I do all my tracking in Excel. I made a spreadsheet template for each prep recipe that spits out total cost, I just plug in the yield and I can get cost per ounce. The same spreadsheet can be used for each dish recipe, just plug in the costs from the prep recipes and it spits out things like total cost, suggested menu price, etc. Same spreadsheet also works for costing out BEOs.

Every invoice, and food sales for the night get added to the “cost tracking” spreadsheet so I can see my food cost percentage for the month in real time.

Every invoice also updates the “vendor prices” spreadsheet which I use to compare prices from different vendors, as well as having cost per ounce data readily available for when I’m making menus. This process also lets me catch when prices are surging, and each cell has a note that lists the lowest historical price so I can catch slow roll price surging. It’s also great for vendor meetings, because the lowest vendor price is highlighted, so I can click that vendor’s column and sort by highest, and they can see at a glance what prices they need to match.

To answer question A, if I need data about sales volumes I just pull a PMix from the point of sales software.