Menu Migration — Importing an Existing Menu

A menu is not just names and prices

Importing item names and prices is easy and nearly useless on its own — it gives you a till that can take orders and tell you nothing about whether you make money. Migration goes further: it generates the recipes behind the dishes and links their ingredients to your kitchen stock, so food cost works from day one.

Common Tasks

How to Import a Menu from a Link (import menu from website, menu from URL, extract menu)

Pull a menu from a web page or an online listing.

Required permission: Menu management

1. Go to Data Management → Menu Migration in the left sidebar
2. Choose From link and use Extract Menu from Link
3. Paste the URL and wait while the menu is analysed
4. Review the extracted categories, items, prices and descriptions
5. Correct anything misread, then create the menu

Result: A menu is created with its categories and items, ready for recipes and costing.

Note: Check prices carefully. An extracted price that is out by a decimal place will sell at that price the moment the menu goes live.

How to Import Your Own Recipe Book (import recipes, house recipes, recipe book import)

Use your existing recipes as the source, so dishes are costed the way you actually make them.

Required permission: Menu management, recipe create

1. Go to Data Management → Menu Migration
2. Import your recipe documents
3. Review what was extracted against the originals — particularly yields and quantities
4. Confirm each recipe

Result: Your recipes are created as house recipes and can be linked to menu items.

Note: Yields are the thing to check hardest. A recipe that makes ten portions but is imported as one produces a cost per portion ten times too high.

How to Build the Recipes Behind an Imported Menu (recipe workshop, generate recipes for menu, cost the imported menu)

Turn an imported price list into a costed menu.

Required permission: Recipe create

1. In Menu Migration, move to the recipe workshop step
2. For each item, use an existing recipe where you have one, or generate one
3. Review the generated ingredients and quantities against how your kitchen works
4. Check each ingredient shows Linked to kitchen stock rather than Not linked to kitchen stock yet
5. Link anything outstanding

Result: Menu items have recipes, and those recipes draw costs from your kitchen stock.

Note: An ingredient reading Not linked to kitchen stock yet contributes nothing to the cost. The dish will still show a food cost — a flatteringly low one.

How to Finalise Costing (cost finalization, finish menu import, complete migration)

The last step, where the menu becomes usable for decisions rather than just orders.

1. Complete the recipe workshop for every item
2. Run cost finalisation
3. Review the resulting food cost percentages
4. Open Food Cost Analysis and check for Part-costed items

Result: The menu is live with costs attached, and you can see margin per dish immediately.

Note: If you see Cost finalization failed, an item is usually missing a recipe or an ingredient link. The workshop step will show which.

How to Import Item Photos (menu photos, import images, dish pictures)

Bring photos across so the consumer app does not render blanks.

1. During migration, import the photos alongside the items
2. Afterwards, open the menu manager and use Filter → No photo to find what is missing

Result: Menu items carry photos where they are available, and you can see exactly which still need one.

After migration

• Set tax on every item — Filter → No tax set finds them, and the bulk action fixes them in one pass
• Confirm ingredient costs in Kitchen Stock as real purchases come in
• Review Food Cost Analysis for anything Part-costed