There have been a lot of updates to menus lately that involve both the Sub Menu and Auto Manufacture options, in an effort to streamline the menu. The options, while quite similar, have different functions which can sometimes be confusing to track.

The options are available under Stock Items (Lists > Stock > Items) in Backoffice and can be set under the properties of any stock item. When setting either option, the Recipe field becomes available and you can create a recipe for that item.

Auto Manufacture:

In order to enable the Auto Manufacture setting, the Manufacture setting needs to be enabled first.



A manufactured item is stock that is made up of other stock (such as batter, sauces, dough, etc.). Normally, these would need to be captured on a per-batch basis under Stock Manufacture (Activities > Stock > Manufacture Stock) in Backoffice. However, if a stock item is only made whenever the menu item is ordered, then it may make sense to set the item as Auto Manufacture. This way, the system will automatically calculate the amount of stock used to make the item (according to the set recipe) whenever the parent item is sold.



On your Stock Variance report, the recipe items will be deducted from the Net Stock Movement column for each sale that's made, and the parent stock item will be added to its net stock movement column.


NB: Auto Manufacture stock items still appear on the stock sheet and can be counted. The option Automatically Calculate Manufactured Stock (Settings > All Computers > Program Settings > Reports) needs to be enabled before the stock variance report will calculate the auto manufactured stock.


Sub Menu:

The Sub Menu option provides a similar function to Auto Manufacture but has a key difference: an item set as Sub Menu doesn't represent a physical stock item, but rather as a group of items that are always sold together. Because it isn't a "real" stock item, any item set as Sub Menu does not appear in Stock reports at all!



An example of a Sub Menu item would be an item called "SR SALAD", which would be a portion of salad, including lettuce, onions, tomato, salad dressing, and a salad tub. This item is also made to order but since it isn't a single thing that can be counted, it's not necessary for it to be a manufactured stock item, but the ingredients still need to be deducted.



When a Sub Menu item is sold as part of a menu item recipe, the items on the Sub Menu item's recipe are deducted in the same way a Menu item recipe is, to the Theoretical column on the Stock Variance report.


In short, a Sub Menu item just exists to streamline the menu management process. If the recipe changes for all salads in the future, there is only one item to change instead of updating every menu item that contains a salad. It makes troubleshooting easier too, as there is only one recipe to check.