Tracking methods

Keeping track of everything you use in your restaurant is crucial to determine profit or loss. We’ve found that many small restaurants are great at ordering supplies, but terrible at tracking inventory. Therefore, they don't really know an accurate cost of goods, which is one key factor in determining profitability. In this section, we explain the basics of proper inventory management, and suggest a simple, commonly used method for small restaurants that provides a weekly snapshot of how you're doing of cost of goods and profitability. 

 

ordering systems

In this section, we discuss automated systems available from various suppliers that can make ordering much easier.  We also discuss the potential issues of outside suppliers controlling inventory and ordering at the same time that a small business may be trying to increase profitability. 

 

paper goods

Papers goods include bathroom items, towels, napkins, misc. To-Go containers, beverage cups, plates, baskets, boxes, clamshells and other service items. Keeping the number of paper goods in your inventory to a minimum is our goal while at the same time discussing cost-effective solutions that will help your bottom line. We present a great list of suppliers that offer cost-effective solutions for all your paper goods at the same time providing you with simple paper goods inventory management solutions.

 

group buying plans

Group discount plans are a great way to save some money on various supplies. Like multiple locations of the same restaurant, suppliers are attracted to groups of buyers with similar needs. As volume goes up, your price comes down, or should we say the suppliers get more competitive. 

 

Labeling, Expiration & Rotation

If we buy food and it expires we're buying too much or not rotating properly. Proper labeling, rotation and food usage logs can help solve this problem. In addition, when you go to restaurant supply store you must be checking expiration dates or you will be throwing it away or wasting time and fuel going back to exchange it. There are very good rotation methods that help you internally and we present those, along with guidelines from health departments on the placement of food items in storage to prevent contamination and health inspection violations. We provide details on various systems in this section.

 

Personal use

Many small restaurant owners buy items for personal use when ordering supplies or picking things up at the store. While this may seem like a great way to get the business to pay for your food, there are several things wrong with it. We provide examples and suggestions for personal use and monitoring the system in general for the purchase of non-business items.