Inventory is the lifeblood of all restaurants and bars, focusing on all the supplies required to streamline different functions. It is essential to track all the items you have in stock because they significantly impact your daily services.

Your inventory management tactics and strategies make or break your business. So, it is a core aspect of your restaurant, and neglecting kitchen inventory management can lead to severe consequences and affect your bottom line.

That’s why we recommend employing a food inventory software and restaurant order management system to optimize all essential inventory operations. Here are a few tips and tricks to manage your kitchen inventory. Read on!

The Importance of Kitchen Inventory Management

There are several reasons to check, analyze, and manage your kitchen inventory. Food inventory software with a restaurant order management system can ensure you have essential materials on hand.

Most restaurants face the common problem of running out of key ingredients, especially in the middle of a busy day. If you want to avoid inventory issues, make sure you implement a sophisticated restaurant order management system.

Prevent Food Waste

Research shows that restaurants that fail to implement a kitchen inventory strategy waste up to 10% of food before the staff serves them. As a result, they hurt their profits and fail to maintain sustainability practices. However, you can avoid these problems by using food inventory software.

Better Food Cost Percentages

Tracking your kitchen inventory is directly proportional to achieving healthy food percentage costs, drive more revenue, and increase your overall returns on investments (ROIs). A food inventory software integrated with an inventory management system like KEXY can help you calculate restaurant food costs.

Accurate Profit Margins

One of the primary benefits of managing your kitchen inventory is to achieve more accurate profit margins. Restaurant staff who do not know how much inventory they use can lead to challenges, including calculating the earnings on different levels. On the other hand, when you have a solid strategy in place and use a restaurant order management system, you will have peace of mind.

How to Manage Kitchen Inventory – Best Practices

According to QRS Magazine, 75% of restaurants and bars find it challenging to optimize their business operations and streamline profits. The primary reason is the increasing food costs. Inventory management software like KEXY can help you overcome this issue. Here are a few tips you must keep in mind as you begin to track and manage your kitchen inventory. Continue reading!

Implement an Inventory Receiving System

While running your restaurant operations, you will have deliveries before and during service. Many deliveries fall on the same day, making it slightly overwhelming for restaurant operators to manage it.

That’s why we recommend setting a process or system for receiving orders. Make sure that all the items and their quantities dropped off match the delivery invoice before signing off. Add the initials and dates to all invoices. The purpose is to go back and ask your team for additional information if you need to analyze records.

Employ Inventory Training Program

Because your restaurant is a busy place and has many needs, it is often challenging to handle things that spring up simultaneously. Training your team or staff on inventory management allows them to receive, enter, and check kitchen inventory correctly. A well-trained team can keep an eye out for when supplies get high or low.

Choose a team responsible for “owning” the inventory processes. Remember, this includes how they receive and organize products. We recommend looking for trustworthy individuals with strong analytical skills to get the job done accurately.

Ensure your staff understands inventory processes and is adept at the food inventory software you use in the restaurant. Your team must know different inventory categories, including purchase units, food inventory lists, issue units, etc.

Count Inventory and Organize Sheets

Establish a set frequency for your kitchen inventory count. You can do this weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, yearly, and even daily. When you focus on inventory management, it becomes easier to identify and fix issues.

Make it easy for your managers and staff by organizing inventory sheets. Ensure the sheets align with products’ location on the shelves. The purpose is to ensure the inventory-taker does not run back and forth between different locations.

Although two people can streamline the process, such as one will count, and the other will record the information on sheets. However, if you want to optimize these processes further, we recommend implementing KEXY, a cloud-based inventory management solution.

Set Inventory Par Levels

A par level refers to the minimum quantity of a specific item in your inventory. For instance, if your on-hand items’ amount is lower than the par level, make sure you order what you require to bring things back up to par. Besides, cycle your menus to establish accurate par levels quickly.

Using KEXY, a highly effective and easy-to-use inventory management software, help you monitor inventory and focus on efficiencies of cross-utilization. When you find out that an ingredient is wasted or spoiled because the staff didn’t use enough of it, make sure you find ways to integrate the ingredient into other dishes.

In addition, cross-utilization can lower the number of items in your kitchen inventory. Analyze your inventory data using KEXY, especially when changing menus, to minimize waste and achieve your goals.

Final Words

Inventory management is one of the most challenging tasks for restaurants. Because it is the backbone of your business, you need to optimize inventory management to achieve your profitability goals. KEXY is an effective restaurant order management system that makes all aspects of your inventory processes easier.

KEXY is compatible with ordering recipes, invoice system, monitoring of costs of goods sold (CoGS), inventory trends, inventory valuation, and many other aspects. KEXY is easy to use for all members of inventory teams in restaurants. Therefore, it is crucial to implement KEXY inventory management software, leading to improved kitchen inventory operations and increased ROIs. Get KEXY Today!

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