New Purchase Item Table), you more than one name for the same ingredient.
This happens when you use different names for the same purchased ingredient in different recipes. For example, if one recipe calls for "salt," but another calls for "kosher salt," you'll have both ingredient names in your account. You may have added a purchase cost to the ingredient "salt," but that cost isn't going to show up in the recipe where you used the ingredient "kosher salt."
To fix this, you can search for similar names that are used for the same actual ingredient and then merge the ingredients. This will apply the one ingredient you choose to all the recipes where either one was used, and the cost you added will appear in all of them as well. Click here to learn more about merging ingredients.
Your recipe ingredients are missing quantities or units
If you don't provide a unit for an ingredient in your recipe, meez will assume you mean "each."
If the ingredient doesn't already have an equivalency for "each," this can cause the UoM Equivalency warning you see below, which is preventing the ingredient cost from calculating in this recipe:
To fix this, just tell meez how much of the ingredient you want by adding a unit and quantity to the ingredient, such as "1 cup" or "300 grams."
If there is no red warning icon on the ingredient, but you still see a "⎼" instead of a cost, you've used a "dimensionless" unit, like "to taste" or "as needed." These units allow you to include ingredients without using a quantity - good for when you don't want or need to measure the ingredient quantity or its cost - like salt "to taste," or oil "as needed."
Your ingredient is missing the unit equivalency needed to calculate the cost
If you're seeing a warning like this on an ingredient (or sub-recipe) in your recipe cost tab...
...it means this ingredient or sub-recipe is used with different types of units and meez needs more information to convert the cost between those units.
There are only three types of units in meez:
Weight, Volume, and Container
(Container just means, by the "Each" or "Piece").
Unit Equivalencies (also known as UoM Equivalencies) are necessary for ingredients and recipes to translate between different types of units.
The unit equivalency for each ingredient can be found on the ingredient detail page by clicking on the "UoM Equivalency" tab:
To get the ingredient cost to calculate, compare the purchase unit on the ingredient page and the unit used with that ingredient in the recipe. If they are different types of units, you'll need to add an equivalency for those two types.
For example: if you purchase flour for $1 per pound (a weight unit) and you use it in a recipe by the cup (a volume unit), you'll need a unit equivalency (shown above) to know how much a cup of flour costs.