How and why to plan from Menus
The Menus module in tspoonlab is not just a solution for calculating your menus' costs; by connecting it directly to the planning calendar, it becomes a powerful engine for planning the productions, tasks and orders of your workshop or central kitchen.
Instead of adding work orders manually, recipe by recipe and day by day, the system lets you dump a full menu (such as a catering, banquet or buffet) into a perfectly structured production calendar in a single click, giving you a list of dishes, recipes, tasks and supplier orders for your event.
Step by step: generate weekly planning
Once you've defined your menu structure and know the real number of confirmed guests, follow this procedure to dump the work into the calendar:
Go to "Offer" and click the "Menus" section. In the search bar on the left, locate and select the menu or base template you want to send to planning.
Click the three-dot dropdown menu at the top-right corner of the menu record and select "Generate planning".
A pop-up window opens where you complete the day's parameters:
Menu name: generated by default.
Event code: generated by default.
Date: choose the event day on the calendar.
Number of guests: enter the event's Pax.
Then go to "Management", "Planning", find the event date on the calendar and click "Done".
The system breaks down, for the event day, the list of all dishes. Right next to the "Dishes" section you'll find:
Yellow arrow: click this button to break down the recipes and the products and/or materials needed to produce all the dishes.
Three-dot menu: you can edit, generate productions, move to another day, merge duplicate quantities, check existing stock, and export and print dishes.
Red arrow: breaks down the dishes to see name and quantity. You can open each dish's dropdown menu to:
change the dish quantity.
move the dish to another day.
group it with identical dishes from other events.
When you break down all the recipes, right next to the "Recipes" section you'll find:
Yellow arrow: click this button to break down the products and/or materials needed to produce all the recipes.
Three-dot menu: you can edit, generate productions, move to another day, merge duplicate quantities, check existing stock, and export and print recipes.
Red arrow: breaks down the recipes to see name and quantity. You can open each recipe's dropdown menu to:
change the dish quantity.
move the dish to another day.
group it with identical dishes from other events.
When you break down all the dishes and recipes, right next to the "Products" section you'll find:
Yellow arrow: click this button to generate a pending-to-send order with the products and/or materials needed to produce all the recipes and dishes for your event.
Three-dot menu: you can edit, generate orders, move to another day, merge duplicate quantities, delete products, check existing stock, and export and export orders.
Red arrow: breaks down the supplier list with the products and/or materials needed for the event. When you select the red arrow next to each supplier, you'll see the products and/or materials and their quantities.
Plan on your calendar the days to produce and generate orders ahead of the event day with the "Move to another day" option.
Once you've reviewed the calendar, you can print the full list of dishes, recipes and products and/or tasks from the three-dot dropdown menu next to the chosen date on the calendar.
💡 Tip: You can move your preparations in the calendar to produce them in the days leading up to the event, or you can define this directly in each preparation's record. When you specify the number of days in the "PREPARE IN ADVANCE" option, the production date is automatically scheduled the corresponding number of days before the event during planning.
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