Lightspeed Commerce Inc., the one-stop commerce platform for merchants around the world to simplify, scale, and create exceptional customer experiences, today announces the launch of its new product, Lightspeed Inventory, which is fully integrated into the Lightspeed Restaurant solution.

The new tool offers restaurants greater visibility and control over their stock, allowing managers to steadily cut costs through the acceleration of inventory management processes and the reduction of food waste – an endemic issue that costs the UK hospitality industry a staggering £3.2 billion a year.

Built with solid real-time stock and wastage reporting, Lightspeed Inventory seamlessly allows restaurants to monitor and record stock usage in real-time to make informed business decisions. Businesses can then adjust their orders accordingly to minimise the financial impact of waste, should goods consistently be left to spoil.

The platform also allows for the scheduling of recurring orders and automatic replenishment of ingredients up to restaurants’ desired stock level. Staff can reduce the hours spent on the administrative side of inventory management processes and focus on serving guests instead.

“Inventory allows us to have an accurate stock count across our five franchised locations as well as our sales channels. We’ve got a three-way kind of interaction with our customers: through the app, on the retail side in the shops and when having a glass or bottle in the shop,” said Wieteke Teppema - Commercial Director at Drop Wine.

“We have our in-house sales and then our app sales, which are digital. Being able to have these two separate sales points speaking to each other, and kind of amalgamate the sales data, makes Lightspeed a very powerful tool.”

Additionally, Lightspeed Inventory offers menu pricing suggestions and calculates the appropriate price of each item on their menu, based on the cost of the ingredients ordered – as showcased by Lightspeed’s Food Cost Calculator. This ultimately leads to creating more profitable menus.

Restaurants are then free to track these metrics throughout the menu writing process, from pricing individual ingredients to creating recipe instructions – which can be set with exact quantities to avoid error.

Adrian Valeriano, SVP & MD EMEA, Lightspeed, said:

“At a time when food and energy costs are soaring, restaurants are looking at how they can best streamline business operations to reduce outgoings – before resorting to harsher strategies such as reducing staff or limiting opening hours.”

“The aim of our new Inventory Management solution is to allow customers of Lightspeed across the UK to have ultimate control over their stock, creating an opportunity for them to operate at peak efficiency – with minimal waste of time, food or money.”