Enable clickBACON in the Shift4 Dine Customer Hub

Description: Learn how to connect clickBACON to Shift4 Dine to automatically calculate recipe costs, track food and labor expenses, and manage your restaurant's prime cost — all in one place.

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Overview

clickBACON is a restaurant profit management platform that connects your sales data, vendor invoices, and recipe ingredients so you can see the true cost of every item you sell. Once connected to Shift4 Dine, clickBACON pulls your sales data automatically and uses Recipe AI to calculate accurate food costs and margins — no spreadsheets required. 

clickBACON can help you:

• Calculate the true cost of every recipe using actual invoice data
• Track food, beverage, and labor costs in one place
• Monitor prime cost day by day and week over week
• Plan and track sales and expenses with a full-year budget
• Build standardized recipe cards (Build Sheets) for your kitchen team
• Normalize messy vendor invoice data automatically

Before You Begin

Confirm the following before starting:

• Shift4 Dine is active at your location
• You have admin access to the Shift4 Marketplace
• You have a clickBACON account — visit clickbacon.com to get started
• Optional: credentials for Restaurant365 (R365) or QuickBooks if you want to connect those systems

Important: clickBACON calculates food costs based on the ingredient and invoice data you connect. Before going live, make sure your recipes have complete ingredient lists and that your vendor invoices are being pulled in correctly. Incomplete ingredient data at activation may result in inaccurate recipe cost calculations until the data is fully populated.

Step 1: Install clickBACON from Marketplace

1. Log in to the Shift4 Dine Customer Hub.
2. Select Marketplace.
   
3. Search for clickBACON.
4. Select Install on the clickBACON listing.
5. You are redirected to clickBACON's secure login page to authorize the connection.
6. Log in with your clickBACON credentials to complete the OAuth authorization.

After authorization, clickBACON begins pulling your Shift4 Dine sales data automatically. No new hardware is required. Your location and menu data will be available in clickBACON shortly after connecting.

Step 2: Connect Additional Data Sources (Optional)

If you use Restaurant365 or QuickBooks, connect those systems inside clickBACON to bring in invoice and accounting data.

1. Log in to your clickBACON account at app.clickbacon.com.
2. Go to Settings > Integrations.
3. Connect Restaurant365 (R365) or QuickBooks as applicable.
4. Follow the on-screen prompts to authorize each connection.

Connecting your accounting system allows clickBACON to automatically import vendor invoices and normalize ingredient costs across all your suppliers.

Step 3: Build and Cost Your Recipes

1. Go to Recipes in your clickBACON dashboard.
2. Create a new recipe or select an existing one.
3. Add ingredients with quantities and recipe units — clickBACON pulls costs from your connected invoices automatically.
4. Enter a selling price and CoGS target to see your margin.
5. Use PrepBot, the built-in AI assistant, to get help with ingredient questions or recipe adjustments.

Step 4: Create Build Sheets for Your Team

Build Sheets give your kitchen team standardized recipe cards to follow consistently.

1. Go to Build Sheets in your clickBACON dashboard.
2. Create a new Build Sheet and link it to a recipe.
3. Add a photo, menu description, server description, plate or glassware details, and meal period.
4. Add ingredient steps and plating instructions.
5. Save and publish — Build Sheets can be downloaded or printed for your team.

Step 5: Set Up Your Budget

1. Go to Budget in your clickBACON dashboard.
2. Enter your projected monthly sales by category (for example, Store Food, Catering Food, Beverages).
3. Set your CoGS percentage targets for food and beverage.
4. Toggle between Monthly and Yearly views to review your full plan.

As actuals come in from Shift4 Dine, clickBACON tracks your performance against budget automatically.

What You'll See in clickBACON

Feature	What It Shows
Daily & Weekly Cost Calendar	Sales, labor, and prime cost day by day, with color-coded indicators to spot problem days
Overall Financial Health Dashboard	A summary of how your month, sales, prime cost, and expenses are tracking against budget
Full Year Budget	Projected vs. actual sales and costs by category and month

For answers to common questions about data handling, pricing, and multi-location setup, visit the clickBACON FAQs.

Need Help?

For clickBACON support, visit clickbacon.freshdesk.com/support/home, email [e-mail], or call 832.949.0718.

For Shift4 configuration, contact Shift4 Support.