FoodSoftware.com specializes in software for restaurants and offers a variety of restaurant software products for Windows PCs.

Products in our restaurant software category are software items which are often used, especially well-suited or specifically designed for restaurant operations. Though many of our software titles are restaurant industry standards, they are still very specialized and not found in any retail store.

The purpose of this page is to generally describe the broad field of restaurant software as well as to list the specific restaurant software products available at FoodSoftware.com. (See the bottom of this page for links to detailed product descriptions.)

Restaurant "software" are of two main types: computer programs and "contentware". Computer programs are the familiar type that perform business functions such as reporting, computing and storing data. Contentware are computer files that deliver documents, databases, forms, graphics, ebooks and other data types.

Examples of restaurant software at FoodSoftware.com include:

• Restaurant cost control (usually inventory and recipe costing)
• Restaurant accounting
• Restaurant employee scheduleing
• Restaurant menu design
• Nutritional analysis and Nutrition Facts label composition
• Restaurant business plans with financial projections
• Recipe management and publishing

Examples of restaurant contentware at FoodSoftware.com include:

• Customizable restaurant employee handbooks (as editable word processing files).
• Customizable restaurant employee training manuals (as editable word processing files).
• Food yield databases (searchable tables of percentages of servable food after preparation of the raw).
• Restaurant accounting and management forms (assorted predesigned forms for printing on paper from PDF files).
• Collections of food images and graphic elements suitable for use with restaurant menus and advertising documents.
• Ebooks on various topics such as restaurant accounting, recipe costing and ethnic recipes.

Some products include both software and contentware. Most of the QuickPlan line of restaurant business plans include both spreadsheet software for financial projections and customizable ("insert your own data or words here") documents for the main body of business plan presentations (plan synopsis, demographic studies, employee policies, etc.)

Restaurant software offered at FoodSoftware.com falls into the following main purpose types:

• Inventory and Product (Recipe) Cost Control Software for:
  • Food and beverage cost reporting, control and reduction.
  • Menu item recipe costing.
  • Menu item sales analysis for profit contribution (“menu engineering”).
  • Food inventory purchasing – to meet stock requirements and production forecasts.
  
  
• Menu Design Software for:
  • Simplified do-it-yourself design and in-house printing of professional-looking restaurant menus to reduce design and printing expense and cut turnaround time for menu changes.
  • Output of menus as PDF files for emailing and posting on web sites.
  
  
• Employee Scheduling Software for automatic creation of employee schedules and labor cost control.
  
  
• Nutritional Analysis Software for:
  • Nutritional analysis of product recipes
  • USDA-compliant Nutrition Facts panel creation for retail product labeling.
  • Compliance with laws governing availability of nutrition data to customers.
  • Product costing.
  
  
• Recipe Management and Publishing Software for capturing, storing, finding, sharing and printing recipes.
  • Electronic cookbook with photos
  • Manages recipes
  • Prints recipe books and cards
  • Copies recipes from the Internet
  • Publishes and shares recipes and cookbooks
  
  
• Manuals and Forms Software are pre-written, customizable company policy, training documents and forms (in Word, text and PDF file formats) for:
  • Employee handbooks (company policies)
  • Employee training manuals (job training instructions)
  • Restaurant management forms (standard forms such as employment applications, damage reports, etc., in PDF format for printing as needed.)
  
  
• Daily Accounting and Management Spreadsheets are simplified, pre-written spreadsheets for daily sales and cost writeup.
  
  
• Food Rotation Labeling Software easily creates food batch identity and use-by date container labels to help prevent food spoilage.
  
  
• Hospitality Business Plan Software is for creating comprehensive presentations for procuring business startup loans.
  
  
• New Restaurant Startup Spreadsheets help you project the total cost of building, equipping and opening your new restaurant.
  
  
• Clip Art Collections of food products and graphic elements enhance your menu designs and promotional material.
  
  
• Reservations Software for taking reservations and tracking regular customers.
  
  

Restaurant Software Not Sold by FoodSoftware.com: Two major classes of software are absent from the FoodSoftware.com catalog: POS ("Point of Sale" or cash register) and general accounting. POS software and its associated hardware often requires intensive support that is usually best provided by local dealers. Most restaurants use Quickbooks for their general accounting software (general ledger, accounts payable, etc.) which does not need to be specialized for restaurants. Quickbooks is sold by all major office supply retailers.

• All restaurant software titles at FoodSoftware.com are meant to run on all versions of Windows from Windows XP to Windows 7.
• No titles have special hardware requirements or unusually large files that require large amounts of hard drive space (except those items that are sold specifically as software and hardware combinations).
• Most titles are self-contained “applications” that do not need other software in order to run.
• Some titles are spreadsheets that require Microsoft Excel to run.
• Some titles are text or Microsoft Word files that require Word-compatible software to run.

Mac Users: FoodSoftware.com has very few titles that run on the native Mac OS. However, all recent Macs can be equipped with Windows, and with such, all of our Windows software will run on your Mac too. Some, but not most, of our spreadsheet titles run on the Mac version of Excel. All of our text and Word titles open in the Mac version of Microsoft Word.

Most software titles here are "restaurant back office" applications that run on your restaurant office computer or personal laptop and are not usually installed on the same computers than run your POS (cash register) software.

All FoodSoftware.com software products are installed on your own PCs and are not web-hosted applications. All of your data is stored only on your own PC and remains private.

Software titles at FoodSoftware.com are for various computer skill levels from beginner to advanced. In particular, we have a variety of food inventory and costing programs that range from basic and easy to comprehensive and more involved. Our spreadsheet-based software titles are generally simpler than the non-spreadsheet software.

There is always a tradeoff between simplicity and features, especially where food cost control software is concerned. The easier programs have fewer features and are not as effective at saving money as the comprehensive programs, but they are better than doing nothing. The comprehensive programs may be too difficult for some people to understand or use even though the payback from using them is enormous.

It is extremely important to choose your priorities: Do you want easy and mildly effective or harder but very effective at saving money? Keep in mind that restaurants are a complicated and risky profession that requires professional skills and professional-level software to run profitably. For the maximum benefit from professional restaurant software, be prepared to spend the time and make the study effort it takes to be proficient at using the software. You will be rewarded for doing so.

Click on the links below for detailed information about our key restaurant software products.

IPro Series 40 Restaurant Inventory, Recipe & Menu Software

• IPro Series 40 is our most popular restaurant comprehensive, full-featured inventory, recipe costing, purchasing and sales analysis software.
• Dramatically reduces food and beverage costs by detecting creeping costs, overuse, theft and unknown costs.
• Full actual (periodic) and ideal (perpetual) inventory for food, liquor and supplies.
• Build-to-par and forecast ordering and purchase and cost history.
• Recipe costing, resizing and printing.
• Stock depletion by sales or production.
• Sales and profit history, trends and analysis.
• Complete and flexible reports with unlimited history range.
• Compares to others programs at ten times the price!
• Downloadable for immediate and free delivery.
• Free support.
• Application software (does not require Excel or other software to run.)

EZChefSOFTWARE® Inventory, Menu Costing and Analysis for Restaurants for Excel

• EZChefSOFTWARE® Inventory Management, Menu Costing and Analysis for Restaurants & Bars is our most popular simplified, Excel-based, basic inventory, recipe costing and sales analysis software.
• Powerful, yet intuitive and easy to use.
• Helps you save time, increase profits and learn to sell those menu items that make you the most money.
• Optional "one click" feature imports all Sysco food products, with current prices, directly from the Sysco order guide. (Importing from some other companies is also available.)
• Easily manages basic food and beverage inventory tasks and processes.
• Performs menu costing for every item on the menu (including subrecipes).
• Creates a full menu analysis from your sales mix (the sales proportions of menu items) to evaluate and visually display how each menu item impacts profitability.
• Downloadable for immediate and free delivery.
• Free support.
• Spreadsheet-based software (requires Excel to open and familiarity with Excel to operate).

SweetWARE nutraCoster Professional 2.1 Recipe/Formula Costing & Nutritional Analysis Software

• nutraCoster does recipe nutritional analysis to help comply with nutrition information laws and address customer questions and concerns.
• Creates USDA-complient Nutrition Facts panels for commercial food packaging.
• Also does recipe cost analysis.
• Downloadable for immediate and free delivery.
• Free support.
• Application software (does not require Excel or other software to run.)

Recipe Management & Publishing: The Living Cookbook Recipe Software for Windows

• Recipe Management and Publishing Software for capturing, storing, finding, sharing and printing recipes.
• Electronic cookbook with photos
• Manages recipes
• Prints recipe books and cards
• Copies recipes from the Internet
• Publishes and shares recipes and cookbooks

Restaurant Employee Handbook Creator CD

• Easy and quick way to develop your own employee handbook rather than to start from scratch.
• Consists of word processing files for more than one hundred policies and forms that you can edit as needed.
• Establish and communicate your employee policies to help protect yourself legally and reduce your exposure to lawsuits, litigation and disputes.
• Organize all of your policies and benefits in one booklet.
• Allow more effective and consistent management.
• Increase employee morale, reduce turnover and increase productivity.
• Each file is duplicated in English, Spanish and Chinese so you can create multilingual handbooks as needed.
• Contentware requires word processing software to edit or print. The word processing files are in both MS Word (.doc) and text (.txt) formats for use with any word processor in Windows or on Macs.

Support for most of our software products is free and unlimited for current versions.

Installation policies (number of computers allowed) and multiuser capabilities and costs vary by product. Many software titles here may be installed on multiple computers without additional cost. Many titles are also multiuser in network environments. Some titles require additional costs per simultaneous additional user.

Demonstration media availability, trial periods and refund policies vary by product. Please note that software items are not refundable unless specifically stated as otherwise, so please carefully determine the software's suitability for your purpose, skill level and computer type. Detailed information for making sound purchase decisions is available about all of our restaurant software products both at the FoodSoftware.com website and by phone if you call 805-375-7000 during Pacific business hours.