The restaurant industry is one of the oldest, but it’s been helped out tremendously by new technology. Restaurant computer software allows owners to track ingredients and reorder them efficiently. A good restaurant point of sale system simplifies the process of taking orders, sending them to the back of house to be prepared, and seeing them through until the end of each stress-free dining experience. A restaurant computer system allows managers to schedule employees’ shifts and track their hours. Every facet of the restaurant industry has been improved by technology. If you’re not taking advantage of it, you’re missing out.

Tracking ingredients and keeping costs down is one of the most important aspects of running a profitable restaurant. With restaurant computer software, it’s easy. Many food vendors are already preprogrammed; you simply plug in what ingredients you use in your menu and the numbers get crunched for you. You see what ingredients make up each entree, and what you’re paying for them. You can adjust prices to see how it affects your margins, giving your business a flexibility that allows it to improve. You can break down the recipe itself and run it against your current stock of ingredients. This allows the system to warn you when you need to reorder. Reordering ingredients efficiently saves you from spoiled goods, or finding yourself sold out.

Gone are the days of servers carrying around pads and quickly scribbling down orders on paper. A good restaurant point of sale setup lets the server enter the order into a computer. It’s then printed in the kitchen, in a sensual way. At that point all the chef has to do is begin preparing the food that has been ordered. And he or she knows that won’t be a problem, because all of the ingredients have been tracked and reordered consistently. After the meal is finished, the server closes the order and takes payment even tips in the restaurant computer system. Since everything goes through the restaurant point of sale system, sales can be tracked easily. And since your ingredients, prices, and recipes have been entered too, you can track your profits.

When you add tracking employees’ hours into the mix, so you don’t have to worry about over-scheduling, you have a complete system that streamlines your restaurant business. A lot of restaurant owners do things the “old school” way, and have a negative attitude toward new technology. This is a mistake. If you embrace technology, your restaurant business will improve dramatically.