Food and beverage software tools that deliver efficiency and sales

Manage your food-&-beverage sales/orders, billings and more with our catering software tools for venues, restaurants, caterers and hotels

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1 OF 20+ TOOLS IN OUR PLATFORM

Our food and beverage industry software tools are included in the Planning Pod software suite

INCLUDED IN THE FOLLOWING PRODUCTS:

Venue Management Software

Perfect for event centers, hotels, restaurants, corporate facilities, non-profit venues and reception halls.

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"Planning Pod keeps all the information about our events in one convenient place so all staff members can access it, plus it takes care of scheduling and verifying that we don’t overbook."
- Abbey Brown, The Brownstone Topeka

Abbey Brown, The Brownstone Topeka

4.89 out of 5 stars

See why more event professionals and venues rely on our food & beverage management tools to grow their businesses!

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Streamline how you manage food and beverage orders, track vital catering details and share them with clients and staff

Build a custom library of standard menu items

Our system makes it easy to maintain a library of every food and beverage item you offer so you can instantly add them to events and packages. Add images, descriptions, unit pricing, wholesale costs, portion sizes, dietary notes, recipes, ingredient lists and more to each item.

Create catering packages from templates or scratch

For each event, you can create new food & beverage packages from existing items or create new items on the fly. And you can also build out food and beverage package templates for all your standard offerings that you can quickly add to an event and then modify.

Auto-sync F&B packages with event BEOs

When you add food & beverage packages to an event, our softwawre syncs package details like quantities, pricing, serving times and more to banquet event orders in real-time, keeping them current. You can even create multiple BEO documents for each event (like for kitchen and front-of-house staff) and collect e-signatures from clients to approve BEO details.

Easily share food & beverage menus online

Our food and beverage management software lets you present packages and menus to prospects and clients in a colorful, professional way. Either email colorful PDF documents of your food and beverage menus from inside the software OR have clients log into their personal Client Portal to view menus online and sign off on BEOs.

Sync items and packages to proposals and invoices

When you create food and beverage packages for events, you can also calculate package pricing based on per head, fixed cost or calculated from item prices. Once you are finished, in a single click you can sync these food and beverage packages with proposals and invoices, which automates your entire catering billing process.

Food-and-Beverage Menu

FYI ... If you’re interested in our Food-and-Beverage software tools, you may also like our: Banquet Event Order ToolContracts and e-Signatures ToolEvent Floor Plans and DesignsEvent Invoicing and Payments ManagerEvent Proposal Software


USED BY 20,000+ EVENT PROFESSIONALS

What’s inside our Web-based food and beverage industry software

See why more restaurants, hotels, caterers and event venues rely on our food and beverage software tools to track all menus and orders and keep their teams and clients in the loop

Custom F&B Item Library

Manage all your food, beverage and equipment items in one place and quickly add them to packages. Details include descriptions, images, unit prices, wholesale costs, quantities, recipes, dietary characteristics and portion sizes.

F&B Package Templates

Build reusable food and beverage package templates (as well as equipment templates) so you can instantly add them to events and edit them accordingly. Set up pricing calculations based on per head, fixed price or sum of included food & beverage items

Banquet Event Order Integration

Any food and beverage package you add to an event is instantly added to BEO documents for the event. This way if you make changes to those packages, the changes are synced automatically to BEOs, an automation that optimizes your ability to have always-current documents.

Proposal & Invoice Integrations

With a few clicks, you can add food and beverage packages to proposals and invoices in an event. Then our system syncs package details in real-time to all other relevant tools in the event - including orders/menus and BEOs.

Printable Menu PDFs

Make a big impression with colorful, printable PDFs of food and beverage menus for your events. And use our event CRM + communications tools to optimize emailing PDFs from your account.

Client Portals w/ Shared Documents

Streamline your interactions with clients and simplify how they do business with you via online Client Portals. Clients can log in; view menus; select food item options; sign off on contracts; view and sign BEOs; and even pay invoices.

Synced Item Counts + Pricing

Track how many servings of each item you need to prepare as well as the pricing and cost for those items, plus instantly sync this information to proposals, invoices and BEOs. Great for optimization of billing and forecasting raw materials and ingredients.

Full-Color Item Images

Upload images for food and beverage items (plus equipment) that you add to your account. These images will populate into on-screen displays and PDFs as well as in proposals and invoices.

Recipes, Portions + Ingredients

Add a recipe and ingredient list for each food and beverage item as well as standard portion size so your back-of-house and kitchen staff can easily refer to these details. Also include dietary details (nuts, sodium, vegan, etc.) that are searchable.


Learn more about our venue management software solutions for caterers, restaurants, hotels, banquet halls, golf clubs, wineries, breweries, conference centers and museums.


RECENT POST
Jeff Kear · Owner, Planning Pod

Buyer’s Guide to Food and Beverage Software


Food and beverage management means so many different things to so many companies in the food production and manufacturing, hospitality and event management industries that it’s practically impossible to come to a consensus as to what food and beverage management software should consist of and do.

Because of this, you will find a wide variation in the scope and functionality of software applications that cater to food and beverage operators. What this means is that before you begin your search for food and beverage software, you must first outline precisely what types of features and functions you are looking for in an application and then begin narrowing down products based on your specific needs.

For example, there are significantly different software applications for food and beverage manufacturers vs. food and beverage businesses involved in distribution/logistics vs. food and beverage companies in the hospitality and service industry (like restaurants, hotels and caterers). Each has their own specific business processes and requirements, like food safety and traceability for manufacturing; inventory management and supply chain management for food distribution; and food preparation, billing and forecasting for food service and hospitality. As such you may want to start your search based on what branch of the food and beverage industry you work in and serve.

Another advance consideration is to determine what existing legacy software applications that your food and beverage system needs to integrate with (e.g., accounting software like Quickbooks, business software like Oracle Netsuite, etc.).

In this article, we are going to outline the three basic types of food and beverage software programs to give you a general understanding of what is offered in the marketplace. However, with that said, you should expect at least some of the following benefits, regardless of your needs or the type of software.

Benefits of Food and Beverage Software

Centralized Data Management

F&B software falls into the category of enterprise resource planning software - often called ERP software - where business processes and workflows are consolidated and automated to create efficiencies, simplify tasks and provide insights so users can make well-informed decisions based on actual data.

ERP software is designed to potentially span across many job functions and departments, which can include ordering/purchasing, production, oversight, sales, manufacturing, delivery, financial management, business intelligence and billing/accounting. However, generally its purpose is to maximize productivity and streamline operations for businesses.

Increased Customer Satisfaction

The idea of business management software in general is to save time for employees so they can focus more on delivering better products and experiences to customers, and this is no different regarding food and beverage software.

Many F&B management systems bring companies closer to their customers through automated processes, improved communications (like email, text messaging and social media integrations) and interactive technologies like cloud-based systems, mobile apps and electronic documents.

More Revenues and Larger Profit Margins

With improved efficiencies and time savings often comes the ability to cut costs as well as attract and serve more customers.

It goes something like this. Your staff are spending less time on busywork and tracking details so they can spend more time selling, producing and delivering food and beverage products and services. ERP solutions allow you to identify inefficiencies in production, ordering and delivery so you can reduce waste from your everyday operations - whether that be wasted food/beverages or workhours. And they can also automate financial and billing processes to improve profitability.

Flexible, Customizable Solutions

Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all solutions. Now, most food and beverage software applications have some level of customization and personalization so that the software, to some extent, can adapt to your needs. This could be in the form of customizable data fields, templates, workflows and functionality, and the broader the scope (and usually higher the cost) of the ERP system, the more customization is provided.

Now let’s take a look at the three primary types or versions of F&B software and who they are built to serve. Important Note: Some applications will cover one, two or all three types outlined here.

Front-of-House Food and Beverage Software

This type of application is often focused on customer-facing hospitality and food service operations, which can include:

  • Sales management - Customer relationship management (CRM), lead pipeline tracking, contact and address book tools, quote/proposal development
  • Communications - Emailing, text messaging, social media outreach
  • Order placement and tracking - Online contact and order forms, ecommerce payment processing, customer-facing mobile apps, item and package tracking, banquet event orders
  • Delivery and shipment - Food delivery instructions, packing lists, GIS/GPS location tracking
  • Booking management - Event date/time scheduling, room/space assignments, hold tracking
  • Contract management - Legal document tracking, electronic signature collection
  • Task management - Task assignments and reminders

Back-of-House Food and Beverage Software

These applications focus on food preparation and kitchen operations, which can include:

  • Recipe management - Ingredient lists and tracking, nutritional information, portion sizes, menu building
  • Inventory management - Stock management and tracking, reordering, spoilage/breakage tracking, resource allocation
  • Purchasing and procurement - stock/ingredient ordering, reconciling
  • Food costing - Ingredient price tracking and availability, supplier and vendor management
  • Accounting - Finance tracking, P&L statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, budgeting
  • Waste management and minimization
  • Quality management and control processes

Enterprise Food and Beverage Manufacturing Software

These applications are typically built to track operations and supply chain logistics for large-scale food manufacturers and distributors, hotel and restaurant chains and food services companies, and these apps can include:

  • Production management - Food manufacturing processes, packaging, labeling and nutritional value
  • Equipment management - Monitoring and maintenance, software integrations and repair management solutions
  • Warehousing - Stock and shop floor management, barcode / QR code systems, shelf-life and replenishment tracking, first-in-first-out or first-expired-first-out protocols, upstream/downstream tracking
  • Traceability - Forward/backward tracking for ingredients and end items, supply chain visibility, recall/contamination monitoring, supplier lot tracking
  • Quality and food safety - Auditing and quality control, temperature/moisture/acidity monitoring, allergen designations, by-product tracking, potency measurement
  • Regulatory compliance - USDA, FDA, Food and Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), HACCP, HARPC, ISO, GFSI compliance tracking
  • Distribution - Logistical management and tracking, shipping manifests, wholesale and retail segmentation
  • Staff management - Scheduling, time clocking, hiring and HR management

Learn more about our venue management software solutions for caterers, restaurants, hotels, banquet halls, golf clubs, wineries, breweries, conference centers and museums.