Recipe Costing for caterers.
Recipe Costing for caterers reports into one owner view: today's sales, orders, average bill, refunds and net profit, each compared with the previous period, with alerts for slow tickets, low stock and a drawer left unclosed.
What Recipe Costing does for your caterer.
- Margin on every dish
- The menu lists each item with its price, cost, profit and margin. Items that need attention are flagged, so you see which dishes make money and which only look busy.
- Arithmetic you can check
- Each recipe line shows its own working: quantity, unit, cost. A line that costs more than the dish sells for blocks saving. One restaurant's milk once fell to minus 386 litres from a single unit mistake.
- Packaging counted as cost
- Add the cup, lid or bag to the recipe. It is costed and deducted only when the order leaves the building, and takeaway margin is shown separately from dine-in.
- Useful before recipes are written
- Cost a dish by recipe, by a fixed cost, by a percentage of price, or leave it uncosted. "Rough-in the rest" estimates every remaining item in one step, and you replace estimates with recipes as you go.
- House-made components at real cost
- Mark gravy, dough or a sauce as made in-house with its own batch recipe. Its cost stays live and flows into every dish that uses it.
- A profit number that states its reliability
- The profit panel runs from sales down to net profit and carries a badge showing how much of the menu has a cost set. You know how far to trust the figure.
Built for how caterers actually run.
- Full Recipe Costing overview
Recipe costing software for restaurants: see price, cost, profit and margin on every dish, with the food cost per plate worked out line by line.
- Bhookly for caterers
Catering software from booking to final invoice.
- Bookings kept in a notebook and a WhatsApp thread, with no single version of the order.
- Deposits that land in the till and throw off the day's cash-up.
- Quantities worked out in someone's head, then a last-minute run to the market.
- The guest count changes two days before, and the kitchen cooks from the old number.
- Chafing dishes and serving trays that go to a venue and never come back.
- No idea whether last weekend's wedding made money.
More of what caterers run on
Catering Management for caterers
Take a catering booking, record the deposit, send it to the kitchen as a cooking plan in one tap, and close the event knowing what it really cost.
Kitchen Production Planning for caterers
Plan what the kitchen will cook, see every ingredient it needs, and move stock from store to kitchen by recorded request, with a name, a quantity and a time.
Store Inventory for caterers
Restaurant inventory management that deducts ingredients as each bill is paid, turns every count gap into a money figure and suggests what to reorder.
Things people usually ask us.
Still have a question? Message us and we reply the same day.
How do I calculate food cost per plate?
Add up the cost of each ingredient at the quantity the dish uses, plus packaging if it leaves the building. Bhookly does this in its recipe editor: you list the ingredients, each line shows its arithmetic, and the dish shows its cost, profit and margin against the selling price. For a quick one-off calculation, use the free calculator at /tools/food-cost-calculator.
Can I see the profit margin on each menu item?
Yes. Bhookly lists every menu item with its price, cost, profit and margin, and flags the items that need attention. The menu performance report then shows sales and projected margin by item, category or tag, filtered by channel.
Do I have to write a recipe for every dish before I get margins?
No. Bhookly costs a dish in four ways: a recipe, a fixed cost, a percentage of price, or none. "Rough-in the rest" gives every uncosted item an estimate in one step, so margin reporting works on day one and recipes can follow.
Does recipe costing include takeaway packaging?
Yes. In Bhookly a cup, lid or bag is part of the recipe, and it is costed and deducted from stock only when the order leaves. Takeaway margin is shown separately, so packaging stops being an invisible cost.
How do sizes and add-ons affect the cost of a dish?
In Bhookly each size and option carries its own recipe. An extra shot adds ingredients, an iced version replaces some, and a whole cake multiplies the slice, so cost and stock stay right for every variation sold.
What stops a unit mistake from ruining my food cost?
Bhookly shows the arithmetic on every recipe line and blocks saving when a single line costs more than the dish sells for. The check exists because one restaurant's milk stock once went to minus 386 litres from a unit mistake in a recipe.
Can I cost sauces, gravies and dough made in-house?
Yes. Bhookly lets you mark a stock item as made in-house and give it a batch recipe with a live cost. That prep item can then be used as a sub-recipe inside any dish, and the dish's cost includes it.
Can cooks see the recipe without seeing the costs?
Yes. Bhookly shows a recipe card on the kitchen screen with ingredients and numbered steps and no prices. The method is saved separately from the costing, so editing the steps never changes cost or stock.
Run recipe costing on Bhookly.
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