Recipes

Where to find it: Sidebar > Products > Recipes

Who can do it: anyone with Manufacturing view can read recipes; Create and version recipes is needed to change them. Rates, costs and margins need View production costs and margins.

4.1 The Recipe List

The list has All, In use, Draft and Archived views and a search for recipes or materials. Columns are Product, One batch makes, Version, Estimated cost (cost permission only), What goes in and Status.

Estimated cost uses today's average cost of each material plus your labour, power and overhead rates. The real cost of each batch is worked out when it is finished.

4.2 Before You Create a Recipe

In Inventory, create the materials and set each stock unit correctly, such as kilograms for oil or units for wrappers. Turn on batch tracking for materials where you need supplier-lot trace. A made product needs Inventory tracking. Quality checks, cure time and recalls also need it to be a goods product with batch tracking.

4.3 Creating a Recipe

1. Go to Recipes and click + New recipe
2. Under The product you make, enter the Recipe name
3. Choose the Made product, or Create a new made product and enter New product name, Stock unit, Product code and Selling price before VAT. New made products track batches in Inventory
4. Choose the Status: Draft, In use or Archived
5. Fill in the batch fields (see 4.4)
6. Add Materials and any By-products
7. Add Work, power and overhead steps
8. Add Quality checks if the batch must be checked before sale
9. Under What changed?, keep or edit the change note. A new recipe starts with "First recipe"
10. Click Create recipe

A recipe keeps its made product. To make another product, create another recipe. The made product cannot also be a material or by-product of the same recipe.

4.4 Batch Fields

• One batch makes — the usual batch size
• Unit label — the display word shown with made quantities, such as bars or kg. Material conversion uses each material’s separate Recipe unit
• Normal loss % — the loss you expect in a normal run. It starts from Settings
• Best before (months) — sets the best-before date from the made-on date
• Cure time (days) — days a batch must rest before release. Any cure time puts the batch on quality hold
• Overhead units per item — how much fixed overhead one item carries. 1 is a normal item; 2 takes twice the share
• Batch number pattern (optional) — leave blank to use Settings

Count products use whole numbers. Products measured by weight, volume or length allow up to four decimal places.

4.5 Materials

Each material line has Material, Quantity, Recipe unit, Scrap % and Per unit made.

• Recipe units can differ from stock units within the same kind: grams, kilograms, milligrams and tonnes; millilitres and litres. Count words such as each, units, pieces, labels and sheets are treated as the same. Other units must match the stock unit exactly
• Material quantities retain their own precision even when the finished product is counted in whole units. Stock records support four decimal places. If a positive requirement would become zero, choose a smaller stock unit or a larger batch; it is not silently omitted
• Scrap % adds a scrap allowance to the material
• Per unit made means the quantity is for each unit made, not each batch. These lines round up to whole wrappers or labels

Unit suggestions follow the selected material’s stock unit and the converter’s actual families. For kg, choose kg, g, mg or t; for litres, choose L, ml or litre. A custom stock unit such as bars only offers that exact unit. A product without a stock unit uses each for new recipe validation; set its stock unit in Inventory before saving a weight or volume recipe. Invalid choices are refused on save with a plain message, for example Oil is stocked in kg. Choose a compatible recipe unit.

A material can itself be made with another recipe.

4.6 By-products

A by-product is a second product that comes out of the batch, such as husks or offcuts. Enter the By-product and Stock units per batch. With cost permission you also enter Cost to sell, per unit.

A by-product is valued at its selling price less the cost to sell it, and that value is taken off the batch's cost. By-products are received into stock when the batch is finished. A batch cannot finish if its by-products are worth more than the batch cost.

4.7 Work, Power and Overhead Steps

Each step has:

• Step name
• Kind — Labour or Power / machine
• Fixed hours — time that stays the same whatever the batch size, such as setting up
• Hours per batch — time that scales with the batch size
• People — how many people usually work the step
• Step rate (optional for hourly) — with cost permission. Leave blank to use the Settings rate
• Pay type — Hourly or By the piece
• Outsourced — the step is done by a supplier

Enter person-hours for labour: two people working two hours is four person-hours. Power steps use machine-hours.

By the piece steps must be Labour and need a Step rate, which is the rate per good piece. Their labour cost is good pieces × rate, not hours. See 14) Piece Rates and Payroll.

Outsourced steps add Outsourced service, Supplier, Service units per batch, Cost per service unit and, with Accounting, Credit account for manual receipt. They add no internal labour cost. See 15) Outsourced Steps.

4.8 Quality Checks

Click + Add quality check and enter the Check name, Type and Unit. Fill the fields for the type:

A recipe version can hold up to 50 checks. Checks belong to the version, so a batch is always checked against the checks it was made with.

4.9 Saving a New Version

1. Open the recipe and click Save as version N
2. Make your changes
3. Explain the change under What changed? It is required and kept for FDA inspection
4. Click Save as version N

Earlier versions stay readable from the Versions list. An existing production order keeps the version it was planned from. Archived recipes cannot be used for new orders.

Without cost permission you can still edit a recipe. Step rates, outsourced costs and by-product costs to sell keep their saved values.

4.10 The Batch Size Calculator

The recipe page works as a calculator. Nothing changes until you plan a batch.

1. Under Batch size, enter Units per batch or click a preset. The presets are half a batch, the most that all stock allows, one batch and two batches
2. Read Expected good units after normal loss
3. Read the stock note:
   • Enough stock for this batch. It also says how many units today's stock allows
   • Not enough stock — it says how many materials are short and how many units you can make. Planning anyway marks the order Waiting for materials
4. Review Materials (For this batch, Scrap, In stock or Short, and Cost) and Work, power and overhead
5. With cost permission, read Estimated cost: per good unit before VAT, with Materials, Labour, Power and generator, Outsourced steps, Factory overhead, Less by-products, Batch total, Sells at, before VAT and Margin
6. Click Plan a batch to open a new production order with this size

An empty size shows no estimate. With this recipe shows the best-before months, cure time, overhead units and batch number pattern.