Glossary
The words on your reports, defined.
Operations, purchasing, books and aggregator terms as OrderNest uses them. Indian context throughout.
- Food cost %
- Cost of ingredients consumed divided by food sales, for a period. OrderNest shows it live per outlet and per shift because every sale deducts stock at cost. Casual dining in India runs 28–35%; above 38% usually means a recipe, portion or supplier problem.
- Prime cost
- Food cost plus labour cost. The two lines the owner controls week to week. A prime cost above 65% of sales leaves little for rent, utilities and profit.
- Theoretical vs actual consumption
- Theoretical = what the recipes say you should have used for the dishes sold. Actual = what left the store room. The gap is waste, over-portioning, pilferage or a wrong recipe. The Stock Watch agent reads this report.
- COGS
- Cost of goods sold. In a restaurant, the ingredient cost of what was served, posted as a journal at day close against the stock account.
- Gross profit (GP)
- Sales minus food cost. Shown per dish, per shift and per outlet. Menu engineering sorts dishes by GP and volume.
- Recipe costing
- Pricing a dish from its ingredients at the rate you actually paid, so the cost moves when a supplier price moves. The agents only work on outlets with costed recipes; onboarding targets 90% of the menu.
- Sub-recipe
- A prepared item (gravy base, dough, masala) that is itself an ingredient in other dishes. Costed once, used many times.
- Weighted-average cost
- Stock valuation where each purchase updates the average rate. OrderNest deducts stock at this rate on every sale.
- Purchase price variance (PPV)
- The difference between the rate on the purchase order and the rate on the supplier invoice, posted to its own expense head so price creep is visible rather than buried in food cost.
- Purchase order (PO)
- A request sent to a supplier stating item, quantity and agreed rate. The Bill Reader matches the invoice to it.
- GRN
- Goods received note. The record of what actually arrived, which may differ from the PO. Stock is updated from the GRN, not the invoice.
- Indent
- An internal request from an outlet to a central kitchen or store for stock. Approved, fulfilled as a transfer, and costed between locations.
- Par level
- The minimum quantity of an item you want on hand. Falling below it triggers a reorder suggestion; the Ordering agent drafts the PO.
- Wastage
- Stock written off with a reason: spoilage, breakage, expired, training, over-portion. Costed, so you see what the bin is worth.
- KOT
- Kitchen order ticket. The slip, printed or on screen, that tells a station what to cook for which table or order. OrderNest routes KOTs by zone and category.
- KDS
- Kitchen display system. The screen that replaces printed KOTs and shows ticket age per station.
- NC
- No charge, or complimentary. A dish served without billing, recorded with a reason so it is costed and reported, not lost.
- Khata
- Customer credit. A running account a regular settles later. OrderNest tracks pending bills per customer and posts them to receivables.
- Captain
- The waiter-side ordering role. In OrderNest it is the same app as the POS, gated by role, rather than a separate licence.
- Day close
- The nightly step that settles the day: sales, taxes, payments, COGS and staff cost are posted as journal entries and the books must balance. OrderNest does it automatically at a fixed hour.
- Double-entry ledger
- Books where every transaction is a debit and a matching credit. A POS that keeps one can produce a trial balance and balance sheet; a POS that exports a report cannot.
- Journal entry
- One dated record in the ledger with its debit and credit lines, for example JRN-0442: Food cost Dr 89,364 / Stock Cr 89,364.
- Trial balance
- A list of every account with its closing debit or credit balance. If the two columns match, the books balance.
- AP / AR ageing
- How long you have owed suppliers (accounts payable) and how long customers have owed you (accounts receivable), bucketed by days outstanding.
- Aggregator commission
- The percentage Zomato, Swiggy or Magicpin keep on each order, typically 18–30% in India, plus GST on the commission. OrderNest posts it as a cost line per order so delivery profit is shown net.
- Payout reconciliation
- Matching the amount an aggregator paid you against the orders delivered, after commission, ads, cancellations, TDS and TCS. Gaps are disputed with the aggregator.
- TDS and TCS on aggregator sales
- Tax deducted at source (1% under section 194-O) and tax collected at source (GST) by the aggregator before payout. Both appear as deductions on the statement and must be claimed in your returns.
- HSN / SAC
- Harmonised codes that classify goods and services for GST. OrderNest stores them at item level so the GST summary and e-invoicing are correct.
- GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B
- The monthly GST returns: GSTR-1 lists outward supplies, GSTR-3B is the summary and payment. The GST summary report feeds both; GSTR-1 export is on the roadmap.
- Labour cost %
- Wages, overtime and statutory contributions divided by sales. Shown next to food cost because the two together decide the margin.
- Covers
- The number of guests served. Forecast per hour, it drives the roster and the purchase order.
Running a restaurant is hard enough