What is a Blueprint?

A Blueprint in Stash is a recipe for something you sell. It tells Stash which inventory items to deduct whenever a finished product sells through your POS. Some teams call them recipes, BoMs, kits, or bundle definitions — they all do the same thing.

Every time you sell the linked POS product, Stash deducts the right amount of each component automatically. No spreadsheets, no manual stock counts, no end-of-month surprises.

Two types: Blueprint vs Modifier Blueprint

Stash has two types of recipes, each for a different kind of POS product:

Blueprint	Modifier Blueprint
For products customers order on their own — a drink, a dish, a gift box, a kit, a bundle	For modifiers customers add on — oat milk, extra shot, gift wrap, gluten-free bun
Has components ("What this uses")	Has components AND optionally a swap ("What this swaps out")
Examples: Latte, Cappuccino, Burger, Holiday Gift Box	Examples: Oat Milk, Extra Shot, Premium Wrap

This article covers Blueprints. For modifiers, see What is a Modifier Blueprint?

What kinds of products use Blueprints?

Anything you sell that's made from one or more inventory components:

Café drinks — a Cappuccino made from coffee beans, milk, and a paper cup
Restaurant dishes — a burger made from a bun, patty, cheese, sauce, and fries
Cocktails — a Negroni made from gin, Campari, and vermouth
Retail bundles — a starter kit made from three different products bundled at one price
Gift boxes — a holiday box containing a candle, a notebook, and a card
Pre-packed combos — a meal deal with sandwich + drink + chips
Assembly kits — a furniture flatpack made from multiple parts

If a finished product is made from at least one inventory item, it gets a Blueprint. If it's a customer-added extra (oat milk, gift wrap, decaf), it gets a Modifier Blueprint instead.

What's inside a Blueprint?

Name — what you call the finished product (ideally matches the POS product name)
Location — which shop the components live at
Makes — yield. 1 Serving for single-unit products, or batch sizes like 12 Muffins or 2 Liter for batch production
What this uses — the list of inventory components used per unit, with how much of each
POS Product — connects to one POS product so sales of that product trigger the Blueprint's deduction. Without it, the Blueprint is dormant. See Linking a Blueprint to a POS product.

Blueprints don't have a "What this swaps out" field — that lives on Modifier Blueprints, which exist specifically for the swap pattern.

What's the difference between a Blueprint and an inventory item?

Inventory items are what you stock and count — bags of beans, bottles of milk, individual candles.
Blueprints are what you sell — finished products made from those items.

You don't track stock on a Blueprint directly. Stock lives on the underlying components. The Blueprint is the bridge that says "when this is sold, deduct this much of these components."

Why use Blueprints instead of just tracking the finished product?

If you only track finished products, you have two problems:

You can't see component-level stock. If five different drinks all use milk, tracking them as separate finished products won't tell you when milk is running low.
You'd have to manually update stock all day. Every coffee sale, every burger, every gift box would need someone to remember to subtract.

Blueprints solve both. You stock your components, you build Blueprints once, and the closed loop with your POS handles the rest.

How Blueprints connect to your POS

When you connect Square, SumUp, or Odoo, Stash imports your POS products. You then link each POS product to its Blueprint (or Modifier Blueprint, for extras). From that point on:

Customer buys a Cappuccino at the till
The order closes in your POS
Within ~15 minutes, Stash's sync picks up the sale
For each line item on the order, Stash looks up the linked Blueprint or Modifier Blueprint
Stash deducts the components — for example, 18g of beans, 150ml of milk, and 1 cup
If the order has modifier lines (oat milk, extra shot), each Modifier Blueprint fires and applies its own deduction + optional swap reversal

Multiply that across hundreds of sales a day, and Stash keeps your stock numbers accurate while you focus on running the business. See How POS sales deduct stock automatically.

Permissions

Both Admins and Members can view Blueprints. Only Admins can create, edit, or delete them. See What Admins vs Members can do.

Where to start

Build Blueprints for your top-selling base products first — the ones that drive the most stock movement. Once those are in place, layer in your Modifier Blueprints for the modifiers your customers actually use (milk swaps, extra shots, gluten-free buns). The rest can wait.