Combo menu items
A combo menu item is a bundle of menu items you already have, sold on one POS line. A "Meal Deal" of a burger, fries and a drink maps to one Rinvy combo, so the line is neither unmatched nor counted twice. The combo has no recipe of its own. Each component carries a quantity per combo sale.
Creating a combo
Go to Menu items and add a menu item.
- Choose the Combo option instead of picking or creating a recipe.
Add the component menu items and how many of each one combo sale includes (e.g., 1 × Cheeseburger, 1 × French Fries, 1 × Fountain Drink).
- Set the combo's selling price and save.
Components must be regular (recipe-backed) menu items — a combo can't contain another combo. A menu item that's used in a combo can't be deleted until it's removed from the combo, so a bundle never silently loses a component.
The Combo option shows only when the kitchen has at least one active menu item that is not a combo. A few more limits apply:
- A combo holds 1 to 10 components. The Add component button turns off at 10.
- Each menu item appears once per combo. For two burgers in one deal, set that component's quantity to
2. - The smallest quantity is
0.001. - An archived menu item can't be added as a new component. Put it back on the menu first.
- A combo counts toward your plan's menu item limit like any other menu item: 10 on Free, 60 on Standard, Unlimited on Pro.
When you open a component's edit form, a Part of a combo banner names every combo that uses it.
Does every meal deal need a combo in Rinvy?
No. Build a combo only when your POS reports the deal as one line. Look at a recent sales export before you build one:
- One line for the whole deal. Toast's guide to a customizable meal combo builds the deal as one menu item, with modifier groups for the entree, side and drink. That one item is the line you map to a Rinvy combo.
- One line per item. Square's combo guide says its Item Sales report shows the individual items from combos sold. A deal rung up as separate items with a discount also arrives item by item. Map those lines to the component menu items and skip the combo. A combo on top of them would count every bundle twice.
How combo food cost works
A combo's food cost is the sum of its components' cost per sale, times their quantities. There's nothing extra to configure — when a supplier price change moves a component's cost, the combo's cost moves with it.
- The Menu items list shows the combo's computed food cost and percentage like any other item.
- You can give a combo its own target food cost %; drift alerts fire for combos exactly like recipe items (see food cost targets). On the dashboard, a combo's alert chip reads Combo over target, so you know the cost moved through component prices.
- A combo inherits its components' warnings. If any component is priced from product defaults instead of receipts, the combo shows est. on the Menu items list. If any component is missing ingredients from its cost, the combo shows cost incomplete.
- The menu item report shows a component-level breakdown for combos: each component's cost per sale, its share of the combo cost, and the bundle discount — what the components would fetch sold separately versus the combo's price.
Why does a combo run a higher food cost % than its parts?
The bundle discount lowers the price, but the food costs the same. Take a Meal Deal priced at $12.99:
| Component | Cost per sale | Price sold alone |
|---|---|---|
| 1 × Cheeseburger | $3.10 | $9.50 |
| 1 × French Fries | $0.65 | $3.50 |
| 1 × Fountain Drink | $0.30 | $2.50 |
| Total | $4.05 | $15.50 |
The combo costs $4.05 per sale, so its food cost is 31.2% ($4.05 ÷ $12.99). Sold one by one, the same three items bring in $15.50, a food cost of 26.1%. The menu item report shows If Sold Separately at $15.50, a Bundle Discount of $2.51 and a Gross Margin of $8.94 per Meal Deal.
Give the combo a target based on its own numbers. A 28% target fits these items sold alone, but it would flag this combo from the start.
How combo sales flow through Rinvy
When sales data records combo sales, Rinvy expands each combo sale into its components before any ingredient math runs. That means:
- Variance report — combo sales count toward the components' theoretical ingredient usage.
- Auto-tracked products — combo sales deplete component stock like direct sales.
- Order list and prep list (sales expectation modes) — forecasted combo demand converts to ingredient needs through the components' recipes.
- Demand forecasts — combos are forecast alongside regular items, labeled by their composition.
- Sales plans: a plan can list combos too, and each planned combo expands into its components the same way.
Example
"Meal Deal" = 1 × Cheeseburger + 1 × French Fries + 1 × Fountain Drink. Selling 20 Meal Deals contributes 20 burgers, 20 fries, and 20 drinks of ingredient usage — on top of any of those items sold on their own.
Common mistakes
Building the combo's contents as a recipe. If you give a "combo" its own recipe listing raw ingredients, its cost won't follow the components' costs and its sales won't expand — use the Combo option so both stay in sync automatically.
Forgetting to map the POS line. A combo only receives sales when your POS item for the bundle is matched to the combo menu item during sales upload — the components' own POS lines stay mapped to the component items.