📋 rest-kitchen

Daily Prep Sheet

Daily Prep Sheet is the kitchen's mise en place checklist for a chosen date — it estimates how many guests ("covers") you will serve from today's confirmed reservations plus a walk-in buffer, then multiplies each configured prep item's quantity by that cover count so the kitchen knows exactly how much of each ingredient to prep. Items are grouped by station (Hot Prep, Cold Section, Grill & Tandoor, etc.) as an interactive, printable checklist.

📍 Menu path: Kitchen Operations → Daily Prep Sheet

👤 Who uses it: All roles with the Billing feature enabled

Overview

Expected covers = (sum of party sizes from today's CONFIRMED/SEATED/PENDING reservations) × (1 + walk-in buffer %), with the walk-in buffer % also acting as a minimum cover count when there are no reservations at all for the date.

Prep quantities come from the Prep Items list (configured separately, one entry per ingredient/station with a "qty per cover" value) — each item's displayed quantity is qtyPerCover × total expected covers, rounded to a whole number.

Items are grouped into stations (Hot Prep, Cold Section, Grill & Tandoor, Bakery & Bread, Garnish & Salad, Bar Prep, General) with a colour-coded icon and a per-station done/total progress bar; stations can be collapsed individually or all at once.

Each item can be checked off, filtered (All / To-do / Done), and given a free-text note (e.g. a substitution or special instruction) that is included when printing.

The "Print" button opens an A4-style prep sheet grouped by station, showing the date, total expected covers, and a checkbox/strikethrough for anything already marked done on screen.

Changing the date or the walk-in buffer % recalculates the whole sheet — it re-reads that date's reservations and re-multiplies every prep item, so the sheet is date-specific rather than a single running list.

Before You Start

You must have the Billing feature enabled on your plan.
Add your kitchen's prep items (station, ingredient, qty-per-cover, unit, priority) in the Prep Items settings before this page will show anything — an empty prep-items list means the sheet has nothing to group or display, even if reservations exist.

Step-by-Step Guide

1 Generate today's prep sheet

Open Kitchen Operations → Daily Prep Sheet — it loads today's date by default.
Check the "Bookings today" strip and the Expected Covers number at the top; adjust the Walk-in buffer % if you expect more or fewer walk-ins than usual.
Review each station's item list and quantities, generated automatically from your Prep Items setup.

2 Work through the checklist during prep

Tap the checkbox next to an item as it is prepped; the station's mini progress bar and the overall progress bar update immediately.
Use "Check all" / "Uncheck all" on a station header to mark everything in that station at once.
Use the All / To-do / Done filter chips to focus on what is left, and collapse finished stations to reduce clutter.
Add a quick note to any item (e.g. "use frozen stock, fresh delivery delayed") by clicking "Add note" under the item name.

3 Plan for a future date

Change the Date field to a future date — the sheet recalculates using that date's confirmed reservations and the same walk-in buffer %.
Print the sheet for kitchen staff to work from physically, or leave it on screen for interactive checking.

Every Field & Button, Explained

Field / Button	What it does
`Date`	The service date this prep sheet is calculated for; defaults to today. Changing it reloads reservations and recalculates all quantities.
`Walk-in buffer %`	Percentage added on top of reserved covers to account for walk-ins; also used as a floor (minimum covers) on days with no reservations at all. Defaults to 20%.
`Expected Covers`	Reserved covers × (1 + buffer%), rounded — the number every prep item quantity is multiplied against.
`Station`	Grouping for prep items (Hot Prep, Cold Section, Grill & Tandoor, Bakery & Bread, Garnish & Salad, Bar Prep, General) — configured per item in Prep Items settings, not editable from this page.
`Qty / Unit`	Computed as qtyPerCover (from Prep Items) × Expected Covers, rounded to a whole number, shown with the item's configured unit.
`Priority badge`	HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW, set per prep item in Prep Items settings — purely informational, does not affect ordering or quantity.
`Note`	A free-text override you can type per item on this screen for today's viewing/printing; it is not saved back to the Prep Items master record.

Tips & Best Practices

Keep your Prep Items list station-accurate — a wrongly-stationed ingredient will show under the wrong header on both the screen and the printed sheet.
Increase the walk-in buffer % ahead of known busy days (weekends, festivals) rather than relying on reservations alone, since walk-ins are not tracked as reservations.
Print the sheet at the start of each shift rather than relying on everyone checking the same screen — the on-screen checked state is per-browser and does not sync between devices (see Troubleshooting).

Troubleshooting & FAQ

The prep sheet is empty even though I have reservations for the date.

The sheet groups by station using your Prep Items list — if no prep items have been configured yet (via the Prep Items settings), there is nothing to multiply covers against, so the station list is empty regardless of how many reservations exist.

I checked off items, but after refreshing the page or changing the date, everything is unchecked again.

The page calls a "save check state" endpoint (POST /restaurant/prep-sheet/check) when you tick an item, but this endpoint does not exist on the backend — the call silently fails and is ignored. Checked state only lives in your browser's memory for that session; reloading the page, switching dates, or opening the sheet on another device always starts from a blank checklist.

The covers number looks too low or too high.

Only reservations with status CONFIRMED, SEATED or PENDING count toward reserved covers — cancelled or no-show reservations are excluded. Also double check the walk-in buffer % is set appropriately for the day.