Square for Restaurants: Recipe/Ingredient Management

[Foodies718]

How has square inventory worked for you? I’m thinking about using it but I worry how it will work with items that use the same ingredients. Ex. Multiple dishes that use chicken. Would this work well with inventory management. If not what have you used that works? Thanks!

[#2]

+1 on this request.

Currently running a retail basic blank apparel store.

I'd like to start selling custom printed T-shirts(both on/offline), while keeping inventory of my blanks.

[AshleyK]

Hi @church600! I've merged your post with an existing thread. You can either use modifiers for this as @Valentina suggested or you can use a 3rd party partner like Peachworks. 

[Serendipitybrew]

Has this still not been added as a feature? We need to capability to run multiple number of items under the same item. We get 24 of each beer in, these can be sold as 1 single unit, 4 pack unit, and 6 pack. We have to change different prices for this, and we can not do this if inventory doesnt have the capability of pulling different unit numbers per transactions. This request was put in nearly 5 years ago with no change? Thats pretty unacceptable. 

[Moriss01]

I am creating an online plant sale fundraiser. I don't know how to manage inventory. I already placed my order with the greenhouse and I want to be sure I don't sell more than what I ordered. I have dozens of different plants, colors, pot size options, etc. For example: if I ordered 10 flats of pink petunias (48 plants/flat) from the greenhouse, I have a stock of 480. I am offering my customers the option of buying a Half Flat (24 plants) or Full Flat (48 plants). If a few customers order 3 Half Flats, how to I get 72 plants to be subtracted from my stock of 480?

[AshleyK]

Hi! Thank you for posting and welcome to the Seller Community!! I've merged your post to an existing thread where other sellers like @MichiganFarmsta also want some similar features. You should be able to find some workarounds here, but definitely let me know if not and we can continue working together. 

@pessosices @RTC and @RivertownGames may also be able to offer advice on how they've managed inventory like this in the past. 

[AshleyK]

Hi @Foodies718! We don't have ingredient tracking with Square, but you can look into our app partners that offer ingredient tracking like Peachworks.

You can find other similar inventory management partners in our App Marketplace. I can also loop in our Super Sellers who have experience in restaurant management to see what they use. 🙂

@bagelboss @Donnie-M @JamesSandbar @londontea @MAXSDELI @MichiganFarmsta @pessosices @pieous @porktaco @ryanwanner @sugarlab

[JamesSandbar]

Hey @Foodies718 

Yea for ingredient level items its a no go, but Single sell items can work ex. beer, retail, etc.

Like said above some some third party aps do work with ingredient level inventory but I have tired it. 

I track food and ordering with diningedge.net . They work directly with vendors for ordering, item price comparison, inventory and accounting. But don't integrate with square. Once your setup, all you do is count before your order ,it suggest your order par, you select the appropriate priced item and send you orders. Its a great product if you use multiple vendors. I have 8 food vendors and prices can really vary and you don't have to call in your order to each vendor. Just hit send, it sends it out to all vendors via online integration or email you confirm the invoices when item received or they can for you and it know what's coming in and what going out when you do you count. Then show cost vs sales you input from square. You just have to setup to your categories correctly in square should you have accurate food sales vs others like Beer, Liquor, Retail, Etc.

Good luck

let me know if you need anything.

[Donnie-M]

@Foodies718 I would recommend tracking a "key item" report.  I will give you a couple of examples.

1.  If you sell hamburgers:  All hamburgers use buns and burger patty.  You can categorize all those items together or do the inventory report and total all your sales for the day/week.  So lets use just burger patties, you would count your on hand burgers and compare to what the pos says you sold ( you are not really looking at the inventory numbers in square as much as the sales).  You can then see if these match up to look for loss/waste/theft.

2.  If you are a sub shop, you can't make a sub without bread.  Count the sub rolls the same way.

What you are really looking for is to track the top 5 or 10 expensive items daily/weekly to really control your food cost.  The problem with ingredient tracking in any software is the item build versus recipes.  I.E.  The recipe for ranch dressing is a batch recipe used across a ton of items.  How do you allocate each of those ingredients?  versus a build sheet for a burger that includes tomato and lettuce.  I use for example a spice factor when costing recipes to cover the salt pepper etc. for a batch recipe.  50lbs of onions only yields about 40lbs of usable onions.  There are tons of variables, so you manage what manners.

The important part of this is square is great at giving you an easy to read report of what you sell over any given period.  You can quickly use this data to figure out what kind of usage you should have.

Donnie-M

[tspoutlet]

+1 on this request.

Currently running a retail basic blank apparel store.

I'd like to start selling custom printed T-shirts(both on/offline), while keeping inventory of my blanks.

[blakeadesigns]

After looking around I don't see a viable solution to using the inventory in Restaurants.

Am I missing something.   I could only find that you add inventory to a single Item.
So if I sell hamburgers in 10 different menu items - I can't use it.

[blakeadesigns]

I guess NOT.     
After review this does not even come close to tracking basic items for a simple restaurant.
Square really needs to update the app to accommodate basic functional requirements.