How to estimate your recipe cost
Shop’NCook Pro lets you estimate the cost of your recipes in a mostly automatic way, but you may need to some adjustments to get an accurate costing. I will show you how in this post.
Adding cost data
To cost out recipes, you have to make sure first to input cost data for the ingredients in the database. The first time you start Shop’NCook Pro, you have the possibility to import a cost database. If you skipped this step, don’t panic! You can still import it by selecting “Import cost data” in the Costing menu of the Shopping List manager tab. The cost database is there to help you get a quick start with the costing functions. For accurate costing, you will have to input your own cost data from your suppliers. Staple prices greatly vary depending on the region and the season!
Inputting your own cost data
To add your own data, click on the Edit button of the Shopping List manager tab. This will open the database editor. Select “Extended list” in the Tools menu to display all the 2000 items of the database. The cost data is input in the three columns on the right: quantity, cost unit and cost.
For example: quantity: 1, cost unit: quart, cost: 2.59, i.e. the cost of one quart of the ingredient.
Tip: you are not limited to the choice displayed in the pull down menu of the cost unit, but can type any unit of your choice in the field.
Automatic cost estimate
Once the software knows the cost data, it is able to compute automatically the cost of your recipes. Here is how the costing window may look initially:
