Top 6 Food and Beverage software in 2024

11 minutes

Introduction

Running a food and beverage business has never been easy. From busy kitchens to crowded dining rooms, every day brings new challenges.

Think about it: How much time do you spend juggling inventory, staff schedules, and food safety compliance?

Wouldn’t it be great to have a digital assistant handling these tasks, freeing you up to focus on creating amazing food and experiences for your customers?

That’s exactly what the right food and beverage software can do for you.

The right software can benefit store managers, heads of operations, and HR managers with:

Intelligent staff scheduling
Advanced time management tools
Integrated quality control systems
Automated compliance monitoring systems
Centralized supplier management and order processing
Data-driven insights for menu optimization and customer engagement
Real-time inventory tracking

In this blog, we will walk you through some of the top features to look out for in food and beverage software and take a view of the top 6 software for the same. The software listed in this blog includes – KNOW, TouchBistro POS, 7Shifts, Silo, WISK, and ScheduleFly. We will also cover choosing the right one for your food and beverage business.

Key Features to Look for in Food and Beverage Software

1. Inventory Management

Effective inventory management is the core material of success in food and beverage business operations.

Real-time tracking is a game-changer. It shows what’s being used and sold instantly. This ensures you always have what you need. No more running out of ingredients or supplies.

Besides, the inventory management software also keeps your supply chain smooth. It reduces waste too. You’ll always know what you have on hand. You’ll also know exactly what you need to order.

2. Order Management

Order management simplifies handling orders from different sources. A good food and beverage software combines online and in-store orders. This creates a single platform for all orders. It reduces errors and speeds up order fulfillment.

With a streamlined system, efficiency soars. The right software can handle more orders with less effort. It also increases accuracy, ensuring customers get exactly what they want.

Speaking of customer wants, customizable order forms are a valuable feature. They let customers tailor their orders to their preferences.

By offering customization, you’re not just filling an order – you’re building loyalty and improving customer satisfaction. This satisfaction can lead to more business over time.

3. Employee Scheduling

Effective scheduling of employees is an important part of a food and beverage company. Employee scheduling software ensures that staffing is planned for full-time and part-time workers such that there is excellent coverage of shifts.

It further facilitates smooth shift handovers so that one can easily hand over the current duties for another person to take over seamlessly.

Conflict-free scheduling tools, on the other hand, provide adequate staffing and prevent conflicts, thereby leaving room for improved service quality and staff satisfaction. This, in turn, makes the workforce more productive and efficient, leading to business betterment.

4. Food Safety and Compliance

It is very significant to consider the food safety standards, conformance, and legislation within the setting of the food and beverage manufacturers.

Software that includes hygiene checklists ensures that all practices relating to food manufacturing and hygiene conform to and are applied continuously.

Besides, the compliance tracking feature will ensure that local and national food safety regulations are followed. In doing so, it minimizes the chances of facing violations, therefore, providing a safe working and dining environment for everyone.

This will save your business from possible legal matters and instead gain customer loyalty from the assurance that their food is prepared in the best way possible.

5. Reporting and Analytics

Reporting and analytics are powerful tools in food and beverage software. They provide insights that can transform your business.

Detailed sales reports are at the heart of this feature. These reports help you spot trends and patterns in your business. You can see what’s selling well and what’s not.

But it doesn’t stop at sales. Performance metrics track a wide range of data. This includes sales volume, customer satisfaction, and employee productivity. All these factors paint a complete picture of your business health.

With this wealth of information, you gain true business intelligence. You can make smart, data-driven decisions. This data-driven approach can improve your operations, boost efficiency, and increase profitability.

6. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

A business must have a good customer base to thrive in the long run. This is especially true for food and beverage companies.

CRM tools help you keep your customers happy. They can set up loyalty programs. These programs reward people who buy from you often. When customers get rewards, they’re more likely to come back.

Another helpful feature is feedback systems. These make it easy to collect what customers think. You learn about their likes and dislikes.

When you know what customers want, you can make things better. You can fix the problems they mention. You can also improve your service.

When customers like your business, they buy more. They also tell their friends about you. This helps your business grow and look good to others.

Top 6 Food and Beverage Software for 2024

Great food and excellent service no longer cut it to make your restaurant a success in 2024. The pace never stops, so equipping yourself with the right set of software solutions is quite necessary. In this section, we will look through the top six food and beverage software solutions that can help you in the industry, focusing on their main features, pricing, and how they can benefit your business.

1. KNOW

KNOW is an all-in-one food and beverage management software solution, purpose-built to keep your whole back-of-house in line from open to close, minus all the clutter. It brings together everything you need to manage your business in one place.

Key Features

Checklists of various tasks: KNOW enables you to easily conduct kitchen handovers, opening and closing checklists, and log daily sales, and wastage. This way, everything is accounted for, and nothing goes unsolved.

Food Safety and Hygiene Compliance: This software will help in the preparation and management of HACCP checks for your restaurant, conduct hygiene audits, and track food and equipment temperatures.

Audit and Compliance Management: KNOW digitizes processes such as pest control, fire safety, equipment checks, and facility and quality control through audits and document management. All this makes it easy to maintain compliance with all regulations while maintaining a safe environment.

Onboarding and Training: KNOW enables custom learning journeys for your new hires, bite-sized. This feature will ensure that your new employees have access to the company’s knowledge base at their fingertips anytime, anywhere, and hence are well-equipped to handle their respective roles.

Faults, Maintenance, and Incident Resolution: Report, track, and quickly resolve equipment faults, repairs, incidents, and IT issues to avoid downtime and have all your equipment in good working order.

Full/Part-Time Scheduling and Attendance: KNOW when your staff are available to work; plan their work schedules and track their attendance. This feature efficiently manages your workforce and avoids scheduling conflicts.

SOP Management: KNOW provides tools for smooth shift handovers, enterprise resource planning, and daily report generation. This helps in keeping everybody on the same page and will assist in running consistent operations.

Best For: Restaurants of all sizes and types, including fast-food joints, fine-dining restaurants, cafes, bars, and food trucks.

Pricing:

Contact the team for a custom quote.

2. TouchBistro POS

TouchBistro is a fully integrated POS system and restaurant management solution that will improve the speed of service, drive kitchen efficiency, and increase repeat business.

Key Features

Menu Management: Get organized, manage takeout orders, manage batches, and push high-margin menu items easily with the menu management system.

Table Management: Design and rearrange your floor plan, take orders by table, and manage capacity to provide seamless table service.

Staff Management: Track employee activity, optimize production control and labor costs, and save time with the built-in staff management software.

Best For: Restaurants and other hospitality venues

Pricing:

Starter kit: $0/month
Point of Sale: $69/month
Build Your Own: Custom pricing

3. 7Shifts

7Shifts is a scheduling and payroll platform that is designed to help busy restaurant managers automate manual tasks such as tip management and payroll so that they have more time and remain organized.

Key Features

Time Clocking: Easily manage punches and pay periods while staying compliant with alerts for overtime and breaks. Labor data syncs automatically to 7shifts Payroll and other providers.

Scheduling: Create, publish, and edit schedules online. Staff can view the schedule 24/7 on the mobile app.

Payroll: Employees get accurate, on-time paychecks with integrated time-clocking, PTO, and tip data. The software automatically calculates taxes, benefits, and deductions.

Best For: Restaurants of all sizes

Pricing:

Comp – Free for a single location
Entrée – $29.99 Per month/location
The Works – $69.99 Per month/location
Gourmet – $135 Per month/location

4. Silo

Silo helps to unlock cash flow and provides one real-time platform so you can fuel your growth. It delivers a comprehensive supply chain management solution custom-made for the food industry.

Key Features

Inventory Management: Silo’s perishable food inventory management solution gives a real-time insight into a company’s inventory, cash flows, and customer-supplier relationships. Businesses could track and manage these perishable items with ease, reducing wastage and optimizing stock levels.

Freight: Silo simplifies freight management by using hands-on support throughout. Businesses can book and track their loads in one place, making logistics smoother and more transparent.

Best For: Small businesses that manage large numbers of products.

Pricing: Pricing is not listed on their website.

5. WISK

WISK saves you time, reduces costs, and enhances efficiency in running your restaurant. This software is easily integrated with many restaurant operations to bring about profitability and smooth running of business processes.

Key Features

Recipe Management and Cost Management: Just select your POS item, select ingredients, and your ideal food costs, and let WISK do the rest. It recommends an ideal sales price for you and lets out cost alerts when you scan your invoices and ingredient costs go up so that you always remain profitable.

Invoice Management: Using WISK’s restaurant invoice solution, just snap a picture of your invoice, and all of your food costs will update automatically. This greatly reduces manual work while helping in the holding of profitability by automated expense tracking in real time.

Commissary Kitchen: WISK provides a commissary kitchen feature for those businesses that prepare food in a central kitchen; all orders and transfers of stock go through one central location. This makes inventory management easier and more accurate.

Best For: Bars and restaurants

Pricing:

Small Inventory: $ 125/User/Month
Medium Inventory: $ 149/User/Month
Large Inventory: $ 199/User/Month

6. ScheduleFly

Schedulefly is a staff scheduling app and internal communication tool built specifically for restaurants. It works for any size restaurant and allows owners a chance at better visibility of their scheduling and internal communications.

Key Features

Employee Scheduling: Intuitive creation and publishing of schedules, shifting assignments, and management of time-off requests. This module makes scheduling easier and more transparent—conflict-free.

Labor Cost Management: Estimate and control labor costs with schedule optimization. ScheduleFly helps restaurants manage labor costs more effectively by aligning staff schedules with their business needs.

Cloud Storage: Keep documents and staff directories in the cloud to access information with ease, without the need for unnecessary paperwork, and with critical information at your fingertips.

Best For: Independent and franchise restaurants.

Pricing:

19 or fewer staff: $30 per month
20–39 staff: $40 per month
40–59 staff: $50 per month
60–79 staff: $60 per month

How to Choose the Right Food and Beverage Software?

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can choose the right food and beverage software for your business, and some key considerations to make a truly informed decision.

1. Begin by assessing your needs

First, pinpoint the specific problems you are having with your business. Perhaps you might be having problems with inventory control and management, order accuracy, or even compliance with food safety regulations. Being able to understand what your particular needs are will give you a basis on which to narrow down the choices of software to use for such problems.

2. Compare Features

First, identify what your needs are. After that, you will be comparing the features of solutions. Some of the key features to look out for include inventory tracking, order management, compliance monitoring, and reporting capabilities. Be sure that the chosen software has features to address exactly what you want to do in business.

3. Consider Usability

Usability is another significant criterion to be used in choosing software. The interface should be intuitive, and the system should be easy to navigate. Consider how steep a learning curve your staff will face and what training and support are available from the software provider. A user-friendly system can save enormous amounts of time and effort in training.

4. Assess Cost

First, of course, there’s the cost. Compare the pricing models between software – some are by one-time purchase, others by subscription. Consider the ROI you could get with time saved, money saved from reduced waste, or just being more efficient in operations.

5. Read Reviews

User reviews and testimonials can shed light on the real-world performance of the software. Check feedback from other businesses in the food and beverage industry to understand how the software works concerning reliability, customer support, and general satisfaction. This will save you from falling into a possible trap and thus make a more informed decision.

Why KNOW?

Instant to Use: No hosting, infrastructure, or IT is required. KNOW is ready to deploy out of the box.

Highly Configurable: Switch on/off functionality, fine-grain access control, and customize the setup to your exact requirements.

Fast, Lightweight, Frontline Ready: KNOW works offline, tiny 10MB footprint, and is optimized for low-end devices for seamless performance.

food and beverage software

User-Friendly Design: The interface is simple and accessible to all users, irrespective of age, skill level, and technical ability in different countries.

Multi-Language Support: KNOW supports all major languages except Klingon.

Exceptional Customer Service: We will help our customers to the extent possible with fantastic support provided at all stages.

How to Get Started

Get in touch today and schedule your free demo. Digitize your business the easy way—hassle-free.

Benefits of Food and Beverage Software

Better Efficiency

Food and beverage software principally introduces the automation of routine tasks. The flow extends to ordering, processing, inventory management, and other areas that allow your staff to indulge in higher strategic activities.

Improved Accuracy

Automation further results in improved accuracy. Reducing the entry of data manually minimizes the occurrence of human errors, thereby providing accurate orders, stock balances, and compliance records.

Better Compliance

Better food safety can be achieved through the help of food and beverage software. So many of these systems have been designed for purposes such as tracking expiration dates, observing storage conditions, and keeping minute details—features essential for audits and inspections.

Less Waste and Lower Costs

Food and beverage manufacturing companies can ensure a high return on investment through the control and optimization of resource usage, thereby eliminating waste. Proper inventory management provides avoidance of overstock and understock situations; efficient order processing minimizes waste but provides on-time deliveries.

food and beverage software

Data-Driven Decisions

Information that aggregates in food and beverage software through analytics and multiple reports aids in making the right decisions related to inventory, ordering patterns, unit prices, food distribution, and the overall strategy of the business to hence improve profitability and growth.

Food and Beverage Software Integration with Other Systems

Seamless Operations

Any cloud-based software can ensure smooth operations with the help of its integration with various food and beverage software, such as point-of-sale, accounting software, and CRM systems. This provides an easy flow of information to various departments, increasing overall efficiency.

Improved Flow of Information

Integrated, unified data can hugely improve your decision-making process. All your data is now joined up, and with a comprehensive view of operations, you can forecast more accurately and plan strategy accordingly.

Increased Productivity

Integrated systems increase productivity by streamlining processes and reducing manual work. More focus will be placed on value addition by your staff, and generally, operational efficiency will improve, leading to improved customer service, improved efficiencies, and higher profits.