Food Costing Software With Customizable Reports for UK Pubs

Key Takeaways

• Static food costing and delayed accounting reports limit visibility on fast-changing costs, which increases insolvency risk for UK hospitality in 2026.
• Customizable reporting turns raw invoice and sales data into targeted, real-time insights on dish profitability, supplier performance, and margin trends.
• Automated tools such as invoice scanning, live dish costing, and integrated menu engineering reduce admin time while improving data accuracy.
• Operators gain stronger control over cash flow, pricing, and multi-site consistency by replacing manual spreadsheets with configurable, always up-to-date reports.
• Jelly gives UK hospitality teams practical, easy-to-use reporting features that improve food cost control and support profitable decision-making. Book a chat with Jelly.

The Problem: Why Static Food Costing Reports Are Eroding UK Hospitality Profits

UK hospitality in 2026 operates in a volatile, high-cost environment. Hospitality is the second-worst-performing sector for insolvencies, accounting for 15% of all failures, with an average financial health score of 31 out of 100. Weak, delayed reporting increases that risk.

Lack of real-time visibility creates financial blind spots. Many restaurants, pubs, and boutique hotels still rely on monthly accounting reports. By the time those reports arrive, price changes and margin issues have already damaged profit. Public accounting data that is 9 to 18 months old can hide deteriorating finances, while a 6.7% business rates increase in 2024 and rising labour costs add pressure. Thin margins do not allow weeks of delay.

Inaccurate and inconsistent data undermine decision-making. Costing a single dish often involves dozens of SKUs from multiple suppliers, shifting prices, and batch recipes. Many teams still cost recipes in spreadsheets. On average, it takes 28 minutes to cost a single menu item, and the process is highly prone to human error. Manual accounts payable processing also increases the risk of mistakes that can strain supplier relationships and disrupt supply.

Blind spots in profitability expose margins to erosion. Ingredient prices move constantly with inflation and supplier changes. A dish that worked last week may now lose money, yet many operators have no live view of that shift. They may suspect supplier price creep but lack clear data to support a constructive discussion, which means they enter negotiations at a disadvantage.

Excessive time and resources go into low-value admin. Many teams spend 10 to 20 hours a week on data entry, price checking, inventory counts, and invoice matching instead of guest experience or growth projects. This burden lands at a time when UK hospitality faces rising costs, labour shortages, and changing customer behaviour.

High business vulnerability follows. 52% of hospitality companies, or 44,405 businesses, sit in the warning area with an H Score of 25 or below, which signals high insolvency risk. Inaccurate cash flow forecasting around seasonal revenue swings often leads to poor decisions, overstocking, and overstaffing.

The Solution: Customizable Reporting For Strategic Food Costing Control

Customizable reporting shifts operators from reactive to proactive control of food costs. Instead of static, one-size-fits-all reports, teams configure views that match how their kitchens and sites actually run.

Customizable reporting in food costing means generating specific, dynamic reports on demand. These focus on metrics such as ingredient cost changes, dish level profitability, supplier performance, and spend by category or site. Each report can show only what matters for that operator at that moment.

Customizable reports are now critical for UK hospitality because structural costs keep rising. Costs such as energy, rent, rates, insurance, and minimum wage increases are structural rather than temporary. Major hotel companies downgraded 2025 RevPAR guidance in response to ongoing economic uncertainty, so precise cost control now matters as much as revenue growth.

Core benefits of customizable reporting include:

• Faster decisions, because teams can see up-to-date costs and margins in minutes rather than waiting for month end packs.
• Higher profitability, by spotting low margin dishes, waste, and price drift early enough to act.
• Greater efficiency, as automated data capture and report generation replace manual spreadsheet work.
• Stronger growth foundations, with reliable data across sites to support investment and expansion.

Book a chat with Jelly to see these reporting features in action.

Jelly: Practical Customizable Food Costing Reporting

Jelly focuses on the reporting needs of growing UK restaurants, pubs, and boutique hotels. The platform turns daily invoice and sales data into clear, configurable reports, without demanding complex setup.

Key Jelly reporting features include:

Automated invoice scanning captures accurate data at the line level. Jelly reads quantity, SKU, price, and tax from each invoice, so teams get instant reporting without manual entry. This improves accuracy and provides the level of detail needed for meaningful analysis.

Flash Report provides daily, weekly, or monthly gross profit views. It combines cost data from invoices with sales data from POS integrations to show the current GP margin. This replaces delayed, retrospective accountant reports with frequent updates.

Price Alert tracks ingredient price movement. Operators can see which items have gone up or down, by how much, and by which supplier. This gives chefs and managers the evidence they need for supplier calls, rate negotiations, and credit claims.

Menu engineering and sales mix reporting blend popularity and profitability data. Integrations with systems such as Square and ePOSnow highlight which dishes sell well and which deliver the best margins, so menus can be adjusted with confidence.

Live dish costing keeps recipes in line with real-time ingredient costs. Each new invoice updates dish margins automatically. A margin drop or rise is flagged visually, so teams can react before issues grow.

Accounting integration sends clean data into platforms such as Xero with a single click. Digitised invoices flow into the accounting system, which reduces bookkeeping effort and supports consistent financial reporting.

Talk with Jelly about setting up live food costing reports for your sites.

5 Ways Customizable Reporting Features Improve UK Hospitality Operations

Optimised Supplier Negotiations With Precision Data

Detailed supplier and ingredient reports strengthen the operator’s position in price discussions. Jelly user Stuart Noble, Head Chef at Cairn Lodge Hotel, explains the impact: “Price hikes were crushing our margins, and I felt helpless. With Jelly, every dish cost is up to date at my fingertips. We slashed food costs by 5% in a month.” Price Alert reports show each change clearly, which supports fair conversations and protects margins.

Proactive Margin Protection And Menu Engineering

Customisable menu reports highlight high-cost, low-profit dishes before they damage results. Because Jelly updates ingredient costs with every invoice, gross profit on each dish stays live. Ruth Seggie, Owner of The Howard Arms, reports: “Our accountant said we would be lucky to hit 60% gross profit. After using Jelly, we reached 80%. Now I sleep better knowing my costs are under control and can react instantly, not weeks later.”

Improved Cash Flow Management And Forecasting

Historical and real-time views support better cash flow planning around seasonality. Seasonal swings in revenue often cause inaccurate cash flow forecasts and weak stock and staffing decisions. Jelly Flash and Sales Mix reports give operators current and trend data so they can adjust purchasing and labour with more confidence.

Lower Admin Time And Fewer Errors

Automated reporting reduces manual data handling across invoice processing, costing, and analysis. Jelly can cut 10 to 20 hours of admin each month by automating the flow from invoices to dish costing. Holly, Operations Director at Social Pantry, notes: “All the tools on the market require so much manual work. Jelly is so simple to use, I cannot see myself running the business without it.”

Stronger Basis For Strategic Growth And Multi-Site Consistency

Central reporting gives owners and finance teams a single version of the truth across locations. Consistent dashboards and reports track performance by site, menu, and supplier. This helps growing groups keep control of margins even when leaders cannot be physically present at every venue.

Book a chat with Jelly to compare your current process with automated reporting.

Conclusion: Protect Margins With Intelligent Food Costing Reporting

Traditional food costing and static reports now pose a direct risk to UK hospitality profitability in 2026. Rising structural costs, labour pressures, and economic uncertainty mean operators need live, reliable insight rather than delayed, generic numbers.

Jelly offers reporting tools built for restaurants, pubs, and boutique hotels, with an emphasis on clarity and ease of use. Teams at every level, from chefs to finance managers, can use these features to improve visibility, protect margins, and support growth plans.

Operators that adopt customizable reporting gain an edge through faster decisions, stronger supplier relationships, better cash flow planning, and lower admin overhead. In a market where small margin gains matter, these advantages can decide whether a business grows or falls behind.

See How Jelly Can Automate Your Kitchen Management. Book a chat.

FAQs

What is customizable reporting in food costing?

Customizable reporting in food costing lets you build reports around how your business actually runs, instead of relying on generic month-end packs. You can focus on specific metrics such as ingredient price changes, dish-level gross profit, supplier performance, or site-by-site spend, and filter or segment those views in real time.

How quickly can Jelly start delivering useful reports?

Jelly is designed for fast time-to-value. Once suppliers are emailing invoices to your dedicated Jelly address, or your team is uploading photos of invoices, the platform starts generating price alerts and spend insights in under 24 hours. Most kitchens see practical, decision-ready reports in their first week.

Is Jelly easy for chefs and non-technical teams to use?

Jelly is built for busy chefs, owners, and managers who do not want to spend hours in spreadsheets. The interface is clean and focused on core workflows such as scanning invoices, checking price alerts, and reviewing dish margins, so even less tech-confident team members can adopt it quickly.

How does Jelly integrate with our existing POS and accounting systems?

Jelly connects with leading POS platforms such as Square and ePOSnow to pull sales data into Flash and Sales Mix reports, and integrates with accounting software like Xero to push digitised invoices directly into your accounts. This creates a single flow from costs and sales to accurate financial reporting.

What does Jelly cost, and how is pricing structured?

Jelly uses a simple, flat-rate pricing model of £129 per month per location. There are no extra charges per user or feature, so growing restaurants, pubs, and hotels can scale reporting and kitchen management without unexpected software costs.

How can I see Jelly’s reporting features in action?

You can walk through Jelly’s invoice scanning, Flash, Price Alert, and menu engineering reports in a short remote session with the team. See How Jelly Can Automate Your Kitchen Management. Book a chat.