Track Cost Alerts

Overview:

Cost Alerts will alert you about changes in the cost of an inventory item(s) that exceeds your cost alert trigger percentage.  Cost alerts will show up on your dashboard as shown below, and there is a Cost Alerts Report.

Take advantage of Cost Alerts to potentially renegotiate with vendors, reprice menu items, or perhaps change ingredients. Below is an example of a Cost Alerts notification on the Dashboard:

The value column indicates the number of inventory items that have a cost alert. Clicking on the ">" (jump button) will take you to the Cost Alerts Report and the report will automatically run and display the item or items that have a cost alert, over the last 30 days.  

Things to know!

• To enable Cost Alerts, navigate to Company>Setup>Company Settings and define a "Default Cost Alert Trigger Percentage" and the "Cost Alert History Days" on the General Tab of Company Settings.    
• There is a Cost Alerts report that can run for a selected vendor or all vendors, and for an inventory department, category, or group.  
• Cost Alerts are based on "Trigger Percentages".  A Trigger Percentage is the percentage change amount that you have flagged for wanting to receive an Alert. 
• An example of a Trigger Percentage is 15%.  If an inventory item's price changes 15% or more, you want a cost alert to be generated.  If the cost was $1.00 and it goes up or down by 15 cents, you will receive an alert.
• The default (applies to all inventory items) Trigger Percentage will apply to all inventory items. COGS-Well sets the default at 3%, but it can be changed by inventory department, category, or item. 
• The Cost Alert History Days will look at new invoice prices for the number of days you define as history days and compare them to historical prices. What you define in Company Settings will be the default (applies to all inventory items), but you can override the default when you run the report.    
• You can enter a different number of history days when you run the Cost Alerts Report. 
• This report can be run for a specific vendor or all vendors. It can isolate items by the site if you have multiple sites. 
• Please note that cost alerts will be triggered for item cost increases or decreases that equal or exceed the trigger cost percent.  

Cost Alerts Report:

The Cost Alerts Report is accessed via Inventory>Reports>Cost Alert Report. This report can run for all vendors or a selected vendor. You can modify the days to look back in history at new prices from new invoices. It can summarize items by site, or report for all sites. Below is an example of a Cost Alerts Report:

The above report is showing all inventory items that exceed the trigger cost alert percentage (both increases and decreases). 

Report Information: Item Name, Pack Size, Last Receipt, and Prior Receipt information is displayed. Prior receipt data is only looking back for the number of history days that were selected on the report parameters. The difference is reported as a percentage change. 

For more information on the Cost Alerts report please click this link: Cost Alerts Report.