Dine-in vs To-Go Costing
The same menu item is often sold two ways - eaten in and taken away - and the two have genuinely different economics. A takeaway drink carries a disposable cup and lid that a dine-in drink served in ceramic does not. And in the UK, cold drinks, cakes, and cold food are zero-rated for VAT when taken away but standard-rated when eaten in: same menu price, different VAT, different margin.
CostingBrik captures both on a single recipe. You get a dine-in cost and margin and a to-go cost and margin side by side, without creating a duplicate recipe.
By default every recipe behaves exactly as before: one cost, one margin. The dine-in vs to-go split only appears once you tag takeaway packaging or declare a takeaway VAT treatment. You can ignore this entirely until you need it.
The two levers
A recipe expresses both versions through two controls:
- Consumable "Takeaway only" checkbox - tick the disposables a dine-in serve never uses.
- Takeaway VAT treatment - set per recipe to Same as dine-in or Zero-rated.
That's it. Ingredients always count toward both versions. The difference between dine-in and to-go is the packaging you tag and the VAT treatment you choose.
Tagging takeaway packaging
In the recipe builder, every consumable row has a Takeaway only checkbox:
- Unticked (default) - the consumable counts toward both the dine-in and the to-go cost. Leave it unticked for items used either way, such as a napkin or a cake case.
- Ticked - the consumable counts toward the to-go cost only. Tick it for disposables a dine-in serve never touches: the takeaway cup, lid, sip-through, or paper bag.
This gives you two costs from one recipe:
Dine-in cost = ingredients + Both consumables To-go cost = ingredients + Both + Takeaway only consumables
So a flat white served in ceramic costs the coffee and milk; the same flat white to go also costs the cup and lid.
Leave most consumable rows unticked. Only tick Takeaway only when a consumable is genuinely a disposable that dine-in service doesn't use. The builder stays calm: unticked rows show no badge.
Takeaway VAT treatment
Cold food and drink taken away is often zero-rated in the UK, which changes the margin even when the cost is identical. Set the treatment per recipe, or default it per category (see below):
- Same as dine-in (default) - the to-go margin is worked out against the same VAT-removed net price as the dine-in margin.
- Zero-rated - the to-go margin treats the full selling price as the net (no VAT is removed), so the to-go margin is higher than dine-in even at the same cost.
The takeaway VAT treatment sets the theoretical to-go margin you see in CostingBrik, and it is yours to control. It does not change what the till charges, and it does not decide how realised sales are reported - that comes from what your till actually recorded on each sale (see Realised split from your till below). Use it to model whether packaging and zero-rating are helping or hurting your takeaway margin.
Set a default per category
Usually a whole category shares the same takeaway VAT treatment: every cake is zero-rated to go, every hot drink stays standard-rated. Rather than set this on each recipe, set it once on the category.
On the Recipe Categories page, each category has a Takeaway VAT setting:
- No default - new recipes in this category start on the standard rate (same as dine-in).
- Same as dine-in - new recipes start with takeaway charged at the dine-in rate.
- Zero-rated - new recipes start zero-rated to go (the usual choice for cakes, cold food, and cold drinks).
When you pick a category while creating or editing a recipe, the takeaway VAT toggle is set from that category's default. Choosing a zero-rated category turns the toggle off; choosing any other category, including one left on No default, sets it to the standard rate. It is only a starting point - you can still override the treatment for that individual recipe after choosing the category.
Categories that stay standard-rated to go, such as hot drinks and hot food, don't need a setting. Leaving them on No default keeps the toggle on the dine-in rate, which is correct. Reach for Zero-rated on the cold and baked categories where it earns its keep.
Apply to existing recipes
A category default only pre-fills new or freshly edited recipes. To bring recipes you have already built into line, the Recipe Categories page has two tools.
Review and apply (per category)
Next to each category's Takeaway VAT setting, Review & apply opens a panel listing that category's menu items with their current takeaway VAT. Recipes that would change are ticked, you can:
- de-select any recipe that should keep its current treatment (a deliberate exception), and
- override an individual recipe to a specific value from its own dropdown.
When you apply, only the ticked recipes change. This is the safe way to standardise a category while protecting the odd recipe that breaks the rule.
Apply all category defaults
For a first pass across the whole menu (handy if you set your categories up after building recipes), Apply all category defaults pushes every category's default onto recipes still on the standard rate in one step. Recipes you have already changed are left untouched, so it never overwrites a deliberate choice.
Both tools only change the theoretical margin you see in CostingBrik. They never change what your till charges, and realised sales reporting still comes from what your till actually recorded on each sale.
Reading the two margins
Once a recipe diverges, both figures are shown together and collapse back to one when they match:
- Recipe builder, Cost Summary - shows Dine-in GP % and To-go GP % side by side, plus the takeaway VAT treatment selector. When to-go equals dine-in, you see a single GP figure.
- Recipe detail page - adds To-go Cost / Portion and To-go GP % cards when they differ from dine-in. The consumable tables flag each Takeaway only line with a badge and show a Dine-in / To-go subtotal so the totals reconcile with the headline figures.
Worked example - Iced Latte
Sold at £2.40 (VAT-inclusive, standard-rated dine-in). Coffee and milk cost £1.00. A napkin (£0.10, Both) and a takeaway cup and lid (£0.30, Takeaway only).
| Cost | Net price | GP% | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dine-in | £1.00 + £0.10 = £1.10 | £2.40 / 1.20 = £2.00 | (2.00 - 1.10) / 2.00 = 45% |
| To-go (zero-rated) | £1.00 + £0.10 + £0.30 = £1.40 | £2.40 (no VAT removed) | (2.40 - 1.40) / 2.40 = 41.7% |
The takeaway version costs 30p more in packaging, but because it is zero-rated it keeps a healthy margin. Had you left the treatment on Same as dine-in, the to-go margin would be (2.00 - 1.40) / 2.00 = 30% - the packaging cost with none of the VAT relief, which is exactly the kind of squeeze this view is designed to reveal.
Works for every recipe
Because this is theoretical costing, it works for any recipe, including hot drinks and items that are standard-rated both ways. Even with no packaging difference and no zero-rating, seeing the two figures confirms that a serve holds its margin to go - or shows you where a disposable cup is quietly eating into it.
Realised split from your till
Everything above is theoretical: what a dine-in or to-go serve should cost and earn. Brikly also uses your real sales to work out which cost each sale actually incurred, so your realised menu margins reflect the cup and lid on the lattes that really went out of the door.
Square dining options
If you use Square and ring sales through dining options (for example Eat in / Front Room / Upstairs versus To go / Takeaway), Square now records that choice on every order. Brikly reads it and:
- costs each item at its dine-in cost on eat-in orders and its to-go cost on takeaway orders when working out realised margins - including hot drinks, which VAT alone can never separate because they carry the same rate either way;
- shows a Dine-in vs takeaway breakdown in the MenuBrik item detail panel: units sold, ex-VAT sales and GP% for each, plus an Other / not recorded line for any units where the till did not record a dining option.
There is nothing to switch on. Brikly checks each site's recent orders nightly and uses the dining option once it is clearly in use (most orders carry it and takeaway is a real share of trade). Until then, or if you stop using dining options, it falls back to the VAT-based method below.
The split is only as good as what is tapped on the till. Setting the dining option per ticket (rather than the odd item) is what makes it reliable, and Brikly treats the whole ticket the way the till recorded it.
If you keep separate till items instead
Some businesses model dining as separate till items (a Latte In and a Latte T/A). Square records those orders as eat-in, so the dining option carries no signal and Brikly does not use it. Instead, link each till item to the recipe and tag the link as dine-in or takeaway; realised margins then follow the tag.
Where there is no dining signal
For items sold with no dining option and no tag, Brikly falls back to the VAT your till actually applied per line, where that separates the two (cold food and drinks that are zero-rated to go). Items that carry the same VAT either way, such as hot drinks, are costed at the dine-in cost. SumUp orders carry no dining signal today, so SumUp sales always use the fallback.
The Dine-in and Takeaway rows are ex-VAT and cover the item lines only, so they will not add up to the item's revenue figure once modifiers are included. Their GP% uses the recipe's current dine-in and to-go cost, so it can differ slightly from a saved weekly or monthly margin if the recipe cost changed during the period.
Related
- What Are Consumables? - how packaging and disposables are modelled
- Recipe Costing - how the underlying cost per portion is calculated
- GP% and Selling Prices - setting and protecting your margins