As you already know, managing a restaurant is a 24-hour job. Given that we all live and work in the digital era, it only makes sense to make use of technology to run your restaurant more efficiently.
Following is a list of restaurant management apps available to make your life easier.
1. Orderly
This app keeps everything in your restaurant running in an “orderly” manner. Accounting, inventory, and accounting are all managed within a single app. Take pictures of all your invoices by snapping a quick pic as they come in with your phone. Export GL spend reports and allow the app to organize them for easy future reference. Orderly also allows you to track supplier pricing trends to ensure profits never dip due to unnoticed changes.
2. DineTime
DineTime makes it easy to manage reservations at your restaurant. The app organizes reservations, and includes a consumer app that allows them to read up on your offerings in advance, view wait times, and book a table. The app also allows easy integration of loyalty programs.
3. Feedly
Feedly gives mobile users instant access to the news, trends, and content they find most useful and/or entertaining. Content in Feedly is easy to read, and makes a perfect tool for finding shareworthy social content for your followers.
4. 7shifts
7shifts is another great app that lets you ditch traditional paperwork and bring your employee-management into the digital age. The app gives you all the tools needed to manage scheduling and labor expenses from your mobile device. Drag and drop staff members into shift assignments based on their skills and availability. 7shifts easily integrates into any POS, helps manage labor costs, and sends notifications directly to employee’s smartphones.
5. BlueCart
BlueCart is all about inventory management on the fly. Use it to order from each of your suppliers the minute inventory starts to get low, in order to maximize profits and reduce/eliminate spoilage costs. BlueCart catalogs inventory as it comes in, and is touted to reduce food costs by up to 50 percent.
6. FreshBooks
FreshBooks allows you to complete all accounting tasks from your smartphone or preferred device. Create invoices, take payments, track expenses, track your time, automate follow-up correspondences, and print out reports quicker than ever before.
7. Buffer
Buffer allows you to set a date and time to make posts to each of your social media accounts. Buffer is a do-it-once, set-and-forget process that can free up countless hours of your time spent managing social. This app is simple and great for hammering out posts on the go and allowing the app to distribute to your accounts based on the schedules you plug into it.
8. EverNote
EverNote is perfect for taking and keeping all your notes in one place, including audio, downloaded attachments, links, and checklists you use to manage your restaurant. Use the team account and you and your employees can collaborate together no matter where you are.
9. Hootsuite
Hootsuite gathers all your social media accounts in one app. Post scheduling, trend research, analytics monitoring, and campaign management are all possible using Hootsuite. You can also manage employee permission levels to each of your accounts, in addition to assigning specific tasks and assignments to those subordinates.
10. Outlook/Gmail
A few years ago, business owners and managers shunned free email services because “@gmail.com” or “@outlook.com” didn’t convey a professional image. Now, both providers offer branded emails, where you can combine the tools each platform offers, while using your own @yourdomain in the address. Why use your webhost or a self-hosted solution and lose the reliability offered by two of the biggest tech providers on the planet?
11. Zenefits
Zenefits eliminates the need for costly HR tools by giving you exactly what you need to manage employee payroll, benefit info, time-off request, review previous pay stubs, and virtually anything else a restaurant manager would require.
12. MailChimp
MailChimp is the most affordable and reliable emailing solution for a small business. They offer tools to get compliant opt-ins and keep in touch with your list with updates, offers, and marketing campaigns. You can automate all your email marketing and make use of proven templates offered on the platform. Best, if you have a small niche list of customers, you likely won’t ever have to pay for MailChimp.
13. Restaurateur
Restauranteur allows you to build profit and loss statements to ensure you’re always operating within budget and maximizing profits. Perfect for single businesses or when you expand and open new locations and need a mobile cost-monitoring solution.
14. Review Trackers
Plain and simple app that all restaurateurs need to have. Plug in your restaurant name and Review Trackers will monitor social and review platforms and collate those reviews on your phone.