Purchasing / Ordering - How does it Work?

A very time consuming task for restaurant management is the task of handling reorders of ingredients. A “just-in-time” method of ordering product is key to ensure a proper inventory to meet demand and a low level of spoilage. The quicker the turn-around time of orders, the less guess work your management staff has to do to forecast sales demand.

Recipe Manager comes bundled with a “front-end” ordering system. What this means is it allows the user to enter any ingredient and see a history of orders, but it is not a Purchase Order system. However, it is very simple to interface it to a purchase order system. Once the interface is established into your PO system, you can see all the orders placed (open orders, received orders, back-orders, etc.) for an item just by clicking on the “Purchases” tab.

When interfacing to a Purchase Order system (such as the PO System module bundled in EnterprisePOS), Recipe Manager becomes the Restaurant Manager for you. It will determine when ingredient inventory levels are low and will notify the PO system to generate purchase orders when necessary.

As described within the Inventory / Interfacing page, the Menu Writer tool included with Recipe Manager will check the minimum stock (par) levels when product is committed for preparation. Any inventory item (ingredient) used that falls below par will initiate a notification for purchase order generation automatically. Recipe Manager watches the stock levels for you and tells your purchase order system exactly WHEN to order. However, a purchase order can be manually generated from within any inventory item record as well.

For example, if you wanted to manually generate an order for “flour”, you would first select the item in the “Inventory” section of Recipe Manager using the easy-to-use Windows Explorer user interface…

When you find the ingredient you want to reorder, simply open it to access the “Purchases” tab…

The “Purchases” tab for the item shows all order history. To add another order, just click ADD NEW.

To fire off a Purchase Order in the company POS system, simply click NEW PO. This button will be visible if the interface to a Purchase Order system is setup.

When the button is clicked, a purchase order in the POS system is instantly generated!

Once the PO is generated, Recipe Manager will track it within its own system. If the Purchase Order module is being used with Recipe Manager (as shown above), you can schedule your orders in Microsoft Outlook and be notified when the order is scheduled to be received the next day or so. Do this right from your email like a scheduled meeting! EnterprisePOS Purchase Order module will also auto-email or fax vendor orders for you!

With Recipe Manager and a compatible Purchase Order system, you will have the power you need to track purchases and orders easily to meet demand and minimize daily waste!