Inventory & Menu - FAQs

Q: What is the new Inventory & Menu module?

Inventory & Menu is a unified module that combines ingredient management, inventory locations, recipes, menu items, purchase orders, standing orders, inventory counts, and count reports — all accessible from a single dashboard with Quick Access tiles.

Q: What are Recipes in CheddrSuite?

Recipes let you build costed recipes by attaching ingredients (SKUs) to menu items, enabling automatic food cost and margin calculations. Menu items without an attached recipe will show a fabricated 100% margin until one is added.

Q: What are Standing Orders?

Standing Orders are recurring vendor order templates that automate regular purchases from your suppliers, saving time on repeat ordering.

Q: What is an Inventory Count?

Inventory Count is a tool for conducting periodic physical inventory counts by location. Results feed into Count Reports, which track inventory count history and trends over time.

Q: What are Count Reports?

Count Reports let you view the history and trends of your inventory counts over time, helping you spot shrinkage, waste, or ordering patterns.

Q: What are Smart Orders in Inventory Intelligence?

Smart Orders are AI-generated purchase order suggestions based on your current stock levels, par values, usage trends, and vendor relationships.

Q: What is Cost Watch in Inventory Intelligence?

Cost Watch monitors your ingredient and SKU costs over time to alert you to price increases from vendors that may be affecting your food cost percentages.

Q: How does Menu Engineering classify my items?

Menu Engineering uses POS sales volume (estimated from net sales distributed across items) and recipe-derived margins to place items into a 2x2 matrix: Stars (high margin + high volume), Plow Horses (low margin + high volume), Puzzles (high margin + low volume), and Dogs (low margin + low volume).