Chef-Ops-Pro Recipe Costing Workbook

Download Recipe Costing

What’s in the workbook

The different areas of the work are all explained in this document

31 tabs along the bottom:

| Tab | Purpose |

| **Recipe Summary** | Read-only overview. Pulls every figure from the 30 cards automatically. |

| **Recipe 1 – Recipe 30** | One costing card per dish. Identical layout on every card. |

Each recipe card prints on a single A4 portrait page. The summary prints on one landscape page.

The golden rule: yellow means type here

Every sheet is protected. **Yellow cells are the only cells you can edit.** Everything else — labels, headings, formulas, the logo — is locked so it can’t be broken by accident.

If you click a locked cell and try to type, Excel will refuse. That’s intentional, not a fault.

| Colour | Meaning |

| **Yellow** | Your input. Type here. |

| **Cream / pale amber** | A calculated result. Do not overwrite. |

| **Green text** | A figure linked from another sheet. |

| **Green or red fill** | Status flag — on target vs below target. |

Filling in a recipe card

Open any `Recipe` tab and work top to bottom.

Step 1 — Header details (rows 7–9)

| Field | Cell | Notes |

| Recipe Name | `C7` | Also appears in the amber banner on row 11 and on the summary. |

| Recipe Category | `H7` | Starter, Main, Dessert, etc. Free text. |

| Date | `C8` | When the recipe was costed. Re-date it when you re-cost. |

| Portion Size | `H8` | Free text, e.g. `180g` or `7.1 oz`. |

| Yield (portions) | `C9` | **How many portions the batch makes.** Drives cost per portion. |

| Target GP % | `H9` | **Recipe 1 only** — see section 5. |

Step 2 — Ingredients (rows 14–27, up to 14 lines)

Fill one line per ingredient:

– **Ingredient** (`B`) — the item name

– **Amount** (`C`) — quantity used in the batch

– **Unit** (`D`) — kg, g, L, ml, each, etc.

– **Cost per Unit** (`E`) — what you pay per that unit, to 3 decimal places

Two columns fill themselves:

– **Total Cost** (`F`) = Amount × Cost per Unit

– **% of Cost** (`G`) = this line as a share of the whole recipe cost

> The **% of Cost** column is the most useful number on the card. It tells you instantly which one or two ingredients are driving the plate cost — that’s where re-negotiating with a supplier or adjusting a spec actually moves the margin.

– **Notes** (`H`) — optional: supplier, brand, prep note, allergen.

**Keep the units honest.** If you buy cream by the litre at £2.40 and use 300ml, either enter `0.3` × `£2.40` (unit = L) or `300` × `£0.008` (unit = ml). Mixing the two is the single most common costing error.

Step 3 — Selling price (row 32)

Enter your **Selling Price per Portion, ex VAT** in `F32`.

If your menu price includes VAT at 20%, divide by 1.2 first. A £12.00 menu price is £10.00 ex VAT.

Step 4 — Method (rows 39–46)

Eight numbered step rows. Type one instruction per line in the yellow field. The step numbers are locked so they stay in order.

What the card calculates

| Result | Cell | Formula |

| Cost per Recipe | `F29` | Sum of all ingredient line costs |

| Cost per Portion | `F30` | Cost per Recipe ÷ Yield |

| Gross Profit per Portion | `F33` | Selling Price − Cost per Portion |

| Gross Profit % | `F34` | GP per Portion ÷ Selling Price |

| Food Cost % | `F35` | Cost per Portion ÷ Selling Price |

| Status | `F36` | On/Above Target, or Below Target |

| Target price hint | `H36` | The price you’d need to charge to hit target GP |

GP% and Food Cost % always add up to 100%. A 70% GP is a 30% food cost — two ways of saying the same thing.

**The target price hint is the practical one.** If a dish is below target, `H36` tells you the exact price that would fix it — no trial and error.

Target GP % — set it once

Enter your target in **`H9` on the Recipe 1 tab only**. Every other card reads it from there, shown in green.

Change it on Recipe 1 and all 30 cards plus the summary update instantly.

If you need a different target for one specific dish — a loss-leader, or a premium dish carrying a higher margin — click that card’s `H9`, delete the green formula, and type a number in its place. That card then works independently. You’ll need to unprotect the sheet first (section 8).

The Recipe Summary tab

Nothing to type here. Every figure is pulled live from the cards.

| Column | Shows |

| Card / Recipe Name / Category | From each card’s header |

| Yield | Portions per batch |

| Cost/Recipe, Cost/Portion | Batch and per-portion cost |

| Sell Price, GP /Portion, GP % | Your pricing and margin |

| Status | Green = on or above target, red = below |

At the bottom:

– **Average** — averages the cost columns, and calculates blended GP% across everything priced (total GP ÷ total sales, not an average of percentages, which would be misleading)

– **Cards below target GP %** — a single count of how many dishes need attention

Cards you haven’t filled in show `—` and *No Price*, and are excluded from the averages. Empty cards won’t drag your numbers down.

**Use it like this:** sort your attention by the red flags. If four dishes are below target, the summary tells you which four, and each card tells you the price that would fix it.

Printing

Everything is pre-configured — just press print.

– Recipe cards: A4 portrait, one page each, centred

– Summary: A4 landscape, one page

To print all 30 cards at once, use File → Print → Print Entire Workbook.

Common tasks

**More than 14 ingredients?** Put the overflow on a second card and add the two costs together, or unprotect the sheet and insert rows — but if you insert rows you must extend the `F29` sum range to include them, or the new lines won’t count.

**Need more than 30 recipes?** Unprotect the workbook, right-click a card tab → Move or Copy → tick *Create a copy*. Note the copy won’t appear on the summary automatically; the summary has exactly 30 rows wired to the 30 original tab names.

**Renaming tabs** breaks the summary links, because they reference tabs by name (`’Recipe 7′!F29`). Change the **Recipe Name** in `C7` instead — that’s what shows on the summary anyway.

**Changing currency:** select the cells, Format Cells → Custom, and swap `£` for your symbol.

**A dish shows *No Price*:** you haven’t entered a selling price in `F32`. Cost figures still calculate without it; only the margin columns need a price.

**Everything reads £0.00:** check `C9` (Yield) isn’t blank or zero — cost per portion divides by it.