How to troubleshoot consumption in the Net-Chef Prep Report

The Prep Report and Single-Day Prep Report consumption is a prediction of how many batches of a recipe is needed for the selected time and date range. Consumption is calculated by comparing forecasted sales at the 15-minute level to the historic consumption during those same 15-minute increments to determine how much product needs to be made.

Prep Report consumption relies on accurate sales forecasts, recipe setup, and historical sales. Use these troubleshooting steps to check for common causes of consumption problems.

• Sales forecast is missing or incorrect. Confirm an accurate sales forecast is entered and reviewed in Net-Chef for the prep dates.

• POS recipe was recently changed. Recipe changes do not retroactively apply to past sales, meaning historical consumption will continue to reference the old recipe set up as well. If a recipe change (ex: new component) needs to be applied to past sales, then the menu mix files for the impacted locations and dates must be undone and reprocessed. This will recalculate historical consumption using the corrected recipe set up.

• Recent periods are not posted. The Prep Reports will only look at posted days when calculating consumption. Dates outside of these periods will not be included. Post inventory up to the current period to ensure the Prep Report references the most current consumption data.

• Rounding settings are incorrect. Confirm the prep recipe’s Batch Rounding Based On and Prep Report Consumption Rounding settings are correct. These settings could cause consumption to round up or down to an unexpected quantity.

Here are some specific troubleshooting steps based on scenarios where the consumption quantity is too high, too low, or missing.

Consumption is too low or missing (zero)

Low or missing consumption is typically caused by incorrect sales forecasts or missing historical data. Use these troubleshooting steps to check for causes.

• Daypart forecasts do not line up with historical sales. Confirm the daypart forecasts align with when recipe sales typically occur. If there is a mis-match between past recipe sales and forecasted sales, the 15-minute level consumption data accurately compare to a forecast, and will calculate low to no consumption. To prevent this scenario, Sales Forecasting Based on can be set to ‘Menu Mix’. This breaks out the daypart forecast based on the time checks are opened.

• Past check-level sales are missing. Check the Menu Mix report for missing recipe sales on the same week day as the prep date. The number of periods referenced for consumption is based on the location’s Production Driven By setting.

  • Tip: If consumption is missing only during a specific time-frame, filter the Menu Mix report to look at past checks starting within that time.

• This is a new prep recipe. If this prep recipe is not a component in any POS recipes, then it will have no historical consumption. It may take multiple weeks for the new recipe to calculate consumption, depending on the number of periods in the location’s Production Driven By setting.

• This is a new location. If this location just opened, it may have little to no historical check-level sales. The Use Historical Consumption from setting can be configured to temporarily reference past consumption from another location.

High consumption can often be caused by unexpected sales. Use these troubleshooting steps to check for common causes.

• Past sales are higher than expected. Check for increased past sales, promotions, or incorrect transactions that could inflate historical consumption. If needed, specific dates can be removed from the consumption calculation using the Exclude Consumption calendar.

• Check-level sales are low value. If individual checks are rung in with a notably low value, the the consumption factor (“amount of recipe used per dollar sold”) to be inflated. This in turn causes the consumption to be higher than expected. Here are steps to troubleshoot further:

  • Confirm all checks are entered correctly into the POS system.

  • Compare the Menu Mix report to POS sales to confirm there are no discrepancies. Customer with Connex integrations should contact support if they find a check discrepancy between Net-Chef and their POS system.

  • Adjust the location’s Production Driven By setting to reference multiple periods.

Please feel free to contact Crunchtime support or consult with system administrators for personalized assistance. For targeted support, please provide an example with the following information:

• Location

• Prep recipe

• Prep date (current or future date)

Note: Historical consumption is recalculated once per day during an overnight job. Please allow for the overnight job to run prior to contacting support for additional assistance.