How Wahoo’s Best-in-Class Tech Stack Puts Managers Back on the Floor

COGS-Well Team

11 minutes ago

3 min read

Overview

Wahoo's Fish Taco is a thriving fast-casual restaurant chain originally opened by the Lee brothers in Costa Mesa, California. The chain has since expanded across California, several other states, and to an international location in Japan, with a menu inspired by their unique heritage and bold, fresh flavors.

Wahoo's uses COGS-Well to manage inventory and food costs across 19 locations, with plans to adopt some of the system’s more advanced features in the near future.

The Challenge: Store Leadership Held Back by Manual Processes

Running a high-volume restaurant chain requires constant oversight of store operations, food costs, and inventory. Wahoo's previous systems didn't provide the visibility, accuracy, or integration capabilities needed to operate efficiently.

As a result, managing back-office tasks meant store leaders spent too much time behind computer screens rather than managing their staff or front-of-house service. CEO Mingo Lee shared that when trying to access data and make adjustments, "everything felt like a needle in a haystack." Those limitations drove his team to search for a more specialized solution.

“We were looking at a couple of different companies in the inventory and AP Automation space," Lee said. "With COGS-Well, one of the things that seemed to come across was their added level of experience. It was a deciding factor.”

The Solution: Automation and Partnerships in Action

By building a best-in-class tech stack compatible with CBS NorthStar, their Point-of-Sale (POS) system, the team at Wahoo's has gained time back for managers, replaced tedious manual processes, and built a stronger bridge between inventory and accounting.

“We're a very hands-on operation,” Lee said. “The time reduction from COGS-Well in administrative work is huge. Our managers are definitely out on the floor a lot more, being the face of the business.”

Wahoo's uses Great Plains (GP) Accounting, and COGS-Well imports financial data from CBS NorthStar daily. Wahoo’s can reconcile that data and export it to the General Ledger automatically, saving their team a significant amount of time.

Overhead view of two plates of Mexican food with tacos, rice, black beans, and salsa beside iced drinks on a table.

Prior to COGS-Well, the team was using an inventory system that did not have invoice automation. Invoices, including the line-item detail for every inventory item, had to be entered manually.

With COGS-Well’s automated invoice scanning solution, the line-item information from invoices is imported via API, automatically updating the chain's inventory database. While Lee noted that OCR technology has its limitations, the speed and precision behind this integration have been very beneficial.

“Being able to scan all our invoices in one shot, push a couple of buttons, and be back on the floor, along with the accuracy, is the biggest win for us right now," he shared.

“Previously, the integration with accounting and getting adjustments made to our General Ledger was very difficult. With COGS-Well, everything works smoothly, everyone is on the same page, and those adjustments were turned around a lot faster.”

Beyond managing food and beverage costs, Wahoo's rounds out its operational tech stack with TimeForge – a labor solution complementary to COGS-Well that similarly integrates with CBS NorthStar.

With TimeForge, Wahoo's can forecast sales based on POS sales data and predict how busy each store will be through a real-time dashboard.

“We were having to continually pull in or copy and paste historical sales data, and now that data is more accessible,” Lee stated.

The team can also track employee attendance, build and manage schedules, and stay compliant with strict California labor laws, including automatically paying employees the extra money legally owed for meal break penalties.

Building Tailored Solutions Together

True partnership goes beyond standard technical support – it requires a shared commitment to continuous improvement.

Plate of tacos topped with cabbage and tomato, beside rice and black beans on a white dish on a light wood table

As Lee noted, "The COGS-Well team has been great to work with. I think we may seek perfection sometimes, but they're willing to work toward it.”

Through a hands-on, consultative approach, the COGS-Well team has also been guiding Lee as he explores some of the system's more advanced features:

"The recipe management tool we used before COGS-Well was very cumbersome, so we stopped doing menu costing. Now, we are going to restart the process since the combination of COGS-Well and Northstar works much better.”

Lee also shared that using COGS-Well's transfer feature for their commissary, which automates both transfer requests and the fulfillment side, would allow the team to get more granular without giving away more time.

Conclusion

Hand holding an orange iced drink topped with strawberries in a clear cup reading Living the Wahoo's Way

Well-integrated software systems help to free managers from being trapped in the back office. By moving away from legacy systems and adopting a best-in-class tech stack, Wahoo’s has become a more agile operation where inventory and costs are controlled, accounting exports are seamless, and store managers can focus on what matters most: the guest experience.