Catering can be a complex business to manage with a lot of moving parts from suppliers, chefs, order management and delivery. For this reason, catering companies are always looking for great ways to simplify these logistics, reduce operating costs, streamline the ordering process, increase efficiency and otherwise better manage the business. It can be a lot to keep track of!
One great way to help accomplish all these things is to implement an effective catering software like FoodStorm. In this article, we’ll break down all the different ways that implementing a great catering software can boost your business and reduce running costs.
Staff are one of the greatest expenses for any catering business. Minimizing the effort for staff where possible is a major cost saving opportunity for a catering company, but since catering can be a very hands-on business, it can sometimes seem difficult to find places to automate the process.
That’s where catering software comes in! A great catering software can seamlessly manage your orders online for you and provide automated customer service, therefore reducing the need for hiring a dedicated salesperson or customer service representative. If customers can place their own orders online, then the money for that salary can be invested somewhere else in the business.
Catering software can help you generate quotes and proposals for new customers quickly, with automatic generation and easy-to-use templates. Using catering software for this can save you hours of manual labor by putting these together and reduce running costs by freeing up your time to focus on other facets of your business—like converting more new customers!
Catering software provides a quick and easy way to take orders online and track any order changes. While we all try our best, inevitably human error can happen when we try to track all our orders manually via the phone or email.
Having an automatic online order tracking system makes the ordering process fast and provides an accurate record, therefore reducing the potential for any mistakes, confusion or customer issues.
In addition to automatic order tracking, catering software can also automatically create production reports. This can save countless hours of work when compared to manually creating production reports and can increase report accuracy, as every product ordered is automatically entered into the report.
Automated production reporting can also increase efficiency in the kitchen and reduce running costs since casual staff don’t have to be on the floor as long to create the reports. And in the catering business, increased efficiency in the kitchen is always a great goal!
Great catering software can automatically create delivery logs, packing slips, stickers and delivery schedules for you. The software can automatically group deliveries together based on locations that are nearby or en route from each other. Grouping deliveries like this will prevent your drivers from doing multiple inefficient trips to get all their deliveries completed.
Implementing a great way to combine delivery schedules easily and efficiently can save time and decrease wear and tear on delivery vehicles—therefore greatly reducing running costs for both staff and transportation.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data is a powerful way to keep track of previous orders and customer information and gain valuable insights on your customers, as it can be difficult to keep this information organized manually. Save yourself lots of hours and manpower managing your customer information and automatically store it on the cloud and in one place with catering software.
Nobody likes to spend time on accounting matters, but accurate accounting is an important and necessary part of running any business. Luckily, catering software makes it easy with seamless accounting software integration.
Connecting your catering software with accounting software means that orders can be automatically transferred to software like MYOB, Xero, QuickBooks, and more—whichever software your business prefers. This can free up your time and reduce running costs by saving hours of manual entry every week and help you properly file your taxes, preventing any errors that might lead to tax penalties or overpaying.
There are countless ways catering software can help you reduce running costs within your catering business, but where do you start in your software research?
Contact our specialists today to discuss what your catering business needs and what FoodStorm can do for you.
