Recording Waste Events

There is a full API collection that allows creating and submitting waste events to record stock losses at a given outlet. Submitting a waste event deducts the wasted quantities from inventory.

Waste categories

Each item added to a waste event can be assigned a waste_category to indicate the reason for the loss. The possible values are:

Value	Description
DATE_EXPIRED	Item past its expiration date.
RETURNED_BY_CUSTOMER	Returned by customer.
KITCHEN_ERROR	Kitchen error.
ITEM_RENDERED_UNUSABLE	Item was rendered unusable.
MISTAKE_EXPIRED	Item expired because of a mistake.
MARKETING	Used for marketing.
FREEBIE	Given away as a freebie.
BUFFET_BREAKFAST	Wasted in a buffet/breakfast.
STAFF	Staff consumption.
ACCIDENT	Wasted by accident.
OTHER	Other.

Wasting recipes vs. stock items

When adding items to a waste event, you specify either a stock_item or a recipe, not both.

When wasting a stock item, the quantity is deducted directly from that item's inventory.

When wasting a recipe, the quantity represents the number of wasted portions. What happens next depends on the recipe type:

If the recipe is stockable, its own stock items are deducted from inventory.
If the recipe is not stockable, the equivalent amounts of its component ingredients are deducted instead.

Step by step instructions

These steps should be followed in this order to submit a waste event via the Apicbase API:

Start a waste event at the outlet where the waste occurred.
Claim the waste event. A waste event must be owned by your user before it can be modified.
Add items to the waste event. Two approaches are available:
- Add items one at a time, each with a quantity and an optional waste_category.
- Bulk update all items at once to set the full list of wasted items in a single call.
Submit the waste event.

Inventory is only updated at step 4, when the waste event is submitted. The event can be cancelled at any point before submission using the Cancel Waste Event endpoint — this permanently deletes the event and cannot be undone.

Overwriting vs. updating items in bulk

Two bulk endpoints are available and they behave differently:

Overwrite Items: replaces the entire list of items in the waste event. Any items not included in the payload are removed.
Bulk Update Items: updates only the items included in the payload. Items previously present but not included are left unchanged.

Use Overwrite when you are managing the full state of the waste event from your application. It will completely replace the items in the waste event and any items not in the payload will be removed from the event. Use Bulk Update when you only want to patch specific quantities without affecting the rest.