Why does recipe costing in a spreadsheet break down as a menu grows?

Spreadsheets go stale

A costing spreadsheet is accurate the day it is built and drifting the next, because prices change constantly. Keeping it current by hand is a losing battle.

As ingredients move, the manual updates pile up until the file no longer reflects reality.

Links break silently

Complex spreadsheets rely on formulas and links that break without warning. One bad cell can throw off costs you never think to recheck.

Those silent errors are dangerous precisely because they look like working numbers.

No shared source of truth

Emailed copies fork into versions, so no one is sure which file is current. Two people can price from two different truths.

A single live source removes that confusion, keeping everyone on the same costs.

Change ripples are manual

When a shared ingredient changes price, a spreadsheet makes you find and fix every recipe by hand. Miss one and it quietly stays wrong.

A real tool ripples that change through every affected recipe at once, which is exactly what a growing menu needs.