Why should you care about inventory management ? Inventory is money and its management plays an important role in an environment where the organization suffers from poor cash flow or has no control over electronic information transfer among departments and suppliers, lead times, and quality of materials received. Obtaining and holding inventory is necessary to manage predictability, fluctuations in demand, unreliability of supply, price protection, buffer or safety quantities, anticipation stock, or transit products. Cloud computing approaches offer an added advantage of lowering IT costs by driving out administrative operations.
Inventory management is a necessity in every business, but more and more restaurants are realizing that it can be the difference between success and failure. Inventory management is the process of controlling costs and waste through effective use of on-hand product. When it comes to a restaurant's inventory, it is important to realize that you are not only talking about the food itself, but about the food items used to cook or process the food (shortening for deep frying, seasonings, drinks, garnishes etc.) but also about the items used to prepare and present the food and to set the atmosphere (paper placemats, plastic flatware, straws, napkins, disposable cups etc.).
Being aware of what products you use in your day-to-day services as well as how many you use and the cost of each product (as well as how that cost translates into the cost of sale passed on to the customer) all come together to create the 'big picture' of your inventory and what you need to have on hand in order to maintain the integrity of your service.
But the most important thing that any restaurant owner can do, however, is to find a way to not only organize their inventory, but to maximize their tracking of foods and supplies as well as streamline their re-ordering of needed items. Through the use of Inventory management software you will be able to control what you are actually purchasing and what you are using. These programs are able to monitor very closely all those items that you will purchase to run your business and if at any time will highlight when additional stocks or inventory may be required.
The more efficient your overall inventory system is the smoother your food production process will be; the more customers you will be able to serve in the same period of time, and the quicker you will be able to replace the supplies used so that more food can be prepared and more customers served. The end result, of course, is that by the most effective use of your restaurant's inventory management, the higher your restaurant profitability will be, and in this economy, that is definitely something to cheer about.
Specializing in Inventory and Asset Management, Ikonnect RMS applications include inventory control, warehouse management and asset tracking. Our software runs on mobiles, tablets and computers. The results are cost effective with easy to apply solutions. For more information about Ikonnectrms software applications, visit or contact us at
