Question about items, modifiers, variations and cost tracking

[jsm4]

Surely, someone else has had this issue so I'm curious how others have solved it. Let's say I have a Latte in my POS. I created options for sizes, set a price and cost for each, and that part works well because it only creates 2-3 variations. I have some modifiers like flavors that are built into the cost. Those work fine too.

The problem I have is with alternative milks that have a dramatically higher cost than regular milk. I can configure those as modifiers with an additional price and that makes for a nice UX on the register, but there's no way to set a cost for these modifiers. Alternatively, I can configure the alternative milks as options, which do have a cost, but then the UX is ugly because I end up with a list of every item permutation. It gets out of control quickly when I have 2-3 sizes and 6 different kinds of milk.

Does anyone have a suggestion for how to set this up? Thank you!

[Donnie-M]

@jsm4 I do mine with a modifier.  You can set the cost of a modifier and it will add it to the cost of the variation you have set up.  You can go into the item level and then customize the modifier to only allow 1 choice or preselect when you make the modifier to only allow one choice and it is the first choice and just make that choice no cost/regular milk or milk etc.

You can even do modifier reporting to see how many times you upcharged.  The only thing that would be complicated would be if you want to charge a different modifier upcharge based on the size of the coffee.

[TheRealChipA]

Hi @jsm4.  Currently, Square does not have full restaurant/bar item costing and inventory tracking.  There is a beta going on to start this process, but it does not have modifier costing, etc.  To do what you want, you will have to head over to the Square App Marketplace and look for a third-party app that will integrate with your Square account.  I use Restoke, but there are others such as Peachworks.  

Since the Square Restaurants team just started working on a very simple item-level costing feature, I would not expect that they will have a fully functional restaurant/bar costing and inventory tracking app for a long time — most like on the order of a few years.  The reason for this is that to get this right requires a lot of moving parts.  Our item costs contain not only ingredients but also other recipes, and more.  I say this because when you look at the two apps I mentioned about, you’ll noticed they are not cheap, for very good reason.  Restoke and Peachworks charge more than you might like because they do it right and have every bell and whistle you can imagine.

As far as Restoke, the one I am most familiar with, you might be able to get by with the Base tier which allows you to cost your menu but doesn’t have “live” cost tracking and inventory control.  I use the Expert tier which imports my sales regularly and depletes inventory based on my recipes.  It also allows me to import invoices for stock purchases and updates inventory levels based on those.  And it has complete inventory management.  Honestly, it is one of the most function-rich restaurant/bar costing apps I’ve ever found and so far I haven’t found anything it can’t do.

If you want to give it a try, they have a free trial.  Also, I have a promo code that will allow you to give it a while for a couple of months at half price after the free trial period.  I am currently getting things set up to open a second location so this automated cost and inventory tracking is essential to keep me from losing my mind.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reply here.  Also, if you decide to give it a try feel free to reach out to me here in the Community if you have any questions or issues.  Trust me I had plenty when I first started with them so I’ve done all the wrong things to eventually get to the point of having my shop set up correctly.  Also, their help documents and videos are excellent.