HotSchedules Launches Count, a Mobile Inventory App for Small Restaurants

AUSTIN, Texas, July 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- HotSchedules®, provider of mobile technology for the restaurant and hospitality industries, today launched Count, a mobile application for smartphones, tablets and browsers that allows restaurants to efficiently count their on-hand inventory and queue orders for products that are below ideal quantities. Designed for independent and small regional restaurants, HotSchedules Count helps restaurants improve inventory accuracy, control foods costs, streamline ordering, and eliminate the use of complex spreadsheets and paper-based processes.  

Food costs often have the leading impact on restaurant margins, accounting for between 25 and 38 percent of total operating cost, according to Steven Buckley of Demand Media. However, small restaurants had poor options for managing inventory. Existing solutions were time consuming and costly to implement, overly complex, and incompatible with mobile devices, meaning users had to write down inventory on paper and then enter the values on a desktop computer. HotSchedules Count aims to address this gap in the market and save small restaurants from the time drain and inaccuracies of manual inventory management.

Available on iOS and Android devices, HotSchedules Count allows restaurants to manage food and beverage inventory from a smartphone or tablet. Setup takes just minutes, versus weeks or months with other solutions, thanks in large part to Count's easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface and its ability to import items from spreadsheets. Users can organize items by location and sub-location (e.g. freezer, dry storage, etc.), identify high cost or high loss items that needed to be counted more frequently, and set par levels for each product.  Count can also be customized to each individual restaurant and can import catalogs from vendors to ensur that all items and prices are accurate.

The Count interface supports multiple time frames (spot, daily, weekly and monthly), all common units of measurement, counting by location, and the ability to count offline and sync the data later. In addition, users can review totals by category and location, compare on-hand inventory versus par, and queue up a purchase order by simply completing the count. The application can also export inventory lists or purchase orders to a spreadsheet and then email them to the user.

"Before we discovered HotSchedules Count, we were using a combination of iPads, pencils and spreadsheets to manage our inventory," said Titus Striplin, Director of Hospitality Operations at Dust Bowl Brewing Company. "We began searching for a cloud-based inventory management system to drive efficiency and profitability into our restaurant and were really excited to discover that HotSchedules was introducing exactly what we needed to grow our business. We're poised to implement HotSchedules Count at our current tap room facility with the expectation that we'll be well versed in using all the capabilities when our new, much larger facility opens next year. The staff at HotSchedules has been attentive and thorough. We anticipate a smooth transition as we implement the new technology into our daily operations."

"The best way to control foods costs is to track inventory with accuracy and efficiency. Until HotSchedules Count, there was no tool that simplified this process for small restaurants," said Brian Gaffney, Vice President, Product at HotSchedules. "This is a tool that will have an immediate and measurable impact on a restaurant's bottom line."  

About HotSchedules

HotSchedules provides mobile technology for the restaurant, retail and hospitality industries. The company delivers a comprehensive suite of cloud-based software designed to automate operational challenges such as recruiting, training, scheduling, business intelligence, shift communication, labor and inventory management. Its world-class products include HotSchedules®, Jobsabi™, Schoox, The Manager's Red Book™, Logbook, Macromatix and numerous applications built on the Bodhi™ platform. HotSchedules is proud to serve more than 1.8 million users in over 110,000 locations across 26 countries. For more information visit: http://www.hotschedules.com.  

About Dust Bowl Brewing Company

Owned by Brett Tate and Brett Honore, Dust Bowl Brewing Company was founded in 2009 in Turlock, California. The craft brewery produces a wide range of draft beers as well as bottled products, which are distributed throughout Northern California, including Fresno, Sacramento, San Francisco, East Bay Area and North Bay.  The company opened a tap room and full-service restaurant in Downtown Turlock in 2011. Thanks to steady sales growth and brand demand, construction is now underway on a new brewing facility, which will feature an expansive tasting room, restaurant, tours, as well as private and public events. The increased production will take the Dust Bowl Brewing Co. brand throughout California, including Southern California and the Central Coast.  Learn more at http://www.dustbowlbrewing.com/home/

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SOURCE HotSchedules

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