FormulationImport recipes
Limits and best practices
What AI does well when importing recipes, what you shouldn't expect from it, and what you should always review before going into production.
Importing recipes saves you from typing, but it doesn't replace your judgment. Knowing its limits helps you get the most out of it and know where to pay attention.
What it does well
- Reads recipe text in good-quality photos, scans, and PDFs.
- Structures the recipe: separates the name, the ingredients with their amounts, and the steps.
- Links ingredients to the catalog whenever it recognizes the name.
- Processes several files at once (up to 10 per batch) and creates one recipe for each.
- Tells whether the document is a recipe: an invoice, a delivery note, or another document is rejected without charging you credits.
- Detects when a file contains several recipes and lets you choose which one to import, instead of mixing them.
What not to expect
- It doesn't make up what isn't there. If the photo doesn't show an amount, it doesn't invent one: it flags the line as "Line without quantity" for you to complete.
- It doesn't fix the original recipe. If the document has a mistake, it carries it over as is; fixing it is up to you in the editor.
- It doesn't guarantee 100% accuracy with hard-to-read handwriting, blurry photos, glare, or multi-column documents.
- It doesn't turn something that isn't a recipe into one. Invoices, delivery notes, or other documents end up as "Not a recipe", without being imported or charged.
Always review before production
Treat the imported recipe as a draft. It's already saved in your recipe book, but before you sign off on it, check in the editor:
- That all the amounts are there and make sense (watch for the "Line without quantity" warning).
- That the units are correct (especially if you saw "Ambiguous unit" or "Unit needs review").
- That each ingredient is linked to the right catalog sheet (watch for the "Sheets to pick or create" warning).
- That no step of the method is missing.
Importing is a starting point, not a final result. A recipe without warnings still needs your review before you take it into production.
Best practices
- Take a sharp, well-lit photo, with the whole recipe in frame.
- Upload one recipe per file when you can: if the file contains several, you'll have to choose which one to import.
- Check History so you don't lose track of imports with warnings still to resolve.
- If an import gets stuck, you can cancel it (the credits are refunded); if it fails, click Retry or upload it again with a better image.
- Keep in mind that, after 10 refunded imports on the same day, new imports are blocked until the next day.