From POS Sales Mix to Recipe Ingredient Usage

Start with an itemised report

A sales mix needs item names and quantities for a clear trading period. Sales values are useful for margin reporting, but a turnover total alone cannot identify the ingredient mix. StockLens accepts supported CSV, PDF and image reports without requiring a direct POS connection. For Excel reports, export the relevant sheet as CSV.

Check that all pages and trading dates are included, that modifiers have not been mistaken for standalone drinks and that refunds keep their signs. AI can interpret different layouts; it cannot recover rows that are missing or unreadable.

Match a familiar name to your actual recipe

A row called Pornstar Martini does not establish your house specification. Match it to the saved recipe your team uses, with the right ingredients, measures, garnish and any side serve. A double, pitcher or promotional till button may represent more than one serving. Review that multiplier before approving the mapping.

StockLens suggests product or saved venue-recipe matches and can remember confirmed venue mappings. An ambiguous or missing recipe still needs your attention. It should not be replaced by an invented generic recipe.

Worked example: twenty house cocktails

For this illustrative venue only, suppose one cocktail uses 50ml vanilla vodka, 20ml passion-fruit liqueur, 30ml purée and 10ml syrup, plus a 50ml sparkling-wine side serve and half a passion fruit. Twenty servings require the quantities below. This is a calculation example, not a recommended or universal recipe.

Convert to the product you actually buy

If the vodka bottle contains 700ml, the 1,000ml expected usage is about 1.43 bottles. A 1-litre bottle would give a different bottle equivalent for exactly the same drink sales. Preserve the product’s real capacity rather than assuming 750ml.

A food ingredient recorded in grams needs a compatible weight conversion. Do not turn grams into millilitres by treating them as the same number. For a batch, check the recipe yield and serving amount, and include the ingredient waste assumptions your venue uses.

Handle refunds and complimentary drinks deliberately

Keep refund quantities signed. A financial refund is not necessarily a physical return to stock: a drink may already have been served. Review how the source report records the transaction and use the appropriate waste or adjustment workflow for what actually happened. Similarly, a free drink can consume stock even when its sales value is zero.

Approve the review, then compare with the count

Check the report period, product and recipe matches, servings and ingredient breakdown before approval. Expected usage describes what the recorded sales and recipes imply. The physical counts, deliveries, transfers and waste determine whether stock moved as expected.

In the example, actual vodka usage of 1,200ml against expected usage of 1,000ml leaves 200ml to explain before considering recorded waste and other adjustments. It is an investigation prompt, not evidence of a particular cause. Missing costs also prevent a complete recipe GP figure even if the quantities are correct.