Touchscreen point-of-sale (POS) systems are a crucial part of any restaurant or bar’s operational processes, but they can be incredibly expensive. POS systems often cost at least $20,000, and that price often comes with the myth that a POS can fulfill all of a restaurant’s operational needs.
While POS systems are essential and have plenty of functions that improve your operational processes to help your business become more profitable, your organization still needs to invest in other technologies if it is to truly save on costs and improve profitability.
This is particularly true when it comes to inventory management. One of the most common myths we see here at Sculpture Hospitality is that simply using a POS system is covering your restaurant’s inventory needs. Unfortunately, this is simply not true.
Why does a POS not cover your inventory management needs?
Beverage and food inventory management is the process of monitoring ingredients in an effort to ensure that your restaurant is able to prevent food waste, avoid losing money and improve the profitability of your menu.
A POS can provide a number of inventory management functionalities for your restaurant such as data forecasting, order planning reports, integrated accounting and automated inventory tracking for customer orders.
However, it doesn’t count for all sources of inventory loss. Factors such as spoilage, spillage, inefficient food or beverage preparation, employee theft or plate returns following a customer complaint all require manual input. Yet most restaurant’s aren’t training their employees to do this.
To truly understand where you are losing money from your inventory, a POS simply won’t do the job alone. It’s for this reason your business must invest in a beverage and food inventory management system.
What is an inventory management system?
An inventory management system is a piece of software designed specifically to help your business resolve food and beverage cost issues, reduce waste and give insightful data into how you can boost profits through better inventory purchasing and usage.
Inventory management systems track your entire food and beverage inventory to provide you with the analytics on how your restaurant’s stock is performing. All stock that is purchased, used and unused in your restaurant or bar is tracked in the system using automated processes. Not only does this save your business time on manual processes, it provides you with the insight you need to make better inventory decisions.
By using automated processes to ensure your restaurant or bar isn’t losing inventory from theft, stock wastage and other spend or waste issues, you will be able to increase cost savings and improve the profitability of your business.
Will an inventory management system integrate with your POS?
It’s important to note that an inventory management system doesn’t have to be completely separate from your POS system. In fact, the inventory management system that you invest in should be able to integrate with your restaurant’s POS system.
By integrating both systems, and fine-tuning their functionalities so they are designed for the specific needs of your restaurant, you will be able to automate the complicated back-end processes of finding hidden costs and wasted money.
Once these processes are automated, you’ll be able to focus on what really matters - creating delicious dishes and drinks that delight your guests.
Want to learn more about the importance of an inventory management system and how it can be integrated into your restaurant or bar’s POS system? Contact Sculpture Hospitality today. Our team of local hospitality experts are here to help you improve your food and beverage inventory management processes.