Why are invoices so important for restaurants? 

Protecting profitability — not to mention growing margins — is paramount during periods of economic turmoil and historic food inflation. Restaurant operators need accurate and actionable data to achieve either.

With so many ingredients and products regularly funneling into restaurants, it’s critical for operators to get a handle on ingredient price fluctuations. Restaurant invoice automation unlocks this data, making it easy to analyze and act on.

How does invoice automation help restaurants gain control of costs?

Restaurants must consistently capture changes to their supplier product costs — from meats, dairy, produce, and pantry staples to packaging and paper goods, alcohol, and more.

It’s hard enough to just manually input the daily invoice barrage. Gleaning insights and comparing price changes is out of reach without proper systems in place, which is where invoice automation comes in.

Invoice automation platforms check all the boxes. These systems digitize your invoice data, recording the supplier, date of delivery, products, quantity, and prices. Cost data is passed to accounting systems, aligned with defined general ledger codes. And then more powerful systems, such as xtraCHEF by Toast, provide granular reporting at the ingredient level.

Operators can roll this in-depth analysis into recipe costing and see real-time food costs for every item on the menu. This is essential for maintaining cost control, strategically pricing the menu, and more.

This Restaurant Invoice Automation Guide runs through all the mechanisms, impacts, and benefits of implementing such a system. Download today to learn how to better manage invoice processing and gain greater costing insights.