Learn more about how PurchasePlus helps your Organization to manage Recipes, with our Ingredients feature.
This is Part 3 of our Introduction to Recipes series.
What is an Ingredient?
Ingredients are the Products that are added to your Recipes.
To be considered a valid Ingredient, two criteria must be met:
- It must have a Sell Quantity ‘Each of 1’.
- It must be a Product that is owned by your Purchasing Organisation. Products that are owned by your Suppliers can never appear as ‘Ingredients’. This is to prevent a situation where a Supplier updating or deleting one of their products causes your Recipes to be out-of-date or economically unviable.
- An Ingredient can be added to a Self Managed Catalog that is assigned to a Self Managed Supplier, and added to Buy Lists, Requisitions, and more.
- The Ingredient can also have one or more Substitutes, which can be Products that are owned by your Registered Suppliers. This functionality allows you to keep track of the Supplier Products that you order for use as Ingredients in Recipes.
Ingredients are included in Recipes in ‘Portions’. For example, an Ingredient may be ‘Plain Flour’, and have a Unit Size of ‘1kg’, a Sell Pack of ‘Each of 1’, and be can be included in the Recipe as a Portion value of ‘0.5kg’, ‘2kg’ or ‘200kg’.
Ingredient Permissions
A user’s ability to Manage Ingredients (i.e. create, update, delete) is controlled by the Permission: ‘Manage Recipes.’ Please contact a PurchasePlus administrator at your organization if you wish to have this permission enabled for your user profile.
Viewing and Managing Your Ingredients
You can find the list of Ingredients that are available to your Organization in the Side Navigation bar by clicking [Recipes] → [Ingredients]. You can customize the table of Ingredients using the ‘Manage Columns’ button, or dragging the column width borders to suit your preference.
It is important to remember that the Ingredients displayed in the table are all (a) Products that are owned by your Organization, and (b) have ‘Each of 1’ as the Sell Pack.
From this table view, you can also take a number of actions using the [More] menu on the right hand side of the table:
- View the Product in more detail (noting that all Ingredients are Products, and can be added to Catalogs, Requisitions, etc),
- Add the Product to a Buy List,
- Add the Product to a Self Managed Catalog,
- Create a Barcode for the Product.
Clicking on the Name of an Ingredient will take you to the page for that Product, where you can manage it accordingly - e.g. add a Barcode, add Substitutes, or change various other Product Settings.
Creating New Ingredient
You can create an entirely new Ingredient by clicking on the [Create an Ingredient] button on the [Ingredients] page:
Doing so will create a new Product that is owned by your Organization, and have a Sell Quantity ‘Each of 1’. The Ingredient will also appear as a product in your All Products area, and your Organization will be set as the owner of the product.
Cloning Supplier-Owned Products
If one of your Registered Suppliers has created a Product that you wish to use as an Ingredient, you can Clone that Product (assuming it is an ‘Each of 1’ Sell Pack), and it will be available to your Organization as an Ingredient. You can add the original, Supplier-owned Product to your new Ingredient as a Substitute if you wish to keep a close eye on the price movements of the original Product.
To Clone a Supplier-Owned Product, locate the Product in the list of [Products] → [View All] table, and then select [Clone Product] from the [More] menu:
Ingredient Costs
The cost of an Ingredient is very important, as it filters upwards and allows users to understand the costs (and profitability) of their Recipes and Menus. The ‘cost’ of the Ingredient in this context is determined by the lowest-available quote for the Ingredient from your Suppliers:
If you don’t have a quote for an Ingredient, consider adding the Product to a Self Managed Catalog that is assigned to one of your Suppliers.
How do I start using the Recipes Module?
If your Organization would like to begin using the PurchasePlus Recipes module, please contact your Account Manager or our friendly Customer Success Team for assistance with enabling the module, and to organize training for your users (if required).
Note for Purchasers using Legacy PurchasePlus
The Recipes module in New PurchasePlus has been redesigned and reengineered, and it is materially different to the Legacy PurchasePlus Recipes Module. Purchasers migrating from our Legacy PurchasePlus platform to our New PurchasePlus platform will need additional migration support to begin using Recipes, as Recipe, Menu and Ingredient data in our legacy PurchasePlus platform is not automatically available in our New PurchasePlus platform.