Plate IQ

Benefits:

Ease of use. Beautiful interface. Great customer service

Drawbacks:

Want more data! Please create more tools like hot list and spend analyze

Benefits:

That Plate IQ platform is able to handle multiple store locations as well as export to both QuickBooks and Chef Tec desktop software. The platform is also able to allow you to choose to map invoices using either items or directly to GL accounts as you wish.

Drawbacks:

Plate IQ has some powerful features, but numerous basic design elements prevent those features from truly being useful. They boast of a powerful OCR system, but the truth is that the system only looks at data on an invoice until it has identified something from a previously created list of items that matches close enough. Their reps have referred to this as the "essence of the item" to me. The basic mantra seems to be that close enough is good enough. The OCR will often use variations of vendor names for different invoices and while you can "merge" the vendors together so that they all show up together when searching, they will all individually require separate item categorization. This also means that their reporting function will often only display part of your purchase data as the system will have split your invoices over multiple vendors with slight variations to their address. The system is supposed to allow you to save categorization for each item, but for the last two months there has been a bug in place that allows the system to automatically create a categorization for brand new items. Other times items that are used regularly will lose their categorization, thus creating a situation where a user must keep reviewing each and every invoice for accuracy.

In sum:

In a word? Bad. Plate IQ is very much a bait and switch operation. They promised one thing and ever since we started they have given excuse after excuse about why they aren't responsible for living up to the promises they gave us initially. Plate IQ will commonly state that things are working as intended because they often are. The problem is that the basic design of Plate IQ prevents it's features from offering any real benefit. As an example: After about 6 months on the platform we attempted to use their reporting functions to investigate what products we had purchased the most of. We immediately took notice of the fact that the report data could not be exported in any way and we were unable to filter it to look at quantity purchased instead of total cost. We settled for manually transcribing the data out of Plate IQ item-by-item and then building a report in Excel that could be manipulated better. We did this for our top 10 vendors and found that we had to spend hours adjusting the vendor names in Plate IQ as our purchases were split to multiple vendors. Once that was done we then found that our top 20 items for each vendor generally only showed data for 10-15 items as the system was using so many item duplicates. All in all we spend as much time trying to fix Plate IQ's mistakes as we are saving with it's features.

Benefits:

None really -look good -high expectation

Drawbacks:

-Liar sell rep -EXPENSIVE -DO NOT WORK!

In sum:

Don t buy! that it

Benefits:

item prices update and automation to our accounting system

Drawbacks:

They are still working on POS integrations

In sum:

I was always looking for a way to go paperless. With Plate IQ I just take pics of my invoice then access all my spendings. They digitize invoice at a line item level so I am able to see how my items prices are fluctuating. After setting up my recipes I know how they are changing in pricing as well. My bookkeeper uses the platform to automatically export invoices to Quickbooks and therefore we save money on the data entry work that used to be done in the past. Last we can now count our inventory more often without having to update item prices in an excel sheet.

Benefits:

My favorite feature is that you literally upload a document and then you are done. There is no extra information you have to fill out about the invoice that you're scanning. With other softwares you still have to fill out a bunch of information like itemizing each thing.

Drawbacks:

My least favorite part is how long it takes to officially upload onto the site. It takes about 15 minutes to receive a confirmation email that the invoice was uploaded. I'm not really sure what is taking so long, or why. But this is not a huge deal.

In sum:

Plate IQ makes it easy to get your invoices to your bookeeper/accountant. There is no unnecessary scanning or sending through email. It's very organized and simple.

Benefits:

Runs real-time updates and automates wonderfully with accounting systems (Xero, QBO).

Drawbacks:

Point of sale integrations are limited.

In sum:

Able to account for recipe costs and was able to move to a completely digital filing system for invoice, vendor bills, etc. Ability to monitor price fluctuations for items needed for restaurant to see is clients are getting the most for their money. Houses inventory information which eliminates the need to keep in another spreadsheet outside of the systems. Bookkeeping/Accounting team has the ability to export invoices directly into accounting software which eliminates manual entry and reduces the margin of error.