Menu and Recipes: How to Track Every Ingredient Automatically
Your inventory only stays accurate if Previo knows what goes into each thing you sell. A recipe is a simple list: for one flat white, 18g of coffee beans and 180ml of milk. Once your menu items have recipes, every Square sale takes the right amounts off your stock, and Previo can forecast what you will need to order. This guide walks through the whole setup on the Menu & Recipes page.
How it works
Get your menu into Previo
Tap Import and choose CSV or text, or upload a photo of a printed menu and let AI read the item names. You can also tap Generate Menu with AI, pick the style of cafe closest to yours, and review the items it creates. Nothing is added until you choose which items to keep.
Open an item and set its category
Tap any item card. Pick a category such as Coffee, Cold Drinks, Food or Pastries so your menu groups and filters the way you expect. You can also get a different photo for the item, or remove one that looks wrong.
Add the ingredients for one serve
Under Ingredients per 1 unit sold, choose an inventory item, type the quantity, and confirm the unit. Use the amount for a single serve, not a batch. Repeat for each ingredient, including milk, syrups and packaging like cups and lids.
Use AI to speed it up
Tap AI suggest ingredients and Previo looks at your inventory and proposes a full recipe with realistic quantities. Accept the ones that look right, or accept them all, then adjust anything that does not match how your team makes it.
Chase down items with no recipe
The Needs a recipe pill at the top shows how many items are missing a recipe. Tap it to filter the menu to just those items, then work down the list. When the count reaches zero, every sale you make can be tracked.
Let sales do the counting
When Square syncs a sale, Previo removes the recipe ingredients from your inventory automatically. Packaging is counted on every sale, because Previo does not know if an order was dine in or takeaway. Do a stock check now and then to keep numbers honest.
You set a flat white as 18g of coffee beans and 180ml of milk. You sell 40 of them today. Previo takes 720g of beans and 7.2 litres of milk off your inventory without anyone counting. If beans or milk run low, you see it before you run out.
A few minutes of setup per item pays back every day. Start with your best sellers, get those recipes right, and add the rest over time. Open Menu & Recipes in Previo and tap the help button any time you want a quick reminder.