What is a Cover?
Cover refers to a diner who eats or a meal that is served.
A cover:
differs from a table in that it represents only one of the meals served at that table.
differs from a dish in that it includes the extras that a diner orders, such as drinks, appetizers, and desserts.
What is Cover Size?
Some items on your menu might be designated to be eaten by a singular diner (i.e., a Burger, a Salad, etc.), while sometimes, your menu might be designated to be eaten by multiple diners (i.e., half a dozen of Sliders, a sample Platter of Appetizers, a tray of Wings, etc.).
For this reason, you can set an item to have a cover size that caters to how many diners it is expected to feed. This cover size can be anywhere from 0, upward.
Cover Size is especially relevant for restaurants that specialize in group-order dishes as well as catering.
You can set a Cover Size for an item from your Lunchbox Admin Dashboard on the item's Detail page.
Why should I set a Cover Size?
Specifying a Cover Size for an item can help with Sales Reporting and Analytics.
Looking at the current approach for calculating your Average Check value:
Average Check = ($ value of all Orders) / (# of all Orders)
Here is what Average Check looks like using Covers instead of # of Orders:
Average Check using Covers = ($ value of all Orders) / (Sum of all Cover Sizes for all Orders)
What does Average Check using Covers indicate?
This new check average can help you determine just how much money is being generated from each Cover. That can be useful for reporting purposes as you look to determine how much revenue is coming in for each meal that you sell per diner. This can be especially useful for catering orders.
Where can I see my Average Check using Covers?
You can find your Average Ticket using Covers on your Lunchbox Dashboard, by navigating to the menu Analytics > Sales. The Average Ticket using Covers will be listed next to your Total Sales chart. By default, without any Cover Sizes set, the Average Ticket using Covers will match your standard Average Ticket.
Fine Details
Menu Items start off with no number for Cover Size.
The Cover Size for an Order is equal to the sum of all the Cover Sizes of its items.
An order that has a total Cover Size of 0 or less than 1 will round up to 1 (since theoretically there would be at least 1 person eating the meal).
If Cover Size is set/changed for an item, and you’d like to refresh the Cover Sizes of all items that have been ordered retroactively, someone on the Lunchbox team can help refresh all retroactive orders.
Examples
Here are some examples of how Cover Size is calculated for an order:
Example 1
Item | Cover Size |
Share size of Fries | 1.5 |
Burger | 1 |
Soda | None |
Total Cover Size | 2.5 |
Total Price | $25 |
Ticket Avg per Cover | $10 |
Example 2
Item | Cover Size |
Onion Rings | 0.5 |
Soda | None |
Extra Sauce | None |
Total Cover Size | 1 (0.5 rounds up to 1) |
Total Price | $10 |
Ticket Avg per Cover | $10 |