Inventory control and food inventory management are key components of overall restaurant management. To keep service running smoothly, proper inventory management is a must in any restaurant, and failing to do so majorly affects the finances of the restaurant.
Handle your restaurant’s food inventory management like a pro with DOYO. Take control of your inventory and your employees. Let’s look at some of the major benefits an inventory management software can provide:
Benefits of inventory management
Having an appropriate stock control system adds a lot to food business practices. Keeping a close eye on how much things cost to make and how much they are worth on the market as a whole will help you control cash flow in the long run. The food and beverage businesses do not always subject their menus to the same level of dissection.
It becomes even more important to have a good stock control system that helps you reduce overhead costs, change menu prices, and come up with a good plan for controlling portion sizes. As food and drink businesses put the right control systems in place, they can be sure that they are making good business decisions.
Proper restaurant inventory management ensures a proper food and money management system. It will be easier for you to keep track of the fact that some items may have lower profit margins than you expected, so you end up burning money when these items go unsold, eventually negatively affecting cash flow. If you know enough about this subject and keep track of your inventory, you can make better decisions, make changes at the last minute to make up for lost profits, and protect yourself from similar risks in the future.
Preventing lack of food items
It is essential for restaurants to keep track of the usage of food items, along with item costs and overall inventory levels. It will eventually help you understand where the money goes. This information is necessary for restaurants because it will reduce their cost of goods sold and also boost profits on each sale.
Preventing food waste
Food inventory management can be of immense help in maintaining profit margins. Refilling the inventory with the labor cost it takes is one of the most notable expenses for a food and beverage business. With the right inventory management and implementation of stock control, food waste can decline. Considering how food waste is a huge problem for the food and beverage industry, having the right technology to help minimize their contribution to waste is a good deal.
Start by thinking about how much food you are wasting unnecessarily. Sometimes you can't help it, like when a customer doesn't like the dish. There are, however, always ways to reduce waste on your end, such as cooking mistakes, spillage, or waste during preparation. To keep track of all this, you need the right equipment on hand and even help the staff be more mindful of the waste they are encouraging so they can minimize errors and practice avoiding food waste.
Overordering
As restaurants stock up their inventories, they forget to carry out a proper management system, which at times results in overordering. By ordering less food than you actually need, you can reduce food waste and save a lot of money with proper inventory tracking and performance.
Assorted misfires
Misfires do not happen with a disclaimer. Whether you prepare the wrong dish because you read the order wrong or forget to add an allergy note to a dish with nuts, there are all kinds of possibilities for making mistakes in the restaurant business. But when you use an automated solution like restaurant inventory management software, you cut down on these errors. All you have to do is provide your staff with proper training and active management, and you will notice how these small mishaps lessen with time during a shift.
Poor portion control
Having an inaccurate idea of portions could lead to food waste, too; you have to get your portions right. And if you control the size of your meals, you can usually stretch your food budget further without sacrificing quality. Stopping food from reaching the trash by standardizing the measurements for each dish works especially well for the guests’ leftovers.
Food waste can't be stopped completely, but a few simple steps can make a big difference. This way, you can control food waste, save money, and even manage your kitchen better.
Manage your stockpile more efficiently by switching to an automated system.
Food inventory management is an important part of running a restaurant well, but it takes a lot of time to do it right. Using automated inventory management software that is connected to your POS will save you hours of time each day on tasks related to managing your inventory.
The numbers in stock will automatically be depleted as items sell, so you are able to track your stock in real-time. It alerts you when a key ingredient is running low and other similar things. Try our DOYO app for your restaurant inventory management—it allows you to manage your menus and COGS from one account, run regular reports on your inventory movements, keep a check on your inventory costs regularly, and much more. Start your 30-day free trial today!
The digital menu accessible to clients via their own smartphone are updatable in real time from any phone or laptop. This allows restaurant for real time price changes or to temporarily hide product which are out of stock. It also allows to add in few seconds new selling product. Having a menu on the table at all time, saves time! The client does not need to wait the server/waiter to bring him the menu to start reading it. As a result, the table turnover increases as well, bringing in more sales revenues to the restaurant.
Clients, can filter the food by allergens and exclude the items to which they are allergic to. Also, they are able to see the items in 8 languages and with pictures. This reduces the number of misunderstandings and increases their experience and satisfaction.
Having our digital menu increase on line and social media presence on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TripAdvisor. They have the option to add those links at the bottom of the menu. The client can be redirect there, so that he has the possibility to rate, follow or like your restaurant. The more people interact on line, the higher the number of people coming (assuming your offering is also good).
Last but not least, owners are able to run promotion in certain time ranges. For instance, if you have raw materials close to expiration day, you can reduce their stocks by offering a product discount before having to dispose them at a full loss. Or in case you have a bar and would like to schedule regular happy hours/discounts between certain working hours. Discounts lead to an increase the number of guests and sales volume.
There are always people who will continue preferring the old-fashioned paper menu. Especially elderly ones. It is good practice to have a couple of paper courtesy menus available for them to read. They could be edited and printed daily.
2 minutuesWhat is a KDS and why is it better than paper tickets?KDS stands as Kitchen Display System. Essentially, all orders are displayed digitally on a screen instead of been printed on a paper ticket. One screen fits up to 10 tables in one single view. Having a KDS solves practical issues such as changing the paper roll during the busy kitchen period times. Most importantly it allows for the kitchen staff to coordinate delivery to a table across different department by using the “Synchronization” functionality so that all people at the table eat at the same time. Currently in most of the restaurant such coordination across department is done physically by a manager (running between departments) or radio channels. Another big advantage of a KDS is to flag when the food is ready. The waiters who called the items will receive a notification on their phone/work device and will know it is time to pick up the food and “Deliver” it to the client. Once food is delivered by the waiter, the table will move at the back of the queue to that the next table can be start to be prepared. The last advantage of KDS are their environmental footprint. A heat laser printer consumes more energy than the average LED screen. On top also many Kilometers of high-quality printing paper per year! Such a waste ☹. For a well aired kitchen, you can use also a google smart tv as a KDS! What are you waiting for doing the switch?
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