Restaurant Efficiency Builders: How Automation Reclaims Time

COGS-Well Team
Sep 23, 2025
4 min read

Updated: Apr 30

In the restaurant industry, efficiency is the engine that turns time-consuming tasks into smooth, repeatable processes. Yet, many operators still juggle core workflows, like invoice processing or inventory counts, manually or using disconnected spreadsheets.

On average, a restaurant chain using a system like COGS-Well for inventory, recipe, and cost management can reclaim several hours per week for managers and accounting in administrative processes while also boosting accuracy.

Invoice Processing: Saves managers and accounting a combined 3-5 hours/week per location.
Inventory Maintenance: Saves a manager or system administrator 1 hour per week.
Counting Inventory: Reduces counting time by 1-2 hours per session.
Recipe Management: Saves multiple days upfront and several hours per month in updates.
Transfers: Saves 30 minutes per week for managers and 1 hour per week per location for accounting.
Automated Accounting Updates: Saves 1-2 hours per month, depending on the number of locations.

Automated Invoice Processing: From Delivery to Accounting

Manual invoice entry is a notorious time-sink and a magnet for errors. With COGS-Well, invoices are scanned and uploaded, instantly updating your inventory database and your accounts payable system.

The Volume: An average full-service restaurant receives 91 F&B invoices per month.
The Manual Drag: It takes managers 1–2 minutes and accounting another 2-3 minutes per invoice to handle manually.
The Savings: Automation saves managers 1.5 to 2 hours per week and accounting teams 3 hours per week per location.

Delivery person in blue shirt and cap loads a cardboard box into a white van. Outdoor setting, with trees blurred in the background.

"COGS-Well’s invoice scanning and audit service saves each of our managers 1.5 to 2 hours per week. For 13 locations, it is also saving me 4 hours per week at the home office." – Billy Williams, IT Manager, Collier Restaurant Group

Done-For-You Inventory Maintenance

Keeping inventory data current is a constant battle. Price fluctuations, packaging changes, vendor substitutions, and new items create a never-ending stream of new details to manage.

The Challenge: The average customer receives 36 new inventory items per month. Adding one item manually (including count and recipe unit configurations) takes roughly 4 minutes.
The Solution: COGS-Well uses a combination of intelligent technology and a team of auditors to maintain your inventory database for you.
The Impact: This saves your team nearly 30 hours per year while ensuring consistency and accuracy across your item database.

Hands typing on a laptop in a cafe, with a white coffee cup in the foreground. Blurred background with warm lighting.

“The fast and easy initial implementation was a major selling point for COGS-Well. But we have also come to appreciate the COGS-Well auditors who monitor our invoices and verify or correct new inventory items for us.” – Jennifer Beougher, CFO, Ruby Slipper Restaurant Group

Accurate Inventory Counts in Less Time

Counting inventory on spreadsheets is often slow and inaccurate because item costs aren't updated, items are missing, or some items are stored in multiple locations.

Systems like COGS-Well simplify this by enabling shelf-to-sheet counting by storage location. New items are always included, and item costs are always up to date. In addition, using a mobile device allows you to take and record counts concurrently, eliminating the need to re-enter your handwritten counts later.

The Savings: With an average of 1,400 items, most operators save 2 hours per count compared to spreadsheets or antiquated systems, and accuracy is increased.

Woman in apron holds clipboard, examining bread on bakery rack. Bright, organized store with a teal ceiling creates a focused mood.

“Being able to switch from weekly inventory counts to periodic inventory counts while improving our COGS period over a period has been an insane time saver.” – Emir Ayden, Director of Operations, Impact Kitchen

More Efficient Recipe Management

If you or someone on your team is still managing recipes by hand or using a spreadsheet, you are likely spending way too many hours finding ingredients, updating their costs, updating the menu item’s selling price, or doing a lot of math to convert the case size to recipe units.

By using a recipe management system, your ingredients are readily available, their costs are up to date, the recipe units are already configured, and you have specialized tools like flexible recipe units. This combination will save you days, if not weeks, setting up recipes, and several hours per month maintaining your recipe database.

The Scale: An average full-service restaurant has 275 recipes (many have more).
The Efficiency: Building and then efficiently maintaining recipes without a recipe management system is nearly impossible at scale.

Chef in a striped apron spreads sauce on bread in a modern kitchen. Mixed greens on the counter, creating a focused culinary vibe.

"When it’s time to cost out new menu items, COGS-Well makes this seamless. We save a lot of time with costing exercises because back in the day, we just did everything by hand over and over again." – Peyton Strait, Director of Procurement, Lure Fish House

Automated Transfers & Commissary Management

Managing transfers between locations or a commissary can feel like a full-time job. COGS-Well streamlines this: a manager submits a transfer request, and the other store or commissary gets an alert requesting fulfillment. Once fulfilled, inventory levels adjust automatically, and cost adjustments are exported to accounting.

Two café workers in aprons discuss while looking at a laptop. A chalkboard menu is visible in the cozy, warmly lit background.

“With COGS-Well, we are using the inventory transfer features between the commissary and each of the restaurants. The managers place their orders as a transfer request, and the commissary receives alerts for transfers to be fulfilled, and that's super seamless.” – Brenton Woodruff, COO, Café Ficelle

Streamlined Accounting Processes

Automation doesn’t end at the restaurant. Your accounting team will save time as well. When scanned invoices are exported to accounts payable and automatically coded, manual entry is eliminated.

Your accounting team will also benefit because a system like COGS-Well exports ending inventory valuations and transfer adjustments directly to your General Ledger. If you operate multiple locations, you are saving manual entry time for each location.

The Result: Your accounting team saves multiple hours per month per location, accuracy improves, and financial reporting becomes timelier.

Man in a tie using a laptop at a cafe, wearing earphones. A cup of coffee and notebook rest on the table. Modern glass interior.

"Our old inventory system did not have a General Ledger export. Due to COGS-Well's export to NetSuite, we save an hour per week, our reporting is much timelier, and our accuracy is improved." – Linda Liu, Director of Finance and Accounting, Impact Kitchen

Summary: Automation That Powers Efficiency

Woman sitting on chair, smiling, holding a tablet. Background features a stone wall. She wears black outfit. Relaxed, cozy setting.

Every manual process that could be automated is a missed opportunity for improved efficiency. By replacing outdated spreadsheets or antiquated systems with a system that provides automated, accurate workflows, you reclaim your time, reduce administrative headaches, and achieve more consistent results across your entire operation.