For hospitality operators—from fine dining to QSRs, and from independent bars to multi-unit chains across the UK, Europe, and the Middle East—profit leakage is the silent killer of growth. This financial erosion is nearly always traceable to one critical area: a complete disconnect between what you sell and what you believe you have in stock.
The solution is clear: a truly seamless inventory and sales integration.
We have spent over a decade working with businesses just like yours, helping multi-unit operators and independent restaurants maximise their profits and streamline back-of-house operations. We can tell you that the era of manual stocktaking and guesswork is over. You need an intelligent, EPOS compatible stocktake system that automates the link between your sales and your kitchen.
Use this definitive 10-step checklist to guide your business towards operational excellence, ensuring you successfully connect inventory system to EPOS for real-time control, financial oversight, and a tangible boost to your bottom line.
For a modern hospitality business, the EPOS records the revenue, but the inventory system records the true cost of that revenue.
An EPOS compatible stocktake system automatically updates your raw ingredient levels when a sale is processed at the till. If a coffee is sold, the system instantly depletes the correct amount of beans, milk, and sugar. This instantaneous action provides real-time consumption data, enabling accurate financial analysis, better resource allocation, and a proactive defence against waste and theft. This technology is the foundation of high-margin hospitality.
Successfully integrating your sales and stock requires planning, configuration, and a commitment to data accuracy.
Before beginning any technical integration, you must first define your operational goals. Why are you undertaking this project? Is it to reduce food cost, improve GP consistency across multiple sites, or reduce the time spent on manual administration?
Action Point: Clearly identify your most painful stock control processes (e.g., supplier ordering, waste tracking, or variance reporting) and confirm that the chosen solution targets those specific areas. You can learn more about how we structure our services and support for this exact process on our Services page.
The market is full of software, but your solution must be purpose-built for hospitality's unique challenges, such as handling perishable goods and complex recipes.
Essential Requirements:
Explore Our Compatibility: Review our current list of Integrations to see how Stocktake Online connects with leading EPOS platforms.
Inconsistent data is the number one reason integrations fail. Your inventory items must be mapped precisely to the corresponding sales items.
Action Point: Ensure product codes and names for all raw materials are identical across both systems. Crucially, verify that the Unit of Measure (UoM) conversions are correct (e.g., a case of wine is converted to bottles, and a bottle is converted to glasses in the EPOS).
Sales deplete stock based on recipes, not just products. This is where your financial accuracy is determined.
Action Point: Every single item on your menu, including seasonal specials and modifiers, must have a precise, costed recipe stored in the stock system. This includes factoring in yield percentages for ingredients lost during preparation (e.g., trimming meat or peeling vegetables). This robust step ensures that the inventory and sales integration accurately reflects true consumption.
For optimal control, the flow of data must be instantaneous. This is non-negotiable for businesses managing high volumes during rush hours.
Action Point: Verify that sales data is pushed from the EPOS to the stock system in real-time. This provides an immediate, accurate snapshot of your inventory position, enabling managers to identify potential stockouts or unusual variances while the information is still fresh.
After initial configuration, you must test the process from customer order to inventory deduction.
Action Point: Run a day’s worth of transactions using test data. Audit the results to ensure that the actual sales figures precisely match the theoretical stock depletion calculated by the system. Any discrepancies at this stage must be addressed before the system is fully relied upon.
The true return on investment from integrating your systems is automated purchasing. You can transform historical sales trends into accurate future purchase orders.
Action Point: Utilise the data from the inventory and sales integration to set intelligent reorder levels (Par Levels). Your stock control system should then generate suggested orders based on current stock, sales velocity, and supplier lead times, eliminating guesswork and significantly reducing inventory holding costs and perishable waste.
The synergy of integrated data unlocks powerful business intelligence, which is crucial for multi-site operations.
Key Reports to Utilise:
Access Deeper Insight: Learn about the specific financial and operational reports available through our Features page.
The best technology is useless without engaged staff. Training must focus on efficiency and the financial impact of their actions.
Action Point: Ensure all relevant team members—from kitchen managers to bar staff—are proficient in the stock system's usage, especially mobile stock counting and waste logging. A user-friendly interface and transparent processes encourage high adoption rates.
The final, crucial step is to create a culture of continuous auditing. The data from the integration is your starting point for your physical stocktake.
Action Point: Use your EPOS compatible stocktake system to perform regular, partial, or full stocktakes. Reconcile the physical count with the system's theoretical count weekly. This process identifies cost leakages, validates recipe accuracy, and provides the data necessary for continuous improvement.
You are now equipped with the 10 critical steps to successfully connect inventory system to EPOS and achieve a powerful inventory and sales integration. This is the key to unlocking maximum profits, ensuring consistency across your estate, and freeing up management time to focus on customer experience.
Stocktake Online is the intuitive, cloud-based platform designed specifically to handle these complexities. We provide the expertise and the technology to streamline your back-of-house operations and ensure every ingredient is accounted for.
Are you ready to move from manual stock control to real-time financial oversight?
Review our transparent Pricing options and then take the leap.
Book a personalized demo with our expert team today and discover the full potential of Stocktake Online.
Stocktake Online is a global leader in hospitality inventory management software, trusted by thousands of operators worldwide. With over a decade of expertise and a 4.7+ star rating, the platform empowers restaurants, hotels, bars, cafés, catering companies, and cloud kitchens to streamline stock control, cut waste, and boost profits. The system integrates AI-powered invoice scanning, recipe costing, multi-site visibility, procurement automation, and supplier integrations in a single cloud-based platform. Learn more at: Stocktake Online Homepage