Each café ran its own POS and spreadsheet, and head office stitched them together once a month, by which point the food was already wasted. This is the same group with stock, sales, and food cost reconciled across all five sites in real time.
Two cafes ran on instinct and a shared spreadsheet. The third broke it. Each site ordered its own way, counts came in on emailed spreadsheets a week late, and a 6% food-cost gap had been running for a month before head office saw it.
Every location had its own POS and its own stock sheet, stitched together once a month in QuickBooks. By the time the group could see a problem, the food had already been wasted and the margin was already gone.
Stock tracked per site against par levels, with transfers between locations handled in-system instead of over email.
Each location's sales land in real time next to a live per-site P&L, so there is nothing to export and reconcile.
One ledger across the locations, so the books close in 3 to 5 days instead of a two-week monthly stitch.
Theoretical-vs-actual food cost per site, so recipe drift and supplier price creep show up where they happen.
Because every site's stock, sales, and invoices live in one system, an operator works them between the monthly closes, under approvals head office sets.