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Start a prep

Starting a prep is the moment the kitchen commits to making something. The recipe was written long ago; the task may have been on the checklist since yesterday evening; the ingredients are sitting in the walk-in waiting to be measured. None of that has touched inventory yet. Start is the action that says we’re doing this now. It pulls the recipe into a live batch card on the work in progress board, stamps the moment, names the operator, and starts the clock against the target time-to-ready. Stock still hasn’t moved — that doesn’t happen until the batch is later logged to stock — but from the moment you tap Start, the rest of the kitchen can see what you’re making and how long it’ll be.

This page is for two readers. If you’re the owner, “Why this page exists” explains why the action is separate from the log-to-stock moment that actually moves numbers. If you’re the head chef, jump to “How to start a prep” for the workflow.

Why this page exists

A batched recipe — a bolognese base, a pizza dough, a stock — takes hours from first chop to weighable yield. Without a visible we’ve started this signal, the kitchen has no shared view of what’s in flight. The pastry chef walks past and can’t tell whether the pasta cook has begun the ragù; the dishwasher doesn’t know whether the dough is mixed yet; the head chef arriving at eleven can’t see which of the morning’s tasks were actually picked up and which slipped.

Starting a prep posts that signal. It carries the recipe, the planned yield, the operator, and the time-to-ready, and it puts the result on a screen anyone in the kitchen can glance at. Until the prep is finished and weighed, the card sits there ticking. After it’s logged, the card clears and a stock movement lands. The two moments — start and log — are deliberately separate, because in real kitchens they’re hours apart and live in different shifts.

The rule

Starting a prep is a notice, not a transaction. It tells the kitchen what you’re making and starts the clock; it does not move stock. The only action with consequences for what’s on the shelf is Log to stock later on the same card.

The two ways to start

There are two paths into the same engine.

From a task on today’s checklist. The most common path. The recipe task is sitting on the daily tasks list, status To do. The chef taps the Start button on the row. A dialog asks for the planned quantity (pre-filled from the recipe’s target yield) and an optional time-to-ready in minutes. The chef confirms. A live card appears on the work in progress board below; the row above flips to In progress with a ”↓ live below” hint pointing at the card.

Directly from the page header. For the times when the prep wasn’t on today’s plan — an unexpected catering order, a delivery that came in heavy and needs prepping immediately, a recipe a cook wants to run off the cuff. Tap + Start prep at the top of the page. The same dialog opens, except the recipe is empty and you pick it from the list. Only batched recipes appear; à la minute recipes don’t go through this flow because they fire on order at the till, not from prep.

Whichever path you took, the resulting card on the work in progress board is indistinguishable. Both write the same record. Both end at the same Log to stock action.

What gets recorded at start time

Tapping Start writes one record and nothing else moves. The record carries:

  • The recipe. What’s being made, locked in for this batch — even if the recipe is edited later, this batch’s costs and ingredient list are read from the version at start time. The kitchen makes what it intends to make.
  • The target yield. How much you planned to produce, in the recipe’s yield unit (kilograms, litres, pieces, balls, trays). Pre-filled from the recipe’s default but always editable — if you’re doubling for a busy weekend, type the doubled number now.
  • The operator. The signed-in cook who tapped Start. Stamped onto the card and the eventual production record, so the kitchen knows whose batch it was.
  • The start timestamp. The moment the button fired. The card on the board shows started 12m ago and keeps counting up.
  • The optional time-to-ready. A number of minutes from now until the batch is expected to be ready. Drives the countdown chip on the card — amber when there’s less than five minutes left, red when overdue. Leave blank for fast preps where a clock doesn’t help.
  • The optional “start in resting” flag. Useful when the active prep work is already done before you tap Start — the dough was mixed by the previous shift, the marinade was started last night. Turn it on and the card lands directly in the Resting stage instead of In progress.
  • The kitchen. Picked up from the task if you came from one, or from the kitchen filter you’re viewing if you started from the header. Determines which kitchen tab the card shows up under (Cucina, Bakery, Bar).
  • The optional notes. Free text — the cook has only thirty minutes today, hand off at 8:00, use the new yeast batch — saved on the batch and visible on the card.

The dialog has a live preview banner at the top that updates as you fill it in. Before you tap Start you see exactly what’s about to happen: “Starting 50 balls of Pizza dough → Pizza dough. A card will appear on the live board…” No surprises.

How to use it

The two paths run almost identically.

From a recipe task. Open Back of House → Work in Progress. Find the task row, tap Start. The dialog opens with the recipe and the target yield already filled in (from the task, which got them from the template, which got them from the recipe). Adjust the yield if you’re scaling up or down. Optionally type a time-to-ready. Optionally flip the Start in resting toggle. Tap Start. The card appears below; the task above flips to In progress.

From the page header. Open Back of House → Work in Progress. Tap + Start prep at the top right. The dialog opens with the recipe field empty. Pick the recipe from the dropdown — only batched recipes appear. The target yield auto-fills from the recipe. Adjust if needed. Optionally type a time-to-ready, flip the resting toggle, add notes. Tap Start. The card appears below.

Once the card is on the board, the cook works the prep. As the batch progresses, the cook taps → Resting when active work is done (for sauces simmering, doughs proofing, stocks reducing) and → Ready when the prep is finished and just waiting to be weighed. Neither moves stock. Only Log to stock does that.

If you started the wrong recipe or scrapped the batch, tap Cancel at the bottom right of the card. The card disappears; if the batch came from a task, the task drops back to To do so the chef can retry.

What happens behind the scenes

Tapping Start writes a new batch row carrying the recipe id, the operator, the planned yield, the planned yield unit, the start timestamp, the optional time-to-ready, the optional notes, and the In progress (or Resting) stage. If the start came from a task, the task is updated to point at the new batch and its status flips to In progress. The planned yield and unit are frozen on the batch row at this moment — a later edit to the recipe’s target yield won’t change what this batch claims to produce. The ingredient list and the per-unit cost, on the other hand, are read live from the recipe when Log to stock later fires; if you edit the recipe between Start and Log, the log will use the updated ingredients. Rule of thumb: don’t edit a recipe while a batch of it is on the stove. Wait for the batch to log, then edit.

No inventory rows are touched at start. No production record is written. Stock is still untouched. The card appears on the work in progress board because the live query feeding that board reads every batch row whose stage is not completed or cancelled.

The card ticks every minute. The elapsed-time text and the time-to-ready countdown stay fresh without anyone refreshing the page. Two cooks watching the same page see the same numbers.

If the operator never logs the batch and the shift ends, the card stays on the board overnight. The task above stays in progress on its original list date — it doesn’t auto-roll to tomorrow. What carries forward is the live batch on the WIP board, which is still there for the next shift to pick up. To clear it, the next shift opens the previous-day view of the daily tasks list, finishes the batch from there, and logs it; the task flips to Done on the day it was originally scheduled.

Worked example — a Neapolitan pizza dough on a Tuesday

It’s Tuesday, 7:30am at your venue. The pizzaiolo, Luca, walks into the bakery, makes espresso, opens Back of House → Work in Progress on the bakery tab. The auto-apply schedule fired at six and seeded the morning prep list. Among today’s rows:

Pizza dough — 50 balls — Bakery — status To do.

The pizza dough recipe at iO is a 24-hour cold-fermented Neapolitan: 0.65% yeast, 60% hydration, 18 hours at 4°C followed by 6 hours at room temperature. Default yield: 50 balls of 250g each. Per-ball ingredient cost at today’s prices: €0.18 (flour at €1.20/kg, water, salt, yeast). Total batch cost target: about €9. Tomorrow’s lunch service needs every one of those balls.

Luca taps Start on the row. The dialog opens with the recipe pre-filled (Pizza dough — Neapolitan 24h cold-ferment), the target yield pre-filled (50 balls), and the time-to-ready pre-filled from the recipe’s metadata (1440 minutes — 24 hours). The banner at the top reads: “Starting 50 balls of Pizza dough → Pizza dough. A card will appear on the live board with a 24h countdown.”

Luca doesn’t adjust anything. He glances at the Start in resting toggle — it’s off. The dough hasn’t been mixed yet; the active kneading work is still ahead. He taps Start.

In the same second:

  • A live card appears on the work in progress board under the Bakery tab. Top of the card: Pizza dough · → Pizza dough. Underneath: 50 balls · started 0m ago · ETA in 1440m · Luca. Stage chip on the right: In progress, amber.
  • The task above flips to In progress with the ”↓ live below” hint.
  • The counter at the top of the checklist still reads what it read before the start — the row isn’t done, it’s in flight.
  • No flour has been deducted from inventory. No batch cost has been frozen. Nothing has moved yet.

Luca starts mixing. At 8:15am he’s finished kneading and balling. He taps → Resting on the card; the chip flips to sky blue, the countdown still shows about 23 hours. The balls go into the cold room.

Wednesday morning at 7:30am — exactly 24 hours later — Luca returns. The card is still on the board, having ticked overnight; the countdown reads 0m left, and the chip is red because the ETA passed (which is fine, the dough is now in its 6-hour room-temperature rise). He pulls the balls out, lets them warm. At 1:30pm, just before lunch service, he weighs the balls, finds the total close to plan, and taps Log to stock — but that’s a different page.

The point of Start was the moment 24 hours earlier when Luca tapped a single button and the rest of the kitchen knew, in real time, that the dough was now in flight.