How to Calculate Cost
Summary: This is the main goal of using COOKKEEPBOOK. However, costing of recipes depends on having data entered correctly first. Not only does the purchase price of the ingredient have a bearing, but also the yield percentage and the measurement converters.
To be able to calculate the cost of recipes you need:
Ingredients need to be created, a purchase for each one needs to be recorded and then the ingredients need to be added to a recipe.
The purchase quantity does not need to be broken down into the measurement unit used on the recipe. For example, you may purchase 'Butter' in pounds but only use 'grams' on recipes. Since both measurement units are of the same TYPE, the system can easily calculate between them. It will break down the cost from total amount of the purchase to the different amount used on the recipe.
When a " N/A Learn more" appears in the cost, it means that the system could not calculate the cost for that ingredient. Clicking the Learn more icon will show why:
The quantity is empty. Please fill quantity before calculation can happen. This means that the quantity used on the recipe has not been set properly. Check the quantity field for errors (only whole, fractions or decimal numbers are allow. No units should be entered). Also, check that the unit selection of the quantity has been set.
The measurement on this recipe is of a different type (i.e. volume or weight) than that of your last purchase. Either add a measurement converter to the ingredient or change the measurement on this recipe. This message will appear when the measurement TYPE of the purchase unit is different from the one used on the recipe.
This can happen, for example, when a purchase was made in a WEIGHT measurement (i.e. 5 pounds of All Purpose Flour). But the unit used on the recipe is of the VOLUME type (i.e. 3 cups of All Purpose Flour).
Since no two materials have the exact same density (think 1 pound of metal vs. 1 pound of feathers. How much volume will each have?), a measurement converter needs to be specified.
The measurement type (Volume, Weight or Count) does not match either the purchase unit type or the units used in your converter. You will need to either change the way the recipe measures this ingredient or change the converter of the ingredient. While a measurement converter was used for this ingredient, both the purchase unit and the measurement converter unit do not match the TYPE of unit used on the recipe. The first thing to do is to check what has been used on the purchase and on the measurement converter. If neither measurement type can be used, an intermediate recipe can be created that will convert to the needed measurement type. Please see how to use recipes as ingredients to create an intermediate recipe.