A Guide to Purchasing Solutions for Restaurants: Benefits & Options

At the top of every restaurant operator’s mind is the eternal question: How much am I spending on this? The fastest, most accurate way to stay on top of every stage of your cash flow — comparing prices, tracking inventory, optimizing menu prices, and analyzing sales — requires robust software and data services. Modern purchasing solutions eliminate the need to manually key in or marry inventories and sales bills. The best softwares and solutions will enable your staff to upload all their spending via their mobile devices, integrate seamlessly with your POS to track sales (and sales margins), and remove an avalanche of paperwork from your desk.

What are the benefits of purchasing solutions for restaurants?

• Save money: Know what you spend, know what you’re selling, know what you’re throwing out, and know your margins on everything that comes in through the loading dock. A reliable system to track spending, manage inventory, and automate invoices will ensure you’re staying in the black with each item you stock and serve.
• Save time: Time is money, right? And the more time that operators and managers spend manually keying numbers into spreadsheets the less they spend on higher-order tasks — the stuff they actual enjoy. Don’t exhaust your shift sweeping together and crunching numbers when a software can do it for you.
• Build relationships with suppliers: Purchasing solutions lend themselves to paying suppliers. Efficient payment methods and constant communication with your go-to farmer or wine distributor ensures you stay on their priority list, which in the days of literal short supplies is more imperative than ever.
• Streamline billing and invoicing: Ah, yes, paying bills, your fave. Wait, no, quite the opposite. Whether it’s paying an invoice, or billing for a service, a good tech solution for purchasing lets you put those chores on autopilot.
• Make fewer mistakes: Restaurant operators are already extending their job roles with more tasks and short staffs. It’s a perfect storm for human error. Outsourcing ledgers and arithmetic to a robot will help you save yourself from, well, yourself. Go get some sleep instead.

How should I use purchasing solutions for restaurants?

Let’s be real: restaurant finances are being squeezed harder than ever. Using a tech solution for purchasing will help tune your back of house operations to their best possible efficiency. A software that helps you track and analyze your spending, sales, and buying processes is essential. Make sure your establishment turns a profit, doesn’t waste money, moves quickly, and keeps accurate records.

[Photo by Kyle Head on Unsplash]