Financial & menu intelligence

Costing, menu matrix, wastage, analytics and the P&L reading from the same records — price a recipe and all four move. For commercial operations.

An interactive tool in the AlyOps operations suite. It runs entirely in your browser: the figures you enter stay on your device and are not uploaded.

How to use / SOP

Purpose

Turn raw purchase invoices into a per-drink cost, margin and a defensible selling price — the same math behind menu-cost control in a real bar.

Standard

Cost % has no universal target — it follows your concept, your rent, your volume and your menu mix. Derive your own from your margins and hold the tool to that; a number carried in from somebody else's bar is not a target, it is a guess about your business.

Steps

  1. Add each ingredient with its pack cost, pack size, unit and expected waste % (spillage, steaming loss, trim).
  2. Build a recipe: name it, set a selling price, and add ingredient lines with the quantity used per drink.
  3. Read the live COGS, cost %, gross profit and GP % as you adjust quantities.
  4. Optionally set a target cost % to see the suggested price that would hit it.
  5. Save the recipe to keep it in your library and export costs to CSV.

Reading the result

Cost % above your target means the recipe is under-priced or over-portioned relative to your margin goal. The suggested price is what selling price would hit your target cost % exactly — compare it to what you actually charge.

Notes

Waste % should reflect real, observed loss (steaming, spillage, trim) — not a guess. Wrong waste inputs quietly break every cost figure downstream.

Shortcuts

None.

How to use / SOP

Purpose

See which menu items deserve to be protected, repriced, promoted or cut — using the same margin-vs-popularity method used in professional menu engineering.

Standard

Kasavana/Smith quadrant method. The popularity line is 70 per cent of fair share, not a plain average: fair share is total units divided by the number of items, and an item clears the line at 70 per cent of it. The margin line is the WEIGHTED average contribution margin, total contribution margin divided by total units. Items above both lines are Stars; below both are Dogs; the other two combinations are Plowhorses and Puzzles.

Steps

  1. Enter each menu item with its ingredient cost, selling price, and monthly units sold.
  2. The tool computes each item's unit gross profit (price − cost) and popularity (share of units).
  3. Read the quadrant chart: each item is plotted by popularity (x) and gross profit (y), split on the two threshold lines above.
  4. Use the classification and the summary to decide what to protect, reprice, reposition, or cut.

Reading the result

Stars = protect and feature. Plowhorses = popular but thin margin — re-cost or reprice carefully. Puzzles = profitable but overlooked — reposition or promote. Dogs = weak on both counts — rework or remove.

Notes

The classification is only as good as your inputs — use a consistent monthly-units source (a POS report is best) across all items.

Shortcuts

Load the example menu to see the method in action before entering your own.

How to use / SOP

Purpose

See whether the period actually made money, and which line took it.

Standard

Prime cost at or below 60% of net sales. Beverage cost 20–30%. EBITDA margin 15%+.

Steps

  1. Pick the month. Everything else scopes to it automatically.
  2. Enter gross sales, then discounts and refunds — the statement works off net sales, never gross.
  3. Check the pulled figures: COGS comes from your menu items, wastage from the tracker, labour from logged shifts.
  4. Add operating expenses, putting depreciation in its own category so EBITDA stays correct.
  5. Read prime cost first. It is the number you can actually move week to week.

Reading the result

Prime cost is the operator's steering wheel: COGS and labour are the two costs you control daily, and together they should stay at or under 60% of net sales. If prime cost is fine but EBITDA is thin, the problem is rent or overheads — a pricing and volume problem, not a bar-execution problem.

Notes

EBITDA deliberately excludes depreciation, so it is not cash in the bank and it is not net profit. Read it beside net operating profit, and never present EBITDA alone to justify a decision that depends on real cash.

How to use / SOP

Purpose

Convert physical waste into a costed figure the business can actually manage.

Standard

Wastage under 3% of net sales. Every loss logged the moment it happens, priced from real purchase cost.

Steps

  1. Log the loss at the moment it happens — end-of-shift recall always under-reports.
  2. Pick the ingredient where one applies, so the cost comes from your real purchase price rather than a guess.
  3. Use the reason field honestly: remakes point at training, expiry points at ordering, spoilage points at storage.
  4. Review the biggest losses weekly. One recurring item usually accounts for most of the money.
  5. The total flows into the P&L as part of COGS, so fixing waste moves beverage cost % directly.

Reading the result

Read the reason split, not just the total. A high remake share is a training and calibration problem; a high expiry share is an ordering and par-level problem; a high spoilage share is a storage and rotation problem. Each points at a different fix.

Notes

Under-logging is the normal failure mode — a clean waste sheet usually means nobody is recording, not that nothing was binned. Costs are frozen at entry time on purpose, so correcting an ingredient price later will not restate past losses.

The reference material this tool draws on is published as prose elsewhere on the site:

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