This lexicon is intended to be your Encyclopædia Britannica and to guide you throughout your integration with Piecemeal. You will find a term, its definition as well as tools to help you find your way around or to help you better understand the intricacies of the platform.
Each word in italics refers to one of the definitions in the list, which is presented to you in alphabetical order.
Term | Definition | Tools |
Attendance | To follow in real time the hours worked and the corresponding costs (Time Sheets).
Includes the Terminals, that is to say the tool to launch to follow the employees punches. | Tip and trick: Create a dedicated user who will only serve as the punch terminal and will not have any other permissions on the platform. |
Category | General term to designate a grouping of the same nature of inventory items and then subdivided by sub categories. | Ex.: - Food - Beverage - Operational - Packaging |
COGS | Cost of goods sold, expressed as % of sales. May be Ideal (Dashboard) or Actual (Usage Summary Report). | Actual COGS Formula = Beginning Inventory |
Count | The count is where the quantities and values of items and recipes in inventory will be compiled. | Distinction between opening and closing:
*In the COGS calculation. |
Dashboard | In an overview, the key figures relating to the performance of your establishment.
Also includes many shortcuts to the various modules and pages of the platform, including, in the foreground, the Manager Log Book with notes between managers, events and an overview of the schedule by role. | Tip and trick: You can change the date and time to vary your data for a specific period! |
Employee | Member of a team who will be able to view their schedule and communicate time off requests. | Employees can be assigned multiple roles. The labor cost is calculated based on the hourly rate of each employee and their shifts.
Caution: Do not confuse employee with user. |
Inventory and Inventory Items | This module manages all the edible or non-edible elements found in your establishment. These are the raw ingredients, as you receive them, before you process them or include them in your menu item cost calculations that you will want to track. | Caution: Do not confuse Inventory and Count. |
Location | Each location corresponds to a different establishment! | Caution: Do not confuse location and storage. |
Menu Items | Each of the menu items that is represented by one of your POS keys. | Tip and trick: Piecemeal can be quickly integrated with various POS systems! |
On hand | According to the principle of perpetual inventory, corresponds to the quantity available at the present moment. | Formula for quantity on hand = Quantity at the most recent count |
Prime Cost | The addition of COGS and labor cost. | The first indicator that is presented to you on the Dashboard and the one that Piecemeal emphasizes to give you visibility on your profitability. |
Recipe | This could be your grandmother's soup recipe, several inventory items assembled into a sub-recipe, or a single inventory item transformed to calculate its yield. | Ex.: - Shepherd's pie - Quiche filling Tip and trick: Locate the Recipes tab in a count to include your prepped items and recipe productions quantities and values! |
Role | The position held by an employee. | A same employee can occupy several roles, at different hourly rates. |
Sales Per Guest | Ratio of revenue to number of guests served. This is the average bill per guest. | Ratio formula = |
Storage | Physical location where you store an inventory item.
The same inventory item can be present in several storage. | Ex.: - Fridge - Bar - Stockroom Tip and trick: This is useful during your count because you can only see the inventory items configured in the chosen storage. |
Sub Category | More specific term than the category to group inventory items of the same nature, even closer. | Ex.: - Meat - Beer - Produce - Dairy |
User | Responsible person in your establishment, who needs to have access to your Piecemeal location in whole or in part. | Tip and trick: You must, when adding users, define the permissions of each person. This prevents your staff from seeing or modifying elements that do not concern them. |
Variance | Difference between Actual usage and Theoretical (or Ideal) usage.
Often represent the areas of improvement to be controlled.
Remember that a Negative variance is money slipping through your fingers! | The Ideal usage is based on the quantities of each of the items sold and the costs associated with them and can be obtained at any time.
The Actual usage is based on at least two counts. |
Additionally, if you have access to one of our multi-location solutions (HQ or Central Kitchen), you may need the following clarifications.
Term | Definition | Tools |
Menu Items Mix | It is here that the amalgam of menu items that involve a choice on the part of the customer is found. | Ex.: - Tartar starter with fries or salad - Breakfast plate with choice of meat |
Playground | Page designed so that you can test your next menu, see its food cost and determine its selling price. | Caution: Anything done in this section will not influence your current recipes or menu items. On the other hand, you can use it when the time comes to import the ingredients into the active records. |
Products | Items and their different formats that are made available for ordering at locations connected to a Central Kitchen. | Benefit from economies of scale by centralizing your group's purchasing and production and by facilitating requisitions and automating invoicing for each location. |
Are there terms that we have forgotten or that the definition is not sufficient?
Contact us via chat and we will be happy to clarify. 🤓
