Sell by the Ounce: Setting Up Weight-Based Items in NX 🥗⚖️
Whether you are running a self-serve salad bar, a frozen yogurt station, or selling hot soup by the pint, charging by weight keeps your pricing fair and your inventory accurate.
With NX Restaurant, configuring items to calculate pricing automatically based on your scale readouts is simple. This guide will walk you through setting up your container sizes (tare weights), configuring your weight-based menu items, and ringing them up on the floor! 🚀
🥣 Step 1: Set Up Your Container Tare Weights
Before you configure your items, you want to make sure your guests aren't accidentally paying for the weight of the plastic bowl, box, or soup container! A Tare Weight tells the system exactly how much a container weighs so it can subtract that amount from the final total automatically.
Log into your NX Portal back office.
In the left-hand navigation column, go to Configuration > Menus > Other > Tare Weights.
Click the purple + New button to add a container.
Give your container a clear Name (like "Pint Soup Container").
Enter the Weight Amount and select the correct Unit of Measurement (such as Oz).
Click Save in the bottom right corner! 💾
🍔 Step 2: Configure Your Weight-Based Menu Item
Now that your container weights are saved, you can link them directly to a menu item.
From the left navigation bar, go to Menus > Items.
Select the item you want to edit or create a new one.
Scroll down to the Pricing block.
Toggle the Weight Based switch to ON (it will turn purple).
Choose your preferred Unit of Measurement (e.g., Oz).
(Optional) If you want the system to account for packaging, you can set a Default Tare Weight from your saved dropdown list or turn on Prompt for Tare Weight if staff need to select a container size on the fly.
Click Save to push the updates to your floor terminals! 🖥️
🏪 Step 3: How to Ring Up Weighed Items on the Floor
Once configured, selling a weight-based item on shift is lightning fast for your cashier team:
Using the Scale: Place the filled food container onto your connected scale terminal and simply tap the item button on your POS screen or scan the item's barcode. The terminal automatically grabs the exact weight, subtracts your container's tare weight, and calculates the price instantly! 🍉
Simulating Barcodes with a Keyboard: If your cashiers use a physical keyboard attached to the terminal to type in barcode values manually, type the numbers and hit Enter.
⚠️ The 1-Second Rule: Keep in mind that there is a 1-second expiration window between keypresses when typing barcodes manually. Each number must be typed within 1 second of the previous number, or the system will clear out the sequence and assume you are starting over! ⏱️⌨️
Need Help? 💡
Why is my weight-based item charging a flat fee instead of counting ounces?
Double-check the item's profile inside the NX Portal! Make sure the Weight Based toggle switch is flipped completely to ON. If it is turned off, the terminal will assume it is a standard menu item and only charge your default flat price.
Can I use both pounds (Lbs) and ounces (Oz) for the same item?
Each item must rely on a single, fixed unit of measurement selected in the portal setup block to ensure your inventory stays uniform. If you sell some items by the pound and others by the ounce, simply create two distinct item profiles with their matching units of measurement! ⚖️
The scale readout on the POS doesn't match the number on the physical scale screen.
Make sure your physical scale isn't retaining an independent tare value on its own hardware display screen. Hit the physical Zero or Tare button on your countertop scale device before placing any food on it to ensure both systems start from a perfect baseline of zero!