CostGizmo

CostGizmo is a comprehensive and intuitive software solution based on Microsoft Excel, whose main purpose is to help you manage the financial aspects of running a kitchen, be it a restaurant or your own home.

The application features a fairly simple, tabbed interface and though it relies on Excel to function, there will be little to no tables to deal with.

The various tabs of CostGizmo help you organize your ‘Ingredients’, ‘Recipes’, ‘Measures’ and ‘Menus’, helping you keep track of everything that comes in or goes out of your kitchen.

The program enables you to add new cooking ingredients to your database or edit the name of existing ones, also having the ability to remove obsolete entries. You can convert various quantities between different measurement units, depending on your particular needs.

Each ingredient can have a profile where you can determine its cost depending on the used quantity (drops, tablespoons, cups, gallons, liters, ounces, kilograms or pounds), enabling CostGizmo to automatically calculate the price of a recipe once all the components have been established.

Aside from the existing recipes, you also have the possibility of adding your own simply by entering the ingredients, their corresponding quantity and measure, the total price being estimated on the spot.

Moreover, CostGizmo allows you to create or alter measures, as well as define your own ratios, to suit your cooking needs. The utility lets you add and manage menus for different times of day or for a specific group of people (‘Kids’, ‘Students’, etc), similarly being able to establish multiple food categories.

To conclude, CostGizmo is a useful and effective application aimed to assist you in estimating the real costs of cooking various foods, depending on the ingredients that you use and the corresponding quantities.