Items, units, pack sizes, and costs
Every item has two jobs: it’s something you buy (a case from a vendor) and something you use (a splash of milk in a latte). Units are how the app connects the two so your costs come out right.
The three ways an item is measured
| Unit | What it means | Example: whole milk |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase unit | How the vendor sells it. The item’s cost is the price of one of these. | 1 case ($24.00) |
| Count unit | What you count on the shelf during inventory. | Gallon jugs (“3 jugs left”) |
| Recipe use | How recipes measure it — usually a small unit like fl oz, mL, or grams. | 8 fl oz per latte |
Pack sizes: how a case becomes ounces
The pack size tells the app how the purchase unit breaks down, step by step. For that milk:
1 case → 4 gallon jugs → 128 fl oz each
With that one chain, the app can do all the math for you:
- Counting: “3 jugs” on the shelf becomes a real dollar value.
- Costing: $24.00 a case ÷ 4 jugs ÷ 128 fl oz = about 4.7¢ per fluid ounce — so an 8 fl oz pour in a recipe costs about 37¢.
- Ordering: pars and purchase orders can talk in the units that make sense for each screen.
Rule of thumb: the cost you enter is always the price of one purchase unit — one case, one bag, one gallon. If your vendor’s invoice shows a case price, enter the case price and let the pack size handle the rest.
Weight vs. volume: when the app asks for more info
Some items are bought by weight but used by volume, or the other way around — think of a bag of powder (bought in grams) that recipes measure in tablespoons or milliliters. Grams and milliliters aren’t interchangeable: a milliliter of honey weighs a lot more than a milliliter of cocoa powder.
For those items, the app asks you for a weight-per-volume (how many grams one milliliter weighs — often on the packaging, or measurable with a scale and a measuring cup). If it’s missing, the app will tell you rather than guess — a wrong guess here would silently corrupt every cost built on that item, so it refuses to assume.
Categories
Every item belongs to a category (Dairy, Produce, Packaging, and so on). Categories keep the item list, count sheets, and reports organized — you can manage them on the Categories page.
Items you don’t count, and items you no longer use
- Not countable: some items (like a rarely-touched chemical or an office supply) aren’t worth counting every week. Mark them as not countable and they stay off count sheets while remaining orderable and costed.
- Inactive: when you stop carrying an item, deactivate it instead of deleting it. It disappears from day-to-day screens but its history (past counts, prices, recipes) stays intact.
Keeping costs current
You can edit an item’s cost by hand any time, but the easiest way to keep costs honest is scanning your invoices — every approved receipt updates prices, and every price change flows automatically into your recipe costs.