Five Impactful Ways our Customers are Saving Money Right Now…

It’s no secret that hospitality and catering firms are continually looking for ways to cut costs and increase their bottom-line profit. Navigating an unpredictable climate that continues to challenge many in the sector, calls for smarter operations and more streamlined processes. One of the ways many of our customers are benefiting from day-to-day cost savings is through the use of Caternet, Zupa’s cutting-edge e-procurement platform.

Here are five impactful ways that our customers are using Caternet to save money:

1. Supplier granularity: this is perhaps the biggest area where our customers save money using the platform, although there still seems to be an element of confusion within the sector as to how to manage supplier relationships effectively. Businesses without systems like ours, tend to pay their suppliers to their statement. This effectively means that whatever the supplier provides monthly as a statement, is what the client pays.

This historic way of working is all too easy for suppliers as there is no granularity for clients who miss out on credits or end up paying full price when they have had short deliveries, for example. Using Caternet allows you to better manage your supplier relationships, whether that is through performance tracking, contract management, evaluation etc. or live price comparison from across a wider network of suppliers. By monitoring supplier performance, you can hold your suppliers accountable to certain agreed terms, you can ensure you are getting the best value for money and paying the best price on the market for ingredients and supplies.

2. Purchasing power: e-procurement platforms like Caternet also allow hospitality firms to centralise their purchasing processes, making it easier to track and manage all of their procurement activities in one place. By consolidating their purchasing power, firms can also use live data to negotiate better prices with suppliers and also take advantage of bulk discounts. Many of our customers are already seeing the benefits of this and are saving money every day on the products they purchase simply by improving visibility and having everything in one place.

3. Automated workflows: Caternet essentially automates many of the manual tasks involved in the procurement process, such as menu planning, allergens compliance, requesting quotes, issuing purchase orders, and tracking deliveries to name a few. Ditching the paper chain saves a great deal of time and money from the perspective of staff resourcing and reduces the risk of errors too, freeing up your team to focus on doing the jobs they love.

4. Improved visibility: our platform provides real-time visibility into your business’ spending patterns, supplier performance, and your stock and inventory levels. This helps you to identify the areas where costs can be reduced (hence saving you money) and helping you to make more informed purchasing decisions in the process. Whether that is reducing waste and over-ordering or even making the most of seasonal ingredients, controlling spend is one of the key ways you can save money as a business. Having one single source of truth and knowing exactly what is going in and out of the business in real time is hugely beneficial to your cash flow.

5. Streamlining the invoicing process: Caternet also helps you to streamline the invoicing process by allowing suppliers to submit invoices electronically. This reduces the time and costs associated with manual invoice processing and reduces the risk of errors which can all be very costly to businesses.

Ultimately, automation and visibility holds the key to saving money. It doesn’t need to be complicated either. By taking advantage of advances in technology, catering firms can save money quickly and easily, every day, on the simplest of aspects.

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