Comprehensive Restaurant Inventory and Procurement Management System Development

1. Background

I own between 5 and 10 restaurants. Today, stock, ingredients and supplier orders are managed inconsistently across sites — some branches use spreadsheets, some use paper, some rely on the manager's memory. There is no single place where I can see what stock we hold, what we are spending, or which branch is wasting money.

I want one system that all branches use, and that gives me a single view across all of them.

This document describes what the system must do, not how to build it. I am not technical. I expect the developer to make the technical decisions and explain them to me in plain language.


2. Goal

In one sentence: I want to know what stock every branch has, what they are ordering, what they are paying, and what they are wasting — without phoning each manager.

If the system does that reliably and my staff actually use it, the project is a success. Everything else is secondary.


3. Scope

3.1 In scope


Ingredient and product catalogue
Supplier records and price lists
Purchase orders to suppliers
Recording deliveries (goods received)
Stock levels per branch
Stock counts (stocktakes)
Stock transfers between branches
Waste and spoilage recording
Reporting across all branches
User accounts and permissions


3.2 Explicitly out of scope

The following are not part of this project. Do not price for them. Do not build them.


Taking customer orders / till / POS
Card payments
Table bookings or reservations
Staff rotas, shifts, or payroll
Customer loyalty schemes
A public website or ordering app
Accounting (the system does not replace my accountant's software)


If you believe any of these must be included for the rest to work, say so in your proposal and explain why, rather than assuming.

3.3 The one big decision (please address this in your proposal)

Stock goes down when food is sold. This system does not connect to the tills.

That means the system will only know stock has decreased when someone tells it — via a stocktake, or a waste entry. Between stocktakes, the number on screen will drift away from reality.

I understand this. I am accepting it for now. But in your proposal, please tell me:


Whether you think this is workable, or a fatal flaw
What it would cost later to connect the tills (my branches use a mix of systems — I will provide details)
How you would design the system now so that connection is possible later without a rebuild


Please do not build the till connection now. I want to see the basic system working first.