What is free restaurant inventory management?
If you're a restaurant, you have to manage your inventory. However, it can be challenging to keep track of everything. This is because there are a lot of factors that go into an inventory and these factors depend on the menu and the type of food you serve. A free inventory management software can help you simplify this process. By choosing a free restaurant inventory software, you'll be able to reduce your time spent on manual tasks like checking each item manually and making sure they're all accounted for in your database.
Top 3 Free Restaurant Inventory Management Software Solutions
Free Restaurant Inventory Management Apps? What are those?
One of the most important aspects of running a successful foodservice business is managing the restaurant inventory. And if you are just starting out as a small business, it is even more important for you to keep track of all inventory usage. But how to do this without burning a hole in your pocket and not deploying the entire workforce on restaurant management? The answer is free restaurant inventory management software.
The free inventory software that are designed for restaurants, diners, coffee shops etc do all the inventory tracking in real time while also plugging gaps and reducing wastage. The real timecloud basedinventory management software will work for free and streamline your restaurant operations, integrate with your POS system, track sales orders, inventory usage and also generate reports on these to help you optimize your business.
What do Free Restaurant Inventory Management Apps Offer?
- Restaurant Inventory Software work to streamline your restaurant operations by keeping track of all purchase orders from the vendors, sales orders, recipes and what inventory items are being used. And all this inventory tracking is done on a real time basis, thus reducing the scope of errors, wastage or theft. The inventory management software also automates the entire inventory management process and reduces the manual labor needed in doing the job.
- The easy to use restaurant management software not only manages the food inventory but also supports integration with other tech solutions used by the restaurants such as accounting software or online ordering tools etc.
- Some of the free restaurant inventory management software also assists business owners with sales reports, variance reports and other analytical tools to help them get a better overview of the business operations.
Manage your inventory in a way that will help you avoid costly mistakes.
These free restaurant inventory management software solutions are designed to help you manage your inventory better and reduce supply costs.
Inventory Software No. 1
Floreant is a restaurant Management Software and point of sale system that is open source and is offered for free. The easy to use cloud based inventory management system offers tools such as real time inventory tracking, accounting and POS system management. Floreant also integrates with other tech tools such as third party payment processing tools, restaurant POS, menu management and recipe management, online ordering etc.
The restaurant inventory management software works on mobile devices such as tablets and runs on Linux, Windows or Mac systems. You can also generate financial and analytical reports, manage cash terminals and also coordinate with your kitchen operations using the Floreant system.
- According to Restaurant Dive, restaurant owners across the industry incurred losses of $240 billion due to the pandemic in 2020.
- In 2020, 50% of the limited-service restaurants became distressed due to changes in consumer behaviour, said a report by AlixPartners.
Inventory Software No. 2
The Odoo inventory management software is also among the top free inventory management solutions available right now. The all-in-one restaurant management software supports unlimited users, across multiple locations and also an unlimited number of menu items, transactions. Odoo's inventory software issues alerts when stock levels run low and integrate with POS systems and supply chain tools to give better inventory control.
For small businesses, the Odoo inventory software can do wonders, however, if you need advanced features such as barcode scanning, scheduling etc, you may have to opt for a paid plan.
Inventory Software No. 3
The Square Inventory Management software is a user-friendly restaurant management system that supports unlimited users across multiple locations in a business. The Square inventory management software is available as a mobile app on both iOS and Android devices. The inventory tracking system is easy to use, integrates with restaurant POS, accounting software, online ordering and all other essential tools you may be using for your business.
Square also offers small businesses an e-commerce platform and has limited customer service hours. The free version of Square restaurant inventory management software also does not support barcode scanning.
You don’t have time or the resources to manage your inventory manually.
These free restaurant inventory management apps help make inventory management easier and more efficient.
Free Inventory Management App Versus Paid Inventory Software
- Although the free Restaurant Inventory might serve most of your purposes if you are a small business, you would often find some limitations on the features and tools on offer.
- Paid inventory management software such as Zip Inventory by Hubworks offer insightful reports and analytics such as waste tracking, variance and Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) reports that can help the restaurant management make better business decisions.
- The advanced features offered by restaurant inventory management systems also include ordering assistance whenever your inventory stocks are low and you need to place purchase orders. The system will prompt you with ordering suggestions, send reminders and notifications and make the ordering process smooth with a few clicks.
- The real time inventory tracking system will not let your food inventory pile up on dead stock. The inventory stocks will be constantly moved and optimized by the system to give you the best results and no wastage. Be it any Fresh Produce or packaged goods, the inventory management system will keep moving the stocks according to their shelf life.
Inventory Management Software FAQs
Q1- How to know the optimum inventory levels for each product?
A- When you are trusted with restaurant management or particularly inventory management, you would not want to horde extra goods that add to your bills but do not give any returns. Similarly, you would also not want to run out of stocks while the kitchen is running. So you need to calculate your Inventory Turnover ratio and find the optimum level for your restaurant where you will find the perfect balance between hoarding and running out of stock.
Q2- How to choose the right inventory software?
A- Firstly, think of all your business needs, the scale of operations at the moment and what kind of tools you need for better restaurant management. Each restaurant, diner or bar will have different requirements and each will have to choose an inventory management system that best suits their needs. Find out if you need third party integrations, all-in-one inventory management systems, inventory tracking with POS system integration or what else. Then find out the best product that serves all these purposes and then start looking at the pricing models to finalize on the software.
You’ve been using the same manual system to manage your inventory for years. It's time to get something new.
Try these free restaurant inventory management apps. You’ll wonder why you hadn’t switched to software sooner.