Here are the top five ways a centralized, web-based back office solution improves your inventory management.
1. Fight losses with better tracking
Real-time tracking of all inventory items—from ordering to depletion—at restaurants is possible with a web-based back office system. Detailed tracking of every product, including advanced tracking of waste, can be captured.
Do you have one product stored in several places in a restaurant? No problem. Your new inventory management solution should deliver consolidated tracking from procurement to consumption. Inventory may also be viewed by storage location or by product across all storage locations.
2. Stop profit “leaks” with tighter vendor integration
Integrating your inventory management solution with each supplier electronically via fax, email, FTP and EDI prevents errors by allowing you to receive order confirmations, electronic invoices and electronic order guide updates in real-time.
Electronic integration with vendors also allows invoices to be imported and reconciled. This increases accuracy and reduces administrative overhead.
3. Saving time saves money
Speeding the inventory process by configuring the system for shelf-to-sheet counts will make life much easier. You can also enjoy suggested ordering functionality, where the system generates suggested orders based on inventory par levels, historical consumption patterns, sales forecasts and on-hand inventory levels. This will simplify ordering at the store level to ensure optimal inventory levels at all times.
4. Have it done your way
Inventory scheduling can be done on your terms. Tasks can be centrally scheduled and managed from the corporate office, by area managers or by store managers—all based upon user permissions you set up.
Eliminate “rogue” spending with Centralized Order Guides. These guides ensure brand consistency by controlling the vendors, products and prices available to your restaurants. You’ll get the best price by centrally managing all bids, prices and contracts with electronic “apples-to-apples” vendor bid comparisons.
Stop your stores from using different units of measure! By using configurable units of measure to normalize products across vendors, store locations and recipes you’ll eliminate confusion and ensure accurate stock counting.
5. Reports that tell the real story
At the store or enterprise level, you can use inventory variance reports to zero in on large variances, view on-hand inventory values and gain an in-depth view of your suppliers’ performance-fill ratios, quality of service, product quality and price compliance.
Learn more about Inventory Management and other restaurant back-of-house solutions at CrunchTime.
This post is sponsored by CrunchTime! Information Systems