Work a recipe in numbered versions — duplicate a draft, collect the sign-offs it needs, and know which version the floor is allowed to run.
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You reworked your marinara to cut the sodium, and now you want the kitchen making the new formula — but not before your quality lead has looked at it, and not in the middle of a shift that's already weighing to the old target. Bettr keeps the two apart. Every recipe is worked in numbered versions, the way V17 and V18 sit side by side in one workbook, and a run only ever cooks the version your approvers signed. All of it happens on the recipe's own page, under Recipes.
Kitchen+A is not a place you go. It's the same page wearing a different number.
Opening a recipe without naming a version opens the one the company works from: its approved version, whoever you are. The chip beside the name reads that version and where it stands — V2 · Approved. Select it and the recipe's whole ladder opens under it, oldest at the top, each with its own badge, so a draft in flight is one tap away. Pick one and the page switches to it: its ingredients, its yield, its sign-offs. A recipe nobody has approved yet opens on its newest draft instead, so the page is never blank.
The badge on each is where that version stands:
Drafts belong to the people who can change recipes
For a view-only teammate the chip is a plain label rather than a way in: no ladder, no Duplicate, and no draft — the work in progress isn't theirs to read. A recipe that has never been approved shows them its newest draft, badge and all, so the page is never blank for them either.
A draft is approved when every role named on the recipe has signed that version. The line under the recipe's name is where that stands: one entry per required role with its state, and who decided and when. Until a role is named there is nothing to wait on, so the line offers Name who signs; once roles are named the button reads Who signs and opens them to change.
Open the version you're deciding
From Recipes, open the recipe. If the draft you want isn't the one showing, pick it from the version chip.
Decide as a role you hold
Approve and Reject sit on the rows for roles you hold, and nowhere else. Select Approve and Bettr asks once — Approve as Quality, record your approval for this version on behalf of this role — then reports Version 3 approved for your role. Someone holding the other required role signs on theirs.
Watch the version close
When the last required role approves, Bettr reports Version 3 is fully approved. From that moment the card is frozen: the quantities, the units and the yield are plain text, Add ingredient and the row menus are gone, and the standing says to duplicate it to keep working. Desired batch size stays live, because scaling is looking rather than editing.
Any draft can be decided, not just the newest — so a version you're still working out never blocks the one your quality lead is ready to sign.
Editing a draft resets the sign-offs
A signature binds to what was signed. Change a draft's quantities, its yield, or its steps and every sign-off it had stops counting: each role goes back to Pending and is asked again. The standing says so before you type — Editing it resets the sign-offs already given — and the earlier decisions stay on the record; they just no longer speak for the recipe as it now reads.
A rejection is not a dead end
Reject asks once too, and says what it costs: your rejection stays on the record, and the draft can be edited and asked again, or duplicated past. Either way the rejection stays named and dated, so the history shows what was turned down.
Four things are checked at the signature that would complete the approval, and nowhere earlier. Whatever is missing, the answer arrives under the role row you signed on, beside the decision it refused. The first is the batch yield: a version can't be signed off until someone has cooked a test batch and typed what it made, because the floor scales by that number and the costs divide by it. Try it without one and Bettr answers Cook a test batch and enter the batch yield before signing this version off. The yield block says the same thing before you select anything, so you can see it coming.
The second is the size a fixed-size step runs at. A step set to Fixed with no number is a step nobody can run, so the sign-off is refused — Step 1 runs at one fixed size — say that size before signing this version off, naming the step. The step's own row says it too, so you can close the gap before anyone signs.
The third is the pack the recipe sells under. A final recipe that names no product can't be signed off — Bettr answers Name the product this recipe sells as before signing this version off, because the spec sheet and the label are written from it. A recipe born by detaching a draft starts this way, carrying no product of its own; name one under Output product on the recipe's edit form and the same signature goes through.
The fourth is the recipe's foundations. The final sign-off is refused while the recipe builds on a sub-recipe nobody has approved — Bettr answers Approve Prep Base first — this recipe builds on it, naming the sub-recipe. You can see that one coming too: the line wears No approved version, and a warning under the table says its cost is coming from the newest draft and that the gap closes before this version can be signed off. Approve that one, then come back and finish the signature; the other roles can sign theirs in the meantime.
Duplicating is the one gesture that starts a change, and it lives with the versions. It's on every version, approved or not.
Open the chip and select Duplicate
Bettr cuts the next free number, copies the version you were on whole — its ingredients, steps, batch yield, and everything attached to its steps — and opens it, reporting Version 4 is open for editing.
Work the new draft
Type into it the way you type into any draft. Nothing you do here touches the approved version, so the floor keeps weighing to the numbers it was running this morning.
Ask for the sign-offs when it's settled
Collect the sign-offs as above. The moment the new version is approved, it takes the lead and the older approved one reads Superseded.
Two drafts can sit side by side — duplicate the same approved version twice and you get two experiments off one parent, each with its own number. A duplicate never asks for approval on its own, because a test is not a decision. Numbers are handed out in order and never reused, so a ladder can read V1, V2, V3, V5 once a draft has been detached.
Under the yield block, What this version taught takes what worked and what went wrong. Type it and click away — there is no save button, and no confirmation to wait for; the words are the feedback. Notes are writable on approved versions too, and writing one never resets a sign-off: notes record what happened, not what the recipe is. That way V18's verdict survives into V19.
When an experiment turns out to be a different product — a spicy variant you mean to keep beside the original — it belongs in a recipe of its own, not in this recipe's ladder.
Select the draft, then name the new recipe
On a draft version, type a name under Detach into its own recipe. The name is checked against your company like any other.
Select Detach
Bettr answers The draft is a recipe of its own now and opens it. The new recipe starts at V1 with the content the draft had, its own item number, and no sign-offs. The draft leaves the original recipe's version list.
A run pulls the recipe's approved version and nothing else. Approving a newer version is what changes the floor's numbers, so no edit and no test can quietly rewrite what an operator is weighing to today. A recipe with no approved version can't be planned or run at all — it isn't offered when you plan from a recipe, and a run refuses it by name. Approve one first.
Print carries the same answer. Print prints the page you are reading, and the sheet's heading carries the recipe's name with the version number and its standing beside it — V3, Draft. What was cooked can always be tied back to what was signed.
Carried at the crossing
Recipes that were already in Bettr before versions worked this way kept their numbers and their history. Where the old model had promoted a copy to the floor, that version reads Approved with a line saying it was carried at the crossing — the standing came across from the old world rather than from a signature in this one, so no sign-offs are listed for it. Duplicate it and sign the next version to put your own names on the record.
When you stop making something, retire it. Retire sits at the top of the recipe's own page, beside Print. Bettr asks first, and names the recipes that build on this one if any do; they keep naming it until someone changes them. Confirm and the recipe's status becomes Inactive: it leaves the everyday list and every picker where new work is composed, while its versions, sign-offs, and history stay whole.
An inactive recipe isn't hidden from you — set the status filter on the recipes list to Inactive recipes to find it. Bring back, in the same place on the page, makes it Active again in one act.