Inventory for Restaurants
Learn about Fourth's Inventory solution for the restaurant industry and the integrations available.
Overview
Our inventory solution for the restaurant industry comprises the following capabilities, which customers may purchase separately or together:
- Inventory — Customers use Inventory to handle purchases, stock count, stock receiving, and other inventory management tasks, and can access Inventory via a web browser and some features through our mobile apps.
- Recipe & Menu Engineering (RME) — As the name suggests, this handles all the design requirements for both recipe and menu engineering. For integration partners, the related Import API and Export API can transfer comprehensive data about ingredients, recipes and menus for a huge variety of use cases. These APIs feed data into Inventory, RME and Menu Cycles.
Note that Recipe & Menu Engineering was previously known as StarChef. - Menu Cycles — our menu solution for businesses that have daily and weekly menu updates that rotate on a regular basis, such as schools and healthcare facilities.
These products are tightly coupled with one another and can be used in conjunction with our Workforce Management solutions. However, they do not integrate with our inventory solutions for hotels or quick service. This is because each solution provides a complete feature set for the specific market needs of these businesses. If your customer is using another inventory solution, you must integrate with their related APIs to send and retrieve data.
Our Inventory for Restaurant solution is supported by Trade Simple, our electronic trading platform. Trade Simple enables suppliers and customers to exchange predefined and structured documents in a secure manner, with a complete audit trail and guaranteed delivery.
Integration Options
Recipe & Menu Engineering (RME) Import API
The RME Import API gives users the ability to send granular ingredient and supplier level data into Fourth. Customers can then export this information from RME to Inventory. This API is ideal if you're a supplier who wants to update Fourth directly with ingredients, provide your own identifiers into Fourth, and improve the overall ordering experience for their customers.
Recipe & Menu Engineering (RME) Export API
The RME Export API provides access to the extensive range of ingredient, recipe, menu and supplier data in Fourth. For partners this can ensure kitchens, websites and front-of-house systems always show the right recipe information; and stock systems are kept up-to-date with ingredient changes.
Menu Cycles API
The Menu Cycles API provides access to menu cycle data in Fourth specifically tailored for partners. The data is broken down by location, and includes details on meal periods, active and future schedules, saleable items, and cost prices for recipes. This API is ideal for POS platforms and other systems that have customers using Fourth Menu Cycles.
POS Gateway
The POS Gateway is a single point of entry for all POS sales data into Fourth. The gateway was developed to reduce the amount of integrations required by POS businesses and to maximise the quality of data provided, so that customers can benefit from better analytics.
