Restaurant Inventory Management: What system do you use for ordering and keeping track of inventory?

Hey! Welcome to Making Dough Show!

We are in this series we're gonna be going over different questions that we're getting about restaurant and all the different categories.

We're gonna go based on our experience some things we know and something we don't.

We're gonna see how it goes alright. So the first question is from Danielle. This kind of mostly from Matthew because this is his area of expertise versus mine but we have very clear zones in our restaurant.

Anyways, Danielle asked “What system do you use for ordering and keeping track of inventory visual excel or your POS system?”

“My husband keeps trusting the kitchen manager and he's making trips to Walmart daily for things they're running out of. I wanted to start using the Talak POS system but without purchasing the upgrade I can't see if it is worth the cost.”

“Would you kind of explain what upgrade that we're talking about with the POS system?”

In my understanding like when you do a POS. It is point-of-sale, it is not shaking it but many of the new ones they have an upgrade.

Where it's like okay you want to add this module you want to add this piece it's all separate.

I think it's ultimately still similar back to the original like micros, Aloha just doing it a little bit differently with the different tablets.

And it's cloud based which is important as opposed to having a server in your office that could run out of power or get busted and you may not have access from home.

So when it comes to the inventory I'm sure there like a lot of software a lot of you know companies that sell you their services it's the one there was a book for Avero.

Avero is one, isn't it? There is a book Avero, a platform. It depends on your needs but anyways she's asking about what is one of the ways that we've done.

I think we try excel way back 2014.

I didn't know what the inventory was apparently you're supposed to take it and when one of the other restaurant owners comes over and he's like..

“Hey how do your inventory go?” I'm like "good sure!"

I didn't even know what inventory was it's a separate video but we had started on Excel.

I have an engineering degree so I may have a degree in excel they just call it engineering.

We started there and then we moved to our food vendor. Actually, they had an inventory system there so I played with that.

It was very complicated mind-boggling.

You got to watch a lot of tutorials to learn how to do it. It's challenging and then we went to integrating with our point-of-sale because when you have a point-of-sale you're generally you're most committed to that system.

It’s good to have that with you, have your data for years, gives you that something to fall back on to help for planning and preparation and try and keep you at food cost down to a minimum.

We do use our POS systems module that is for inventory. There is an unusual paying for it.

We're paying for it I think it's worth it.

And another reason that we do that also is because if we have multiple cloud we need to keep this as simple as possible for our team and our managers.

So they don't need to remember another login or they need to log into another platform everything is already in the POS system.

There, it gets your numbers in one place because your register is gonna have your sales numbers and then if you can put your cost numbers in there then you've got you know this one.

This one gives you where your profits are and ultimately being in business is about making a profit.

You're gonna be able to track it and keeping it easy and simple for your team to help you do that helps your team do that.

So that you can live your dream so that you can have the business be a vehicle for getting to your dreams and goals in life.

I always tell our team you know so we can get folks raises that are who we're not you know company's not making money.

There's no profit nobody's know yeah and then ours are getting cut and it's just what I want to ask Matthew what is your philosophy about cause we do run out of stuff.

It's just I'm sure everybody because it's you're predicting the future unless you're really strong with the force like Yoda you're probably not gonna get it right.

Literally the dark side of competition clouds everything actually it could be the weather in our case but we rain hurricane.

We also have a Walmart very close to our restaurant and on occasions we send folks because we like run out of lettuce or tomatoes or cucumbers.

We send folks over there but we our food vendor facility it's 45 minutes away from the restaurant one way.

Matthew what has been your philosophy when the fact that we ran out of food is because something we did not order or whatever it was our system is this real simple it could be a training issue and something I miss when I train someone.

In that case if we got to go get something I go get it if the food delivery service.

If they failed to deliver something than “hey guys come on like you need to deliver what you

promised” and so I'll try and negotiate with them to get them to bring it to me.

It'll cost because they charge you for the hot rod every tactic that after that if it was my staff members fault, my team members fault.

I'm going to call one mark to cover for them I'm gonna start making them go to Walmart.

I'm gonna start having them drive 45 minutes one way. Do that two hours round-trip on their own time because they need to understand like if you're gonna waste time, if you're not going to be planning appropriately following the system you're off the clock go your own responsibility you gotta teach some person a sponsor.

Then well like for instance there is an event or something they could have usually checked they know that there's a catering coming up they did not account for.

They've been properly trained and they're getting you know there is a raise associated with doing this task so if we’re paying you extra for you to do this.

This is our promise then your promise is to do this job right.

Run out yeah and the customer is taken care of which I know you're a test for the customer because that's how you pay your bills.

It's the same how we pay our bills, so they, our team has to understand that and sometimes people refuse to learn until they make that two hour drive and or worse they'll wait till 4:30 you know in the afternoon.

And then, it's easy two and a half to three hour drive and actually it is I'm sad to say that it's true.

We don't do that frequent it happened in the beginning like once a couple times.

Yep! They they're kind of more aware of doing it so we make them go and take responsibility of that.

I want to ask Matthew, what are your thoughts of somebody who is currently doesn't have a proper inventory system who's maybe wondering should I pay an upgrade for my POS system?