Menu Item Contribution/Theoretical Cost

This report allows you to generate a list of the theoretical cost (the cost of all ingredients) of menu items and contribution each makes to your restaurant's profit. Also, if you use target cost percentages, you can determine where opportunities exist to increase profits.

Note: To use this report, you must also use the Compeat POS Polling feature.

The cost is termed 'theoretical' because of variances in serving portions and assumptions about sales quantities and costs made from available data. Compeat takes the recipe of the menu item, calculates a weighted average cost of each ingredient during the specified time period, and then sums these costs to determine a theoretical menu item cost.

If an item was not purchased during the time period being reported on, Compeat will search for the last time the item was purchased, and will display that price on the report; in this case, the price is not an average.

Note: If an item has never been purchased (entered on an invoice or manual check), Compeat will use the Inv. Unit Cost defined on the Restaurant Inventory Items screen. If that field is blank, the cost will show as zero.

The theoretical cost percentage of a menu item is calculated by dividing the theoretical cost by the menu item's average sales price for the period.

The report includes drill-down capabilities that allow you to access related data for an item by clicking on it from the Preview screen. Drill-down capabilities are available for the Menu Item #, Menu Item Description, Qty Sold, and Total Sales fields.

Report Options

The options screen appears similar to the following:

Use the following options to customize your report:

Note: Only menu items sold in the restaurants during the Date Range are included in the report.

Report Data

The Menu Item Theoretical Cost report appears similar to the following:

Description of report columns

Each item is identified by its Item # and Description at the beginning of the row. Results are sorted by Opportunity.

Note: If an item has never been purchased (entered on an invoice or manual check), Compeat will use the Cost per Inv. defined on the Restaurant Inventory screen.