Monitor consumables across kitchen and bar
Each kitchen, walk-in, and bar station has its own stock and reorder rule. Counts capture real usage instead of a guess at end of week.
Industry · Hospitality operations
Restaurants inventory software
Most kitchen counts happen at midnight on a clipboard, or not at all. The walk-in becomes a black box between weekly counts. Specials sell through and the line runs out mid-service because somebody forgot to reorder the secondary protein. Restaurant inventory software tracks supplies, consumables, and equipment across kitchens, walk-ins, and storage. Operations and chefs see what's on the line, what's in the walk-in, and what needs reordering.
Jobs to be done
What restaurants teams use Order3 for
Track equipment and small wares
Sheet pans, hotel pans, smallwares, and shared equipment track with a record of where they live and where they've moved.
Manage multi-location stock
Multi-unit operators see stock across locations. Inter-location transfers happen with a scan instead of a phone call.
Reduce emergency buys at full retail
Reorder points and low-stock alerts catch shortages a day or two before service. Emergency runs to a retail store stop being routine.
Standardize counts across shifts and locations
Counts happen on the mobile app with the same flow every time. New managers and locations get up to speed faster.
Operator outcome
One inventory record across yards, trucks, jobsites, and stockrooms. Less guessing, fewer counter runs, cleaner records.
Walk through your workflowThe problem
Why inventory breaks for restaurants
Two enemies: time and tempo. Counts happen at midnight on a clipboard or not at all. The walk-in becomes a black box between weekly counts. Specials sell through and the kitchen runs out mid-service because somebody forgot to reorder the secondary protein. Bar inventory is even worse. Measurement is by sight on a hung-over Sunday morning. Multi-unit operators see the same problems multiplied, with one location quietly subsidizing another's emergency runs. Spreadsheets help one organized chef. They don't survive line cooks, multiple shifts, or new GMs.
A typical workflow in Order3
Restaurants workflow from count to approval
- Step 01
Receive at the back door
Inbound deliveries scan against the order at the back door. Shortages, damage, and substitutions get flagged before the truck leaves.
- Step 02
Stage to walk-in, dry, or bar
Stock moves to the right storage area with a scan. Each move keeps cost-center context.
- Step 03
Use, count, and prep
Prep counts capture usage. Walk-in counts run on a schedule. Bar counts happen at shift change or end of day.
- Step 04
Reorder and replenish
Reorder points and the Purchasing Agent draft replenishment for chef or GM approval. Vendor orders go out on a normal cadence.
Order3 for restaurants
How Order3 helps restaurant teams
Each kitchen, walk-in, dry storage, and bar station is a real location. Scanning at receiving captures inbound and flags shortages before the truck leaves. Multi-location tracking shows stock across locations for multi-unit operators. Low-stock alerts fire before the kitchen runs out. The Purchasing Agent drafts replenishment to the right vendor at the right cadence; chef or GM approves. The mobile app makes prep counts and walk-in counts a five-minute task on a phone instead of a clipboard project. Activity history turns 'where did all the salmon go?' into a five-minute lookup. Order3 is general inventory; it doesn't replace specialized recipe-costing or POS-integrated food-cost tools.
Feature
Barcode scanning
Scan an item, confirm a quantity, and update the record from the floor. Order3 reads UPC, EAN, Code 128, Code 39, QR, and GS1 DataMatrix from an iOS or Android camera, plus Bluetooth handheld scanners that act as keyboards.
Feature
Multi-location tracking
Multi-location tracking means you can answer 'where is it' without calling someone. One workspace holds stock across warehouses, retail shops, trucks, jobsites, stockrooms, zones, and bins. Each keeps its own balance. Transfers between locations are first-class events, not adjustments hidden inside a global total.
Feature
Low-stock alerts
Most low-stock alerts are noise. This one shows up with the lead time factored in, the right owner attached, and a next action one click away. Hand off to the purchasing agent for a draft, request a transfer from another location, or dismiss with a documented reason. Dashboards that nobody opens twice were not the goal.
Feature
Purchasing Agent
Eight items are below reorder point. Two purchase orders are already inbound. The agent prepares a draft with quantities, supplier context, and the calculation behind each line. Nothing goes to a supplier until a person approves it.
Onboarding reality
What to expect when you switch
Start with one location and the walk-in plus dry storage. A day to import items and locations. Walk the back of house with the app and scan or photo what's there. Week one: chef, sous, GM. Plan the first walk-in count under Order3 during a slow night, after the rush. Reorder points sharpen after a few weeks of real prep data. Today, specific POS, recipe-costing, and accounting integrations are not GA. For deep food-cost analysis tied to ticket-level data, pair Order3 with a recipe-costing tool.
Inventory use cases for restaurants
The workflows this team actually runs
Use case
Supplies & Consumables Tracking
The clipboard taped to the supply room door fails the moment somebody forgets to mark a box. Then it's Friday afternoon, the practice is out of size M nitrile, and someone is driving to the medical supply store. Supplies tracking software is what stops that cycle.
Use case
Equipment Tracking
Two crews booked the same generator for Saturday. Nobody knew until Friday at 4. Equipment tracking software is the system that makes that impossible. Order3 tracks shared equipment by location, logs assignment and condition, and answers 'is it free?' from a phone.
Use case
Inventory Management
Two people just bought the same case of widgets because the spreadsheet hadn't been touched since Thursday. Order3 keeps the item list, shelf count, location, reorder rule, PO draft, and approval history together.
Use case
Barcode Inventory
Code 128 on the bin. UPC on the box. Scan, scan, done. Barcode inventory software replaces handwritten counts with a clean record at the moment the action happened. Order3 turns a phone into the scanner: receive, count, transfer, and pick all run from the mobile app.
Guides for restaurants operators
Read before you switch
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Guide
The multi-location inventory playbook
Multi-location inventory has three layers: bin, location, region. Track stock at every physical place it rests, with separate quantities, separate reorder rules, and a clear record of every movement between locations. Get the location hierarchy and transfer accountability right and the rest of the system follows. Get them wrong and every report lies.
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Guide
Reorder points explained: formula, examples, and how to set them
A reorder point is the inventory level that triggers a replenishment order before you stock out. Formula: ROP = (Average Daily Usage × Lead Time in Days) + Safety Stock. Set it for the items where shortages cost a job, a customer, or a margin. Ignore it for the long tail until you have usage data.
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Guide
Cycle counting vs. physical inventory: which one to run, and how often
Cycle counting is a recurring partial count of inventory that keeps records accurate without halting operations. A physical inventory is a full count of everything, usually done annually. Most small and mid-sized teams should rely on weekly cycle counts for 90% of accuracy work and run a full physical once a year for finance.
Restaurants inventory FAQ
Does Order3 calculate food cost from recipes?
Not as a primary feature. Order3 is inventory management software focused on what's on the shelf, what's been consumed, and what needs reorder. Recipe-level food-cost analysis tied to POS ticket data is a different category of tool. We'd rather be honest about that than gesture at a feature that isn't ready. Many restaurants pair Order3 with a dedicated recipe-costing tool: Order3 as the operational inventory record, the costing tool for menu-level analysis.
How does it handle the walk-in count?
Walk-in counts run on the mobile app with a scan or photo flow. A line cook or sous can complete a walk-in count in well under an hour, depending on volume, instead of the multi-hour clipboard exercise it usually replaces. Variances surface immediately. The chef sees the full picture without a paper handoff. Most kitchens move from a single weekly count to mid-week spot counts and see waste drop visibly within the first month.
Can we run multi-location inventory across our restaurants?
Yes. Each location has its own stock with its own reorder rules. Multi-location tracking shows all locations to operators and finance while keeping each unit's day-to-day view focused. Inter-location transfers scan with a record of who moved what. The end-of-month conversation between locations gets grounded in data instead of memory.
Does it integrate with our POS or accounting system?
Direct integrations with specific POS and accounting systems are not part of v1. Today's pattern: use Order3 as the operational inventory record, with export-based or webhook sync to whatever POS and accounting tools the restaurant runs. As approved connectors expand, deeper integrations roll out. On Toast, Square, or QuickBooks? Ask about current state.
How does the AI Purchasing Agent help with reorder?
The Purchasing Agent finds items running low against real prep and walk-in usage, checks vendor and lead-time context, and prepares a draft order to the right vendor. A chef or GM approves, edits, or dismisses before the order goes out. Any future order execution needs explicit policy controls. For most kitchens, chef approval is the right line, especially with seasonal pricing and substitution decisions.
What about bar inventory and liquor counts?
Bar inventory tracks with the same multi-location, scanning, and reorder logic as the kitchen. For weight-based or pour-tracking systems specific to bar programs (Berg, Barvision, etc.), Order3 doesn't replace those. It sits alongside them as the operational inventory record. If your bar program runs on a pour-tracking system, treat Order3 as the receiving and storage record and let the pour-tracking handle the per-pour math.
Adjacent industries
Start with your restaurants inventory loop.
Create the first workspace around a real shortage, reorder question, or location mismatch. Use expert help when the rollout spans teams, systems, or approvals.