Restaurant and catering management software: a practical guide

The real problem of a restaurant with no system

A restaurant or a catering company can have high revenue and low profit. The reason is almost always the same: the food cost —what the ingredients of each dish or each event cost— is estimated by eye. You over-buy and it expires; you under-buy and run out at the worst moment; ingredients disappear in waste, mis-portioning or theft, and nobody sees it because there's nothing to compare against. At month end the owner looks at the bank and can't understand why it doesn't add up.

What good restaurant software controls

• Purchasing from suppliers: each ingredient purchase with its cost, updating inventory.
• Recipes and costing: the ingredient list of each dish and its calculated cost.
• Production: when you cook a batch (a sauce, bread, dough) it deducts the ingredients and adds the finished product.
• Ingredient inventory: real stock of each ingredient, in real time.
• Sales and cash: what goes out through the floor, the catering event or delivery, and the shift's cash movement.
• Daily close: physical count against theoretical, to see real shrinkage.
• Fuel and delivery, if you run your own delivery or take the food to events by vehicle.

Recipes and food cost: the heart of the system

The key to restaurant software is the recipe. You enter once what each dish contains —200 g of meat, 50 g of cheese, one bun— and the system calculates its cost from current purchase prices. When you sell that dish, it deducts those ingredients from inventory. So, without counting by hand, you know:

• How much each dish costs you and what margin it leaves.
• Which dishes make you money and which you sell at almost no profit.
• How much ingredient you should have based on what you sold (the "theoretical").
• The cost per cover of a catering menu before you send the quote.

The daily close: where shrinkage shows up

At the end of the shift you do a quick physical count of the critical ingredients. The system already knows how much you should have (bought minus sold). The gap between the real count and the theoretical is your shrinkage: breakage, mis-portioning, unrecorded comps or theft. Seeing it every day, even for three or four ingredients, changes the operation.

Multiple sites

If you have more than one site, a franchise or several lines (dining room + catering), the system should let you see each one separately and also consolidated, without adding up spreadsheets by hand.

How Ledyvas does it

Ledyvas for restaurants and catering covers purchasing, suppliers, recipes, production, ingredient inventory, sales, cash, fuel control and daily close, with users and permissions. It installs on Windows, works without a permanent connection and is paid once. It exports to QuickBooks, Alegra, Zoho Books, Odoo and Xero, so your accountant gets everything tidy.

It also has a mode for tour operators —where food and drink are calculated per PAX of the day— that can be turned on or off. Download the free trial and try it with the real menu and suppliers of your restaurant or catering service.