A carrier bag of invoices on the office desk
The paper invoices from deliveries go into a tray, or a carrier bag, or the owner's jacket pocket. The emailed ones sit in the restaurant inbox. Once a week, or once a fortnight when it gets busy, the owner or the bookkeeper types them into Xero: supplier, date, invoice number, net, VAT, category. The butcher alone sends several a week.
Some go missing. Some are entered twice because a paper copy came with the delivery and a PDF came by email. The food cost for the month is not known until everything is in, which is usually well after the month has ended.
Invoices arrive in too many shapes to automate by habit
Restaurants buy from many small suppliers, each with its own invoice layout, delivery frequency and way of sending paperwork. That is exactly what makes them hard to handle with general tools: the fishmonger's handwritten invoice is nothing like the wholesaler's PDF.
- Paper invoices arrive with deliveries and are not scanned.
- Emailed invoices arrive in a shared inbox alongside booking emails.
- Many suppliers send statements as well as invoices, which causes duplicates.
- Coding to food, drink and sundries is done by hand each time.
A worked example: the wine merchant sends a paper invoice with the delivery and a PDF the same evening, with slightly different formatting. The paper one is keyed on Sunday, the PDF on Monday by the bookkeeper. The monthly drink cost is overstated, and the statement at month end does not match.
What manual entry costs a restaurant
Typing invoices takes hours that owners and managers rarely have. Mistakes and duplicates distort food and drink cost, so the gross profit you look at is wrong. Late entry means you find out about a cost problem after the month is over, when it is too late to change anything.
Supplier statements that do not match your records lead to calls, disputes and sometimes paying for things twice.
It also leaves your accountant working from incomplete records at VAT time, with a scramble to find the invoices that never made it out of the carrier bag.
How we build restaurant invoice capture
- Paper invoices are photographed at the back door with a phone when the delivery is checked. Emailed invoices are picked up from the inbox automatically.
- Each invoice is read with document extraction: supplier, date, invoice number, lines, net, VAT and total.
- Duplicates are caught by supplier and invoice number, whether they arrived on paper, email or both.
- Lines are coded to your categories, such as meat, fish, produce, dairy, dry goods, wine, beer, spirits and non-food, based on the supplier and product.
- The invoice is created as a draft bill in Xero or QuickBooks, with the image attached, for a person to approve.
- Anything the reader is unsure about is sent to a person with the part it could not read highlighted.
| Step | Today | With invoice capture |
|---|---|---|
| Paper invoice | Tray or pocket | Photographed at delivery |
| Emailed invoice | In the shared inbox | Picked up automatically |
| Entry | Typed weekly | Draft bill created and approved |
| Duplicates | Found at month end, if at all | Caught on arrival |
If a tool you already have, such as Dext or Xero's own bill capture, would do this for your suppliers, we will tell you. We build where your mix of suppliers and paperwork needs more than that.
The week once invoices look after themselves
The owner or bookkeeper approves invoices in a few minutes a day rather than typing them for hours at the weekend. Food and drink cost is known while the month is still running. Duplicates are caught before they are paid.
With every invoice in the system as it arrives, it becomes possible to look at price changes and credits, which is the next step for many restaurants.
Signs your invoices need capturing
- Supplier invoices are typed into the accounts by hand.
- Paper invoices from deliveries pile up before they are entered.
- Invoices have been entered or paid twice.
- You do not know food cost until well after month end.
- Coding invoices to categories is done by hand each time.