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Creating your first Blueprint

Define what each product is made of — recipe, bundle, or kit — so Stash auto-deducts components from inventory on every sale.

Written by Jake
Updated today

Creating your first Blueprint

A Blueprint is a bill of materials — it tells Stash which items to deduct from your inventory whenever you sell a finished product. Use Blueprints for anything made from one or more components: a menu item with ingredients, a retail bundle, a gift box, a kit, or a pre-packed combo. Every time the finished product sells through your POS, Stash deducts the components automatically.

Two examples:

  • Café: a Blueprint for a Cappuccino deducts 18g of coffee beans and 150ml of milk from inventory on each sale.

  • Retail: a Blueprint for a Holiday Gift Box deducts 1 candle, 1 notebook, and 1 greeting card from inventory on each sale.

Who can do this

Only Admins can create or edit Blueprints. Members can view them.

Before you start

Step-by-step

  1. From the sidebar, open Blueprints.

  2. Click Create Blueprint in the top right.

  3. Enter a Name. Use the same name as your POS product where possible — it makes linking easier later. Examples: Cappuccino, Holiday Gift Box, Starter Kit.

  4. Select the Location this Blueprint applies to. Each Blueprint is tied to one shop, because components live at specific locations.

  5. Set Makes — this is your yield. For most products it's 1 Serving, 1 Box, or 1 Each. For batch production (a 2-litre soup pot, a tray of 12 muffins, a 24-pack assembly), set the actual batch size — e.g., 12 Muffins or 24 Each. Stash uses this to calculate per-unit deduction when one finished product is sold.

  6. Click Add Component for each item the product is made from.

  7. For each component, pick the inventory item, then enter how much of it the product uses (e.g., 18 Gram of coffee beans, or 1 Each of candle). The unit picker only shows units that are compatible with how you store the item.

  8. Watch the deduction preview under each row. It shows exactly how much of the inventory item will be deducted per sale. If you see a warning here, fix it before saving (see Troubleshooting below).

  9. Optionally add a Description with notes for your team.

  10. Click Create Blueprint.

That's it. The Blueprint is now active. The next step is to link it to a POS product so sales actually trigger deductions — see Linking a Blueprint to a POS product.

Good to know

What "Makes" actually does

If your Blueprint Makes 1, every POS sale deducts the full component amounts. If it Makes 12 Muffins and one muffin is sold, Stash deducts 1/12 of each component. If your gift box Blueprint Makes 1 Box and one box is sold, components deduct fully. This is how batch and single-unit products both work without you doing math.

Why pack size and "Each [container] contains" matter

Stash needs to know how much usable product is inside a container to convert component units to inventory units. Examples:

  • A 1kg bag of coffee beans stored in Bag: set Each Bag contains to 1000 Gram. Now an 18g component will correctly deduct 0.018 of a bag.

  • A case of 24 candles stored in Case: set the pack size to 24. A component using 1 Each will deduct 1/24 of a case.

If this isn't filled in for a packaging item, the deduction preview will warn you and the component won't deduct correctly. See How "Each container contains" works.

Decimal separator

Stash uses a period (.) for decimals everywhere — so 0.5, not 0,5. This avoids confusion across regions.

Troubleshooting

"Cannot convert [unit] → [unit]"

The component unit and the item unit aren't compatible. Either change the component unit to one in the same family (e.g., both weight, both volume, or both count), or fix the inventory item's unit setup. See Understanding units of measurement.

"Set content info on [item] to enable automatic deduction"

The inventory item is stored in a packaging unit (Bag, Bottle, Box, Can, Case, etc.) but doesn't have Each [container] contains filled in. Open the item, scroll to Inventory setup, and add the content quantity and unit (e.g., 250 Gram or 24 Piece).

The deduction amount looks wrong

Check the Makes field. A Blueprint that Makes 12 divides every component by 12 per sale. If you meant the Blueprint to deduct full amounts, set Makes to 1.

Sales are happening but stock isn't moving

Three things to check, in order:

  1. The Blueprint is linked to the correct POS product (open Products to verify).

  2. Your POS connection is active and your locations are mapped.

  3. The Blueprint and the POS product are on the same shop.

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