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MenuBrik overview

MenuBrik is not on sale yet: a small group of cafés are using it early. If you would like early access, email support@brik.ly.

MenuBrik reads what your till actually sold and sets it against the recipe costs in CostingBrik. It shows which menu items earn, which are priced thin or leaking margin, and what to change. Every figure is ex-VAT.

What it needs​

  • CostingBrik. MenuBrik takes its costs from your CostingBrik recipes, so it is added on top of CostingBrik.
  • A connected POS with live sales. Square or SumUp POS Pro, connected and syncing. A menu you imported by hand does not count: MenuBrik only reads live till sales.
  • Till items linked to recipes. A till item needs a recipe before MenuBrik can work out its margin. You link them in the Item Mapper, and paid extras in the Modifier Mapper. Items with no recipe still show their sales, under Needs cost data.

Setting MenuBrik up is for owners and admins. If you are a member or viewer and MenuBrik is not set up yet, ask an owner or admin to finish it (see Roles and permissions).

What it reads​

MenuBrik reads sales net of VAT. Tips, service charges and gift card sales are left out, and a refund comes off on the day it was given, so its takings match your till's net sales. For which Square orders count, including orders that close or are paid later, see Which Square orders count as sales.

Each item's VAT is the VAT your till recorded on that line, so a zero-rated item keeps zero VAT even in a basket with standard-rated items. Only for older Square orders with no VAT recorded on the order at all, not even on a service charge, is the order's VAT shared across its item lines in proportion to their prices, leaving out any VAT on the service charge itself. On SumUp POS Pro, a line with no VAT recorded takes its share of the basket's VAT the same way.

Item and modifier figures run from midnight to midnight in your site's own time (UK time for a UK site), so during British Summer Time a sale at half past midnight counts on the day it was made. The hourly charts use local time too. The Dashboard's daily takings, transactions and average order value still follow the till's daily totals, which are grouped by UTC day. During British Summer Time a sale between midnight and 1am can sit on the previous day there.

An item's takings and gross profit include its paid modifiers, counted once. When a line is discounted or comped, the discount is shared between the dish and its modifiers, so a comped extra takes nothing but still costs its ingredients.

An item's actual margin is the dish itself: what it took and what its recipe costs, with modifiers left out of both sides. The one exception is a refund: it comes off the item's takings, including any extras refunded with it, while the modifier figures keep their original sales, so a refund can also lower the dish's takings behind its actual margin. Modifiers are judged on their own, so a profitable extra never hides a dish that is priced thin. The menu price margin is what the dish would make at its menu price, before any discount.

The figures come from the previous day's till sync, which lands in the small hours, so every read stops at yesterday. Last POS sync at the top of the Dashboard and Menu performance pages is the last sales sync that ran, not the last menu sync.

What it does not do​

  • It never changes a price on your till. When it suggests a price, you change it on your POS yourself.
  • It does not build, design or print a menu.
  • It does not show individual transactions, receipts or anything about a customer.

Where to find it​

  • Dashboard - your morning briefing: yesterday's sales, transactions, average order value and peak hour against a typical day, plus the items worth a look next.
  • Menu performance - every item ranked, with its flags, and the item workspace for one item at a time. See MenuBrik pages.
  • Kitchen complexity - which dishes justify their prep effort.
  • Home - the items that need your attention from the weekly snapshot. See The weekly menu alert.
  • Flags - priced thin, price leak, modifier leak and review.
  • Margin targets and keeps - set the margin you aim for, and tell Brikly when you are keeping something on purpose.