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CostCook
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Start by costing one dish.

Have one supplier invoice or price sheet and one recipe ready. Upload a photo or file and check what CostCook reads, or enter the details by hand. Allow about fifteen minutes for a first dish; checking missing details can take longer. Five stages take that dish to its food cost and your first order.

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Founding offer open now: 15 days free, then $49/month per kitchen, locked in for life. Limited to the first 20 kitchens. Regular price $99/month per kitchen; unlimited crew. Prices plus tax. Card required; $0 today. Cancel before day 16 in Settings → Billing, no call required. What to prepare · Plan and team limits

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3 parts · 5 stages · 1 dish
  1. 1Before you startDone when one invoice and one recipe are within reach.
  2. 2The five stagesDone when one dish has a plate cost you can check on paper.
  3. 3After setupDone when the next dish and the first teammate are in.
Jump to the part you need. Each one ends on a next step.

Part 1 of 3 · Before you start

Have one invoice and one recipe within reach.

You have done this before. The last tool wanted your whole catalog typed in before it would do anything, and the half-filled spreadsheet is still on the desktop.

CostCook wants what is already written down: one invoice, one recipe. Review the amounts and prices it reads, then fill in any missing details.

Have ready

2 papers · 1 phone
  1. 1One invoice from the supplier you buy the most from.A photo of the paper is fine. So is the PDF they emailed you. A price sheet works the same way.
  2. 2The recipe for one dish you know well.The card, a photo of the card, a PDF, a link to it, or the text. It does not need to be tidy.
  3. 3Your phone, or a computer.Setup works on either. The photo can come straight off the phone.
That is all you need in hand. Not the catalog, not the walk-in.
The welcome screen, marked Step 3 of 3 and headed “Welcome to Harbor & Hearth Catering.” It says you cost one dish you already cook, then one event that serves it: what to buy, what to prep, what to pack, and what the food really costs, and that each stage saves when you continue. It lists the five stages, then “Three questions so the rest fits your kitchen. All three are optional.” What kind of kitchen do you run: Catering picked, Meal prep, Restaurant with events, Something else. One dish you know well: Roast chicken plate. What do you most want to know: What an event really costs picked, What to buy for a date, Whether a price change hurt me, Not sure yet. Two buttons: “Start setup” and “Skip these questions”.
The first screen after sign-up asks three optional questions, one of them a dish you know well.

During sign-up, you name your kitchen and enter the card for your trial. Name the dish at the welcome, and every screen after says its name back to you.

The welcome questions take a minute. The five stages are the work.

Part 2 of 3 · The five stages

Five stages for one dish. At two of them, you can upload a photo or a file.

Each stage asks for the next thing that one dish needs, and nothing else.

  1. Kitchen and suppliers

    Name the supplier you buy the most from, pick pounds or kilos, check the food-cost target, and tap “Save and continue”; the invoice at stage two adds the rest of the supplier’s details.

    Last tick: Add one supplier.

    Stage one of setup for Harbor & Hearth Catering, headed “Identify your kitchen”: your name for purchase orders, the units your invoices use, one supplier, and a food-cost target. “Why this stage” says prices belong to a supplier and every plate cost is judged against one target. Three items under “On this screen”, all ticked: Name the kitchen, Choose units and check the food-cost target, Add one supplier. On a computer the header reads “Set up your kitchen, Harbor & Hearth Catering, stage 1 of 5, your saves are kept” beside Ask Sage, Support and Exit setup; the five stages run down the left from Kitchen and suppliers, ticked, to Menu and first order; and Sage is open on the right with questions for the next stage. On a phone a bar reads “Step 1 of 5, Kitchen and suppliers”.
    Stage one. The five stages tick off as you go, down the left on a computer and along the top on a phone. Open full-size (new tab)

  2. Ingredients

    Tap “Import an invoice or price sheet”, then “Take photo” or “Choose files”, and confirm the supplier, packs and prices on “Review extracted records”; anything CostCook could not read, you type.

    Last tick: Confirm the ingredients, pack sizes and prices.

    The Ingredients stage, headed “Add the ingredients for Roast chicken plate. Start with Roast chicken plate: add what you have prices for now.” Under “On this screen”: Add at least one ingredient for the dish, Review the food facts CostCook found. Then three cards. “Import an invoice or price sheet: Upload or photograph one. Supplier, packs, and prices come back for you to confirm; anything it cannot read, you type.” “Import an ingredient list: A spreadsheet or a typed list. Sage, CostCook’s assistant, reads it into one list for you to check.” “Add ingredients manually: Best when you know one dish and its pack prices by heart.”
    Stage two on an empty kitchen. The first card is the invoice; the form is the third. Open full-size (new tab)
    The import screen behind that first card. A bar reads “Adding ingredients for setup. Review the document here, then return to build your first recipe” with a “Back to Ingredients” button. Under “Import and review”, a card headed “Add documents” asks “What are you bringing in?” with Recipe, Price sheet, Ingredient list and Invoice, and Invoice picked: “What you paid for a delivery. It updates your costs.” A dashed box holds a “Take photo” button and a “Choose files” button, and under it: “Use the invoice PDF or a photo of it. Every detected record stays in review until you approve it.”
    Behind the first card. On a phone, “Take photo” opens the camera. Open full-size (new tab)

  3. Food facts

    Sage drafts what it can tell from each ingredient’s name and leaves the rest to you; answer it, or tap “Skip for now” and any order using that ingredient reads “check”, never “clear”.

    Last tick: Review each ingredient or leave it marked for checking.

    One ingredient on the Food facts stage: Chicken thigh, badged “Draft: review needed”. Under it: “Sage drafted Animal product: Yes, Meat, poultry or fish: Yes, Pork: No, Shellfish: No, Alcohol: No. Nothing is recorded until you take it or answer yourself”, and a button, “Use Sage’s answers for Chicken thigh”. A Nutrition box reads “Sage nutrition estimate: review needed. Estimated from ingredient name, per 100 g edible portion”, with “Change nutrition match” and a Preparation form set to Raw. Under Allergens, nine chips from Crustacean shellfish to Wheat, none answered, and a “Free from the rest” button. Under Diet facts, the same five questions, still open until you take Sage’s answers. Two buttons close it: “Save Chicken thigh” and “Skip for now”.
    One ingredient’s card. Sage drafted the diet facts from the name, and the allergens wait for you: a name can tell Sage that butter has milk, not that chicken has none. Open full-size (new tab)

  4. Recipes

    Tap “Build with Sage”, then “Take photo” or “Choose files” for the recipe card, and check Sage’s draft: the ingredients and amounts first, then the food cost per portion.

    Last tick: Check the plate cost.

    The Recipes stage, headed “Build your first dish. A recipe turns current pack prices and yields into a real cost per portion.” Under “On this screen”: Name the dish, Add its ingredients and amounts, Check the plate cost. Two cards. “Build with Sage: Add a recipe card, photo, PDF, pasted text, or link. Sage drafts dishes, sub-recipes, ingredients, yields, and links for you to review.” “Build the dish by hand: Best when you know the ingredients and amounts for one dish.”
    Stage four opens on the same shape as stage two. Sage first, the form second. Open full-size (new tab)

  5. Menu and first order

    Fill in “Guests” and the “Event date”, say whether anyone has an allergy, and tap “Create first order”; the menu is already named after your dish.

    Last tick: Add guests and a date, then cost the order.

    The order card on stage five, headed “Order details: Set the event information and choose what will be served. This is event 1.” Under Event information: a “Client or event” field, an “Event date” field reading “Choose a date”, and “Guests” filled in with 80. Under Menu: “One portion per guest. Rename it here, or on the menu later.” The Menu name reads “Roast chicken plate menu”, and under “Dish on the menu” a ticked row reads “Roast chicken plate, $1.62 per portion”. On a computer a Live quote card sits beside it: Revenue not set, Food cost $129.39, Food cost per guest $1.62, Selling price not set, Charge at least $5.40 per guest, Estimated whole packs to buy $128.00.
    Stage five. Your dish’s cost is already there: $1.62 a guest, the $1.59 portion plus your 2% miscellaneous cost. Open full-size (new tab)

Nothing that comes in through an upload is written to your kitchen until you confirm it, and what CostCook could not read is quoted back to you rather than guessed at.

On a computer, Sage stays open beside whichever stage you are on; on a phone it opens over it. Its questions are the ones that stage raises, and it answers from the records you have entered so far. It reads them; it never fills a stage in for you.

Stage four ends on a number.

The number

How a 10 lb case at $32 becomes a $1.62 plate.

A $32 case of thighs, 80% usable after trim, 6.3 oz (180 g) on the plate, plus 2% misc: $1.62. Check it on paper. We would rather you did.

Plate cost, step by step

How a $32.00 ten-pound case of chicken thigh becomes a $1.62 plate cost.
StepResultReading
$32.00 ÷ 4,535.92 g$0.0070548 / gas purchased
÷ 0.80 trim yield$0.0088185 / gusable
× 6.3 oz (180 g) on the plate$1.59ingredient lines
+ 2% misc (the default)$0.03its own line
Plate cost$1.62per portion
Misc is a business-wide percentage, 2% until you change it, and it stays on its own line.

What it refuses to do

Four mistakes, and what setup does with each.

  • Leave a pack price blank and the ingredient does not go on. The screen says what it needs and puts your cursor in the field.
  • Ask for 2 cups of something sold by weight and it stops, and it names the fix: pick a weight unit, or give the ingredient a density.
  • Press “Start over” by mistake and your ingredients, recipes, menus and orders stay. Only the guide’s progress resets.
  • Lose the wifi mid-save and nothing is written. What you typed is still on screen, and the same button retries.

Back to stage five, and the screen it ends on.

Part 3 of 3 · After setup

Stage five ends on “Your kitchen is ready.” Tap “Open shopping list”.

That is tonight’s next step, and where the product tour picks up. Open stage five again later and “See what setup built” brings this summary back.

The setup summary, headed “Your kitchen is ready”. It reads “You said you most wanted to know what an event really costs. For the order for Roast chicken plate, the food comes to $129.39.” A box: Order for Roast chicken plate, 80 guests, Food cost $129.39. Five ticks: 1 supplier, 1 ingredient, Dish: Roast chicken plate, Menu: Roast chicken plate menu, Order for 80 guests. Then “Next: your shopping list. What to buy for this order, sorted by supplier, in whole packs. The order stays a draft, with prices updating, until you confirm it on the order page.” Two buttons: “Open shopping list” and “Go to Today”.
Where “Create first order” lands. If you named a goal at the welcome, the first line answers it in your words.

The first dish was the hard one. The rest come in the same way: upload, then confirm.

The rest of your menu

The next invoice and the next dish go into the same box.

  1. The next invoice

    Open Purchases, tap “Import invoice” (under “More” on a phone) and confirm the lines; the purchase is logged and your ingredient costs and draft orders update, without rewriting confirmed orders.

    The top of the Purchases page: “Purchases, October 2026, 0 purchases. Receipts, food cost and price changes, month by month.” To the right, three buttons: “Log purchase”, “Import invoice” and “More”. On a phone, the same page shows the Food cost card for October 2026, $0.00 spent so far, and a bar at the foot of the screen with “Log purchase” and “More”.
    The top of Purchases. “Import invoice” sits beside “Log purchase”; on a phone it is under “More”, in the bar at the foot of the screen. Open full-size (new tab)

  2. The next dish

    A recipe card goes into the same box as a photo, a PDF, a spreadsheet, a Word document or pasted text, and comes back as a draft for you to confirm, with anything it could not read quoted back as it appeared.

    The “Add documents” card on the import screen outside setup: “Photos, files and pasted text all go into one list.” What are you bringing in: Recipe picked, then Price sheet, Ingredient list and Invoice. “A dish or batch with its ingredients and amounts.” A dashed box, “Drop files here. PDF, photo, CSV, Excel, or DOCX”, holds “Take photo”, “Choose files”, “Paste text instead” and “Paste a link”. Under it, a spreadsheet can be added the same way, with links to map recipe or supplier columns by hand. On a phone the page heading “Import and review” sits above the card and an empty “Read and review” panel below it.
    The same box, outside setup, with Recipe picked. One list for invoices, price sheets, ingredient lists and recipe cards. Open full-size (new tab)

Once your first order is ready, invite the crew to work from its lists.

The rest of your crew

The crew joins from a link, and works from the list you built.

  1. Invite a teammate

    Open Settings, then Team & access, add their email under “Invite people”, pick Staff or Manager, and tap “Send 1 invitation”; they get a one-time sign-in link by email, with no password to remember.

    The “Invite people” card on Settings, Team & access. “They get a one-time sign-in link by email. No password to remember.” The Email addresses box holds maria@harborhearth.example, with room to add another or paste a list of up to 20. Under “They join as”, Staff is picked: “Works from orders, prep lists, deliveries and recipes. Can’t change prices, settings or billing.” Beside it, Manager, marked New: “Everything Staff can do, plus costs, vendors and purchase orders. No billing.” Then “Links work for 7 days. You can change someone’s role later.” and a “Send 1 invitation” button.
    Settings, then Team & access. Type their email and pick a role before you send. Open full-size (new tab)

A teammate joins as Staff or Manager, and you can change the role later. Staff never see costs, billing stays with you, and what each role can open is on the Team and Access guide.

Where this leaves you

Check one dish’s cost. Then add your next recipe and invite the crew.

The alternative is another season where the number in your head and the number on the invoice disagree, and the crew works from a text message.

One dish, and you will know. Then they will too.

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