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How to Track Waste

The Waste Dashboard answers a simple question: how much product did you issue out of storage, versus how much your sales say you should have used? The gap between the two is waste -- over-pouring, spillage, spoilage, comps, or theft.

How waste is calculated​

  • Issued (actual) -- the quantity of a product that left storage into a kitchen, bar, or other consumption area, based on the transfers and stock-outs you record.
  • Recipe (theoretical) -- the quantity your recorded sales say you should have used, based on each item's recipe or a direct product mapping.
  • Variance -- issued minus recipe. A positive variance is real waste. A negative variance is flagged as an anomaly rather than counted as waste -- it usually means an issuance was not recorded, or an item is mapped incorrectly, not that you somehow used less than you sold.

Viewing the dashboard​

  1. Navigate to the /waste page. (The Waste dashboard is not currently in the sidebar; open it directly by its URL.)

  2. Use the period selector at the top to choose the month you want to review.

  3. Review the summary cards:

    • Net Variance -- the total waste across all zones and products for the period, in kilograms.
    • Over Issues -- how many product/zone lines show more issued than the recipe called for (real waste).
    • Under Issues -- how many lines show less issued than the recipe called for (an anomaly to investigate, not a gain).
    • Recipe Coverage -- what percentage of your theoretical usage could be matched to a known product. Higher coverage means the numbers above are more reliable.

  4. Scroll to the variance table to see every zone/product combination for the period, with issued and recipe quantities, the variance, the percentage, and a flag:

    • over -- more was issued than the recipe called for (loss).
    • anomaly -- less was issued than expected (a data or mapping problem -- investigate, don't count it as savings).
    • on-target -- issued matches the recipe.
note

The recipe coverage detail view (to see and fix individual unmatched items) is coming soon. In the meantime, coverage improves as you build out recipes for your menu items (see How to Scan a Recipe) and keep issuing recorded accurately through Transfers and Movements.

Getting the most reliable numbers​

  • Record every issuance. Waste can only be measured where a real transfer or stock-out was recorded moving product into a consumption zone (like a kitchen or bar). If a delivery goes straight to a zone without being logged as a movement, that usage will not show up as "issued," which can make waste look artificially high or produce an anomaly.
  • Build recipes for your menu. The more of your menu items have a recipe (or are otherwise mapped to a product), the higher your coverage percentage and the more trustworthy your variance numbers are.
  • Investigate anomalies first. A negative-variance line is almost always a sign that an issuance is missing or a mapping is wrong -- fix the underlying record rather than treating it as a data point.
tip

Check the Waste Dashboard at the start of each month once the prior period's sales and issuances have settled, so you're comparing a complete picture rather than a partial one.