Did you know that 6.7 million tonnes of food were wasted in 2021 alone? Over half of that was during the production and retail stages.
Are you noticing a decline in profits and an increase in waste? Perhaps restaurant order management is the solution for your wallet, the environment, and the overall health of your restaurant.
Keen on learning more? Keep reading this guide for your order management solutions.
Why Is Restaurant Order Management Important?
As you may know, order management is essential to your business. Keeping track of your inventory is one of the crucial factors in controlling costs.
Some of the leading causes for failed restaurants are inconsistent food, high food costs, and ineffective menu pricing. Having a system in place can help you identify where you could save money or increase profits as it helps in two different ways.
First, it helps to control the waste production of your restaurant by ordering less of a product that is not used as much. Secondly, it can help predict product usage in the future so that you don’t run out of a favourite item on your menu, therefore losing a sale.
Traditional Ordering
The traditional way of managing your ordering is to print out sheets of paper, count your inventory, and call in your order via the phone. However, keeping track of inventory, food costs, and other related items costs a lot of work and copying.
Mistakes are often made by copying as there is more room for human error. As you are ordering items, you’ll have to track the following:
- Sitting inventory
- Depletion
- Usage
- Variance
Keeping track of these items are crucial to your overhead costs, forecasting, and the freshness of your products. If a mistake is made in any of the above-mentioned data, your count is off, and you are left with more work than when you started.
This all seems very daunting and especially stressful when you are starting off new or looking for a better way to manage your already existing restaurant. But fear not! There is hope!
Innovation
By combining forecasting, inventory management and order management – we can use technology to create a fully integrated supply chain management ecosystem, forecasting demand and ordering only what we need. You can integrate the system into your POS, ERP, 3PLs and accountancy software – giving you detailed reports that allow you to review the on-hand inventory according to the recipes and products sold.
This means that you can immediately see what your inventory holds, when to order supplies, and when to hold off from buying more. A cloud-based system eliminates human error, and your data will be more accurate.
Supplier integration is also the main benefit of a software system, as you can order directly from the software on your phone, tablet, or computer. This reduces the need of contacting the supplier separately on the phone or online.
Additionally, you can maintain and manage your restaurant supply chain with all detailed reports and data, including data from different locations of your stores.
Altogether, an order management system saves time, eliminates human error, reduces waste, and increases profit with streamlined data and integration.
Good Order Management Practices
Good software is not the only thing that will keep your restaurant running. Hard work and consistency is crucial, even with the newest and fanciest tech (though we can help with increasing efficiency through apps and even cameras and scales…).
We have put a list together for you to fall back on when things get a little rough:
Quality Control
You can’t make great food without great products. Everything you receive in-house should be fresh and up to your standards. Check the items before you sign off on the shipment. You can return the items with the driver and streamline the process of receiving new products.
Take Inventory
Yes, even with a software system, you should regularly take inventory. While checking your inventory, check for the quality and freshness of your products. Some need checking every day, some every week, and some monthly.
Don’t forget to check the non-food items every once in a while, too.
Use the FIFO Method on the Right SKUs
This is pretty basic inventory management, but it is worth mentioning. FIFO, first in, first out, is a practice that your entire team needs to uphold for fresh. Since food has a limited shelf life, especially foods like fish and meat, it is crucial that your team understand these practices and when to use them.
If you notice that new stuff is opened and used before the older products, review it with your staff to ensure the best consistent quality. Our digital store assistant can spot things like this and give feedback in real-time and at the end of the week via a scorecard. Through this we can promote positive change throughout your workforce.
Track Your Food Waste
We touched on this earlier, but it is worth mentioning again. Keeping track of your depletion is important for several reasons.
It reduces waste, but it also helps find other problem areas, such as spillage, portions, and theft. While every restaurant needs to put trust in their employees, the health of the business comes first.
Having a healthy system where reports and data are consistently recorded will set a high standard in your restaurant where your staff members can feel safe, secure, and equipped to do their jobs properly.
Restaurant Order Management Software
As you can see, restaurant order management is crucial to the health of your entire business. It can reduce waste, increase profits, and save time in the long run. It is a daunting task to keep track of every single item in your inventory, but it is worth the money you’ll save.
Are you looking for an order or inventory management solution? Look no further; contact us today to see how we can help you and your restaurant.
