What Is a Batch?
A batch is something you produce in your kitchen that can later be used as an ingredient in other recipes. Think of sauces, soups, or prepped items like cooked rice. These are made in bulk and used across dishes.
Example:
You make a batch of Buffalo Sauce. You might use it in tacos, salads, or burgers. This is now tracked as a “batch” in Nory.
Why Batch Reconciliation Matters
In a busy kitchen, it’s easy to lose track of what’s been prepped, what’s been used, and what’s gone to waste. But all of this affects your margins - especially when it comes to batches, like sauces, broths, rice, and marinades.
Batch items often slip through the cracks:
You prep them in bulk.
You use them across multiple dishes.
You don’t always track exactly how much was made or used.
Without clear tracking, it becomes nearly impossible to:
Know your real food cost
Spot waste or misuse
Maintain consistent portions
Trust your inventory levels
That’s where batch reconciliation in Nory comes in.
We help you automatically detect when a batch was made, how it was used, and where it went wrong, so you don’t have to track it all manually.
You can find all this in Reconciliation Report Deep Dive.
Here are a few columns you’ll see in Nory when looking at batches or ingredients:
Term | What it Means |
Produced | The quantity of an item that was made as a batch. |
Used in Batches | How much of that item was used inside another batch. |
Used in Recipes | How much was used in final dishes served to customers. |
Variance | The gap between what was expected to be used and what was actually used. |
Important:
If it’s not a batch (just a standard ingredient), you won’t see a “Produced” value.
“Used in Batches” only applies to items that are ingredients in other batches.
How Nory Calculates Variance
If the Used Quantity matches the Sales Quantity, then everything adds up- no variance to investigate.
Variance tells you if there’s something off in your usage or recording- like missing waste, incorrect counts, or recipe mistakes.
Here’s the formula:
Variance = (Sold Quantity) - (Opening Stock + Deliveries + Transfers in + Batches Created - Closing Stock - Transfers out - Waste - Used in Other Batches)
Nory auto-detects production based on movement data. If it sees more stock than expected, it assumes a batch was produced- even if you didn’t manually log it.
What Causes Variance?
There are a few common causes for variances:
Cause | What to Check |
No Waste Logged | Did someone forget to record what was thrown away? |
Incorrect Transfer | Was something moved between locations and not tracked? |
Recipe Inaccuracy | Is the recipe using the right quantity of this batch/ingredient? |
Wrong Stock Count | Was the opening or closing stock entered incorrectly? |
Example Walkthrough: Buffalo Sauce 🌭
This is what the Reconciliation Report is showing:
If we click on the Deep Dive we see this:
Let’s break this down simply:
You started (Opening) with 1 unit of the batch in stock.
You ended (Closing) with 1 unit in stock.
But here’s what happened in between:
You used 2.74 units directly in recipes (that went to customers, 0.26 units inside other batches.)
You had 0 deliveries, 0 transfers, and 0 waste recorded.
But you only sold 0.47. This leads to a -2.28 variance.
Starting from this variance, Nory calculates you produced 3 units of this batch (this doesn't happen if you created batches manually).
Example Walkthrough: Salsa Sauce 🌶️
This is what the Reconciliation Report is showing:
If we click on the Deep Dive we see this:
Let’s walk through this step-by-step:
You started with 1 unit (6,365g) of Salsa Sauce in stock.
You ended with 1 unit (6,365g) in stock.
You didn’t log any deliveries, transfers, or waste.
1.51 units used (of which 0.49 units used in other batches)
But only 0.20 units were sold
Even though your starting and ending stock look fine, there’s a gap between what was used and what was sold. Specifically:
Nory saw that you used more Salsa Sauce than what the sales can explain - and that’s why you’ve got a negative variance of 1.31 units (or 8,350g).
In between, Nory detected that you produced 2 batches (totaling about 12,730g).
What You Can Do
Does the Quantity Produced align with your expectations? If not, then something is driving your variance up!
Double-check the recipe and how much batch it uses per dish.
Review waste logs or speak with the team to see if anything was lost or prepped but not served.
Reconfirm stock counts during inventory.
Here are some likely reasons:
Potential Cause | What to Look For |
Unrecorded Waste | Was any sauce spilled, prepped but not used, or binned and not logged? |
Over-portioning | Was more used in dishes than the recipe says? |
Recipe Error | Is the recipe using too much per dish in Nory? |
Missed Sales or Batch Use | Was some of it used but not tracked properly in the system? |
Stock Count Error | Was the opening or closing count done incorrectly |