Reducing Costs in a Restaurant by Effective Inventory Management

It’s easy, and really common, for restaurants spend money over poor inventory management. Beginners are predominantly exposed to this cash drain, as they often do not have their commercial control systems secured, beforehand. But even the best managed, established restaurants have continuing challenges in this area.

A substantial portion of all your operational costs is occupied in the products you purchase. Management of inventory is a way to make the most of every dollar spent, as it helps reduce unwanted, wastage, and overstocking of foodstuffs. A system with upright checks and balances will similarly help eliminate the prospect of theft. These days inventory management is very easy with the help of inventory software for mobile.

Reasons for high food inventory cost

Consider the problems of dealing with food.

• Most of the time, your inventory is not like a bottle of beer at a bar counter. A lot of it is highly fragile. Your ingredients have a narrow shelf life, much of it less than seven days, some as little as just a day or two. In the event of not using a product within this short time means throwing it into the garbage along with more or less your hard-earned income.

• Moreover, you have a lot of individuals, who handle your food roster — from the time your goods are ordered, received, warehoused, prepared and finally served to your customers. Even a lesser eatery may have 10-15 people tangled in the food production procedure. The more people tangled in taking “raw” inventory and changing it to the delivered product, the more challenging it is to control loss, waste and abuse of inventory.

Things that can help in reducing costs

•  Inventory Management Software - Foodstuff inventory management software can make all aspects of the inventory procedure exponentially easier. Watch out for a solution, which is compatible with your assembling, recipe, and invoice systems, so that you can effortlessly monitor the cost of goods sold (COGS), inventory valuation, and inventory trends. Choose a program that’s intuitive and easy to use for each member of your inventory crew. You may even want to study one that permits you to perform physical inventory tallies on smartphones and tablets. Especially, a home inventory app for iPad is very useful software for this.

• Set Inventory Levels - A par level is the smallest quantity of an item you must have in inventory to last until your next delivery. In case, the on-hand quantity is beneath the par level, simply demand what you need to take it back up to the same level. Cycle menus are helpful in establishing accurate par levels. Cross-use will lower the number of stuffs in your inventory. Similarly, be sure to refer to your catalogue data when you’re altering menus, with the aim of lessening the waste. There is a barcode inventory system for iPad that can be used for this.

• Make it Routine - Introduce a set frequency for your inventory tally—weekly, monthly, annually, or even at the end of each business day. The more frequently you count the inventory, the easier it is to recognize and correct problems.

So an effective inventory management system can be really solved to your increasing budget.