Creating a well-organized café menu, helps staff efficiently serve customers and manage orders. In this article, we'll guide you through setting up a café menu using modifications to streamline your product catalog.
Please note, this guide is specifically for cafés — if you're setting up a retail shop catalog, that will be covered in a separate article.
What’s the difference between dishes and products
Products are ready-to-use goods that are sold without cooking. For example, water in bottles or chocolate bars.
Dishes are meals and drinks which are cooked in your location from ingredients. For example, Cappuccino or soup.
Preparations are pre-cooked blends and mixes of ingredients that are not available for sale directly as a standalone item but are used as an ingredient in your cafe instead.
Ingredients are used to cook dishes and drinks. For instance, wheat flour and eggs for bakery or soda and mint for lemonade.
Create products and dishes categories
First of all, combine your products and dishes in categories so it would be easier for your waiter to find them on POS. For example, “First dishes”, “Soft drinks” and “Dessert”.
Go to Menu → Products and dishes categories and click Add.
Enter category name. For example “Bakery products”.
In Сategory field select a major parental category or Top Screen in case it's a self-sufficient one.
Upload Cover image or choose a suggested one, or select an icon color to display the category on the register.
Click Save.
Add products
Products are items that are ready for selling. They’re not used for preparing other dishes. For example, a bottle of coke or a chocolate bar. To add a product:
Open the tab Menu → Products in the management console.
Click Add product.
Enter the Name, choose the Category and Cooking station.
Choose Tax to track tax calculations on sold items in Poster.
Upload Cover image or choose a suggested one, or select an icon color to display the product at the POS register.
Enter products price in Total.
Add Barcodes to scan products with a reader or tablet camera for faster service.
The Cost and Markup will be calculated automatically after you add a Supply.
Click Save.
Weight products
If you sell products by weight, select Weight product (goods) and enter the price per 100 grams.
Upon selecting such product at the POS register the waiter will be asked to enter the weight sold. Total price will be calculated automatically.
☝️ Selecting Can’t be discounted, prevents this product from being discounted with loyalty programs.
☝️ Deleted products are moved to the Trash for 30 days, during which they can be restored. If not restored within that time, they will be permanently deleted.
Modifications are variations of a product, such as juice with options like orange, mango, or pomegranate. Each modification has its own barcode, price, and cost, making it easier to manage.
Modifiers keep the products more organized and allow waiters to quickly find and sell products.
Add ingredients
Ingredients are goods that you use to prepare dishes and drinks. For example, pastry flour for cupcakes or spearmint for lemonade.
To add an ingredient:
Go to Menu → Ingredients in the management console.
Click Add.
Type an ingredient name, and select a unit.
Click More info to set up loss percentage in case of frying, boiling, stewing, or baking.
Click Save.
💡 Enter loss percentages to include them while preparing the ingredient. Enabling a Cooking method in Menu → Dishes while creating a dish recipe automatically calculates the gross weight based on the loss percentage and consumption. Updating the ingredient's loss percentage, also changes the gross weight in dishes.
💡 Enter Items quantity, Price per unit, and Storage location to supply the ingredient to your stock immediately. To create or edit any of your supplies go to Inventory → Supplies and click Edit.
Create preparations
Preparations are pre-cooked dishes that consist of ingredients. For example, sauce or dough for pizza.
💡 Combine ingredients into preparations to use them in different dishes. For example, you can combine flour, eggs, and yeast into a “Dough” preparation, that you’ll use for buns or croissants.
To add a preparation:
Go to Products → Preparations in the management console.
Click Add.
Enter the name and write the cooking process.
Add preparations’ ingredients.
Enter gross and net weights or cooking method for each ingredient.
Click Save.
☝️ Supply all the ingredients to calculate the preparation cost correctly.
To track 0 cost ingredients, preparation costs are highlighted with yellow.
Make retroactive preparation editing to include any recipe changes into your past sales. Change ingredients or edit their quantities in preparations that have already been sold. Poster will recalculate their previous cost and remaining stock balances for the selected period.
☝️ You can sell preparations only as part of a dish, but not separately. Therefore, they are not displayed on the register.
You can manufacture preparations to see them in stock.
Add dish
Dishes are food and drinks cooked according to the recipe — for example, creamy mushroom soup or blueberry smoothie.
☝️ Before dishes, add the ingredients and preparations. Missing ingredients result in dishes being sold without stock deductions.
To add a dish:
Open the tab Menu → Dishes in the management console.
Click Add.
Enter the name, choose the category and station.
Upload Cover image or choose a suggested one, or select an icon color to display the dish at the POS register.
Add ingredients and preparations the dish consists of. Enter gross and net weights.
Set up a dish Price. Fields Cost and Markup would be calculated automatically after you add a supply.
Click Save.
💡 Serve combo offers or multi-sized meals by using dish modifiers.
💡 Supply the ingredients for accurate cost calculation.
💡 Enable Sold by weight to put a price per 100 grams. Poster calculates the total price automatically after the weight is indicated at the POS.
Make retroactive dish editing to include any recipe changes into your past sales. Change ingredients or edit their quantities in dishes that have already been sold. Poster will recalculate their previous cost and remaining stock balances for the selected period.
☝️ Inaccurate dish costs are highlighted in yellow and contain 0-cost ingredients.
☝️ Enable Can’t be discounted to prevent customer group discounts
☝️ Deleted dishes are stored in a Trash can for 30 days before the final removal.
Feel free to contact our customer support if you have any questions or need help with printers. We're available in chat @joinposter.com and email contact@joinposter.com
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