Save Time & Money with eHopper POS Ingredient Management [Complete Guide]

Imagine if you could install one piece of software in your quick serve restaurant ( QSR ), and make more money without raising prices?

Or even better…

What if there was a way you could accurately track every ingredient used in your QSR?

You’d probably love that, huh? 

Well, lucky for you, that’s exactly what we are going to share with you in this guide!

In this guide, we can show any type, or size, of QSR how to save money and increase profits with eHopper POS ingredients management with: 

• Automatic deductions
• Reducing food waste
• Managing deliveries
• Receiving alerts for low stock
• Forecast sales
• Export raw ingredients reports

With these techniques in place, you’ll start bring in more revenue and not have to increase the price of anything you sell!

Pretty sweet deal, huh? 

What is Ingredients Management?

When raw materials get mismanaged, big headaches occur. 

This is something that anyone who runs a QSR such as a restaurant, deli, bakery, or coffee shop already knows to be true.

Because of this, we hear from many QSR managers that are all looking for the same thing: a way to make money without raising prices. 

The answer we give to any QSR is always the same: ingredients management. 

Ingredients are the cornerstone of your success.  

Tracking your ingredients is an inventory management technique that will immediately increase QSR profits, without having to raise prices.

Just imagine, how simple running your restaurant would be if you could automatically manage your suppliers.   

Even more, what if you could keep track of all your meat, produce, and dairy products just based on what your customers order? 

Obviously this would save you time and money, which are the most valuable resources for any QSR.  

But, how can you do such a thing without superpowers? 

Simple, with an inventory management system that lets you track your raw ingredients. 

With the eHopper POS system, it’s easy to use the powerful inventory management features to accurately, and reliably, manage your all your ingredients. 

 

So how exactly will ingredients management make a QSR more money, without raising prices?

Automatic Deductions

The menu.

Where it all begins for a QSR.

The foundation of QSR ingredient management is built upon your menu.

With a POS system like eHopper, you can set up your menu to track all of your raw ingredients.

What does this mean?

When you sell any dish, the ingredient required to make it are automatically deducted from your inventory. 

It’s that simple!

Let’s assume your QSR is a pizzeria (we love pizza). 

Anytime you sell a pizza, the system deducts the ingredients used to make that pizza. 

So, at the end of the day, if your output is 60 pizza pies and you have 10lbs of cheese left in your inventory, the cheese used to make those 60 pizzas will be deducted from your cheese inventory. 

And, that 10lb number will be adjusted accordingly. 

The inventory management software frees you from having to do the math yourself! 

 

This is the same for sauce

The same for the pepperoni…

The same for each raw ingredient used to make your pie.  

This same concept can be applied to any type of QSR. 

Let’s pretend, instead of pizza, you own a cafe.

So, a customer comes in to your cafe  and orders a small coffee and an omelet. 

The omelet is made from 3 eggs, and includes ham and cheese.  

Now, using eHopper’s ingredients management, the number of eggs, and amount of ham and cheese are automatically deducted from your inventory levels.

This means you will always have accurate stock levels, so you never over/under sell ANYTHING. 

Wouldn’t that instantly make your life running a QSR easier?

This way anytime anyone orders an omelet, you know how much you sold + what you have left. 

By always keeping track of what you have on hand, and it updating in real time, your QSR can make more money without having to raise prices. 

Use Ingredients Management to Reduce Food Waste

The reason that Big Data is such a big deal in business is because of the insight it offers small business. 

And, this is true when it comes to the restaurant industry as well. 

A QSR represents the whole of hundreds of small, moving parts. 

All of these individual components, if tracked properly, can provide valuable insight into QSR and trends in your customer base. 

This is another proven way any QSR can make more money without raising prices.

When you use eHopper’s ingredients management to help you restock your inventory, you get a much clearer look at what you need to buy. 

Let’s think about this another way…

It’s no secret that between 4% and 10% of food is discarded before it even gets to a customer’s plate. 

Why? 

Because QSR managers are forced to try to guess how much food to order! 

This means that, on average, QSRs are throwing away up to 10% all the raw ingredients they buy! 

This is not a healthy business model, and most QSR owners don’t realize the right inventory management software will prevent this. 

Wouldn’t you like to stop throwing away 10% of everything you buy? 

Ingredients management means having detailed reports of what is being sold, along with how much of an ingredient you have in stock.

This simplifies reordering. 

And to make matters even more straightforward, your point of sale can be set up to communicate with your suppliers so that they automatically replenish your stock based on your needs, not your past orders.

eHopper POS inventory management software offers vendor management features which help restaurants run more efficient by:

• Tracking the source of all your ingredients
• Input vendor type
• Adding notes about vendor
• Saving vendor contact information
• Assigning each vendor a unique SKU
• And even by setting the product cost per vendor

Manage Delivery of Ingredients with Purchase Order Receiving

Another thing we hear a lot from QSR owners is always, purchase ordering.

Purchase orders are an excellent tool if you are looking for a straight forward way of managing your orders, as well as reviewing what you’ve purchased. 

They also provide insight into where your money is going. 

When you use inventory management software,  in conjunction with your purchase orders, you can easily track your deliveries.  

How will this make your QSR more money without raising any prices?  

Simple.

Time management saves money. 

On days when you know you are receiving an order, you can schedule appropriately.

Again, you need the right ingredients in stock to sell the dishes that generate income. 

To do so, you need to manage inventory in your QSR appropriately. 

You need the right people restocking the shelves, so you can focus on running your business. 

eHopper also helps QSRs save money with employee management. 

The right restaurant inventory management software can give you the necessary insight you need to manage your business. 

Receive Alerts When You Are Running Low

These days, notifications make the world go-round.

One ingredients management feature that every QSR will love is low stock alters. 

With the eHopper POS system, QSR managers can receive alerts when they are running low on any ingredient. 

Just think how much easier your life would be!

With eHopper you can set alerts when certain ingredients hit certain low stock levels. 

Your POS will literally tell you when it’s time to order more eggs, for example. 

 

Remove all of this guesswork!

Let your inventory management software free you of manually tracking stock – we all know you hate to do it anyway. 

That means less work for you, and the security of your QSR being fully stocked and making money!

This is yet another way your QSR can easily make more money without any extra work, on your end. 

Here’s a situation we hear from many QSR owners who reach out to us. 

A conference, or other event,  comes to your town.

But….you didn’t know about this event.

As a result, your QSR is SLAMMED with  extra customers.

So,  spend two days, three times as busy as you projected. 

While this is a great thing for sales, without ingredients management, can be disastrous for you inventory levels.

If you run out of ingredients to finish off the week, you’ll lose money.

Try eHopper today, risk free, and make more money without raising prices.   

When you have a reliable inventory management system that sends you alerts you can capitalize on both the unexpected rush along with the day to day projections without any setbacks. 

Run Inventory Reports for Raw Ingredients

Inventory management software does more than tell you what you need and when you are running low. 

There are a variety of reports you at your fingertips, which can tell you how your inventory correlates with spending and profit. 

You can run reports that tell you how much of an ingredient you have, and how much those ingredients will make. 

By streamlining your QSR inventory management system, you’ll see higher profits without having to raise the cost of your items. 

Also, you can generate reports on low turn ingredients.

This can help you adjust your menu.

You might see that certain ingredients are rarely sold, and therefore start purchasing less. 

BOOM – just like that your QSR if making more money without raising the price on anything a single penny!

There are reports that you can run to gain insight into just about any nuance of your restaurant. 

A smart QSR owner uses these reports to make extra money without working any harder. 

Forecast Sales with Inventory Management Software Free Reporting

QSRs are in a tough industry.

Margins are low and therefore you need to be able to predict how much money you will make in the future.

Every QSR needs to be able to accurately forecast sales. 

Forecasting helps you identify your customers so that you can meet your sales objectives. 

You need to try to figure out what days are the busiest, what times your biggest rush occurs, and what meals sell the most.

Why do you need to know all of this?  It’s a vital tool in planning the future activates of your restaurant. 

Let’s go back to our pizzeria example (we still love pizza)…

You’re trying to schedule your employees for the next week. 

However, one of your staff members is going on vacation that week.

This means that you will not have enough staff to cover 3 people, for each shift, each day of the week.

So, which days should you have 3 employees working?

Which days might you be ok with only 3 employees working?

eHopper makes this easy!

Using eHopper ingredients management, you’ll be able to tell which nights are your busiest. 

By exporting your sales report, you might notice that you sell twice as much on Friday and Saturday nights as you do Monday or Tuesday nights. 

This means that you need to schedule full staff for your busy nights. 

By having full staff on your busiest nights, you’re putting your pizza shop in the best position to make more money. 

And you did it without having to increase prices. 

With the right ingredient management solution, you can make forecasting much easier because you can see how these crucial moments in your restaurant’s operations performed in the past. 

Conclusion

It’s tough to compete as a QSR, there’s no questioning that.

While there are several ways to increase restaurant sales, it all starts with ingredients management. 

So, when any type of technology comes along that not only simplifies your job but increases the bottom line, you need to jump on it.  

How would you like your QSR to start making more money without having to raise your prices?

Get started with eHopper now, risk free, and increase your QSR profits without having to work any harder!