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Getting Started with CostingBrik

The first time you open CostingBrik, the goal is simple: cost one real recipe so you can see your true margin on screen. That moment, when a gross profit percentage appears next to a dish you actually sell, is when CostingBrik starts earning its keep. This guide walks you through it, and shows you the optional sample cafe you can explore first.

Cost your first recipe​

On your dashboard and recipes page you'll see a Cost your first recipe card. It's a short, three-step checklist that ticks itself off as you go, and it disappears once you've costed your first recipe.

Step 1: Add milk and beans​

Add the couple of ingredients your recipe needs. You have two ways to do this:

  • Quick add - type the ingredient name and what you pay for it. This is the fastest route to a first margin.
  • Use an invoice - upload a recent supplier invoice and create the one or two ingredients you need from its line items. Brikly extracts the supplier and prices for you, and the rest of the invoice waits in your Invoices section for whenever you come back to it. There's no need to process the whole document in one sitting.
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Uploading a real invoice is the richer option - it captures accurate prices and starts building your supplier history - but a quick manual add gets you to a margin fastest. Either is fine for your first recipe.

Step 2: Build your Latte​

Open the recipe builder, add the ingredients from step 1, and set your selling price. A Latte is the worked example, but you can cost whatever simple item you like.

If you've connected your point of sale, this is also where you can link the recipe to its real till button, so your sales and realised margin line up later.

Step 3: See your margin​

Save the recipe and your cost per portion and gross profit percentage appear straight away. That's it - you've costed your first recipe, and the guide steps aside.

Show me a sample cafe​

Not ready to add your own data yet? Choose Show me a sample cafe from the guided card (or during onboarding). Brikly loads a small, fully costed example - a few coffees and a pastry, their ingredients, and a supplier - so you can see what a populated, margin-aware account looks like before you build your own.

Everything seeded this way is clearly marked with a Sample label on recipes, ingredients and consumables, so you always know what's real and what's demonstration data.

Exploring the sample​

Open the sample recipes to see how costs roll up from ingredients, how the gross profit percentage is calculated, and how the dashboard summarises your menu. It's a safe space to click around - nothing here affects real reporting.

Clearing the sample​

When you're ready to make the account your own, clear the sample in either of two ways:

  • When you create your first real recipe, Brikly offers to clear the sample cafe for you.
  • You can clear it any time from the Clear sample data option on your recipes page.
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Clearing is safe by design. Sample data never mixes into your real reports, exports, or the figures the Brikly AI assistant reads. And if you've already used one of the sample ingredients or its supplier in a recipe of your own, Brikly keeps that item (it simply stops being labelled as sample) so your own recipe is never left incomplete.

Where to go next​