Restaurant inventory management software

It's crucial to regularly run inventory counts to get the most accurate picture of what's on your shelves. Stock levels should also be kept in perfect balance, low enough to prevent spoilage and wasted costs, but high enough to ensure you can fulfil customer orders.

Consider assigning this task to a team member, or use technology to streamline this process and improve accuracy. Among widely available tools, the hospitality EPoS system with integrated hospitality stock control and inventory management software are what you should be looking for.

To ensure you always have the ingredients you need on hand without overstocking, it's essential to establish PAR (Periodic Automatic Replenishment) levels.

Think of PAR levels as your inventory safety net, as they determine the minimum amount of each ingredient you should have to meet demand between your regular deliveries. Alongside this, enforcing the FIFO (first in, first out) method prevents spoilage and ensures you're

 serving the freshest food possible by using your older ingredients first. Using ingredients in the order they were received helps prevent serving expired or unsafe products. To further guarantee the success of your FIFO implementation, consider your frozen stock as well.

A well-organised storage space is key to a smooth-running kitchen. When everything has its place and is easily accessible, handling ingredients and preparing the dishes takes less time, minimises waste, and makes inventory management a whole lot easier.

It is also essential to keep a record of what is being thrown out and why. Although it might seem tedious at first, the insights you gain to truly understand and reduce food waste are invaluable.

A spreadsheet or notebook can be effective for smaller operations. For bigger businesses or chains, consider dedicated waste management software that offers easy input, analytics, and reporting.

Staff turnover and scheduling across different shifts can make consistent inventory management tricky, especially if you delegate this task to just a few of your employees.

That's why training your whole team on how to take inventory is essential. Invest time in ensuring everyone handling your inventory understands inventory counts and receiving deliveries.

With customers spending just a couple of minutes scanning your menu, every dish needs to count. Menu engineering is a strategic process of analysing the profitability and popularity of each item and using that data to make informed decisions, ultimately driving higher profits.

For a deeper dive into the techniques and benefits of menu engineering, check our article - Menu Engineering: 20 Tips to Maximise Profits.

There are two ways in which restaurants monitor inventory – one is by hand and the other is via restaurant inventory software that is integrated into their EPoS. If using a manual process this would involve counting stock by hand and entering it on a spreadsheet. Using restaurant inventory software makes this process easier and enables you to control and monitor stock with more accuracy.

You should only ever have enough inventory to cover sales with a little extra in case sales are more than expected, however if you are forecasting correctly there will rarely be a need to dip into this. For most restaurants this will mean between 5-7 days' worth of inventory assuming you are getting 1-2 deliveries per week.

Restaurant inventory management is a way of tracking all of the ingredients, supplies, and beverages, ensuring that you have the right supplies at hand, including: 

• Tracking stock levels - Knowing precisely how much of each ingredient and item you have to meet the customer demand and keep the kitchen running without a hitch.

• Ordering - Determining when and how much to order - enough to keep your shelves stocked, but not so much that your budget or ingredients go to waste.

• Storage - Smart organisation of your inventory to save space, keep your ingredients fresh and prevent costly spoilage.

Usage - Keeping an eye on how ingredients are used to track waste, pinpoint problem areas, and adjust recipes and portion sizes for maximum efficiency.