Operations assistant: stock, bookings, buying and food cost
Published and maintained by Adtro Media
The day-to-day running of the floor lives in the Operations assistant: Assistants > Operations > Floor. It has up to eight workspaces in the rail on the left.
Starting out: Today shows a Getting started checklist (in Manager view) until each step is done. In order —
- Intake — load what you sell. Drop a supplier invoice, a menu PDF, a photo of a shelf, your own spreadsheet or a link, and the assistant reads it and proposes the products as a card you confirm. Adtro's own import sheet is read and committed right here, row by row.
- Reorder levels (businesses that hold stock) — click a product's name in Stock or Catalog to open it, and set its reorder level. Until a product has one it is only flagged when it runs out, never when it runs low.
- Supplier prices (restaurants and cafés) — post your supplier bills in FinBot's Documents workspace, then match each line to an ingredient under Buying > Lines that need a decision. Matched once, that supplier's wording is remembered and the next bill matches itself.
- Recipes (restaurants and cafés) — give each dish a recipe under Costs > Recipes & ingredients. A dish shows a margin only when it has a selling price, a recipe and a price for every ingredient in it.
The eight workspaces:
- Today — what needs doing before you open (out of stock, below reorder level, the walk-in queue, supplier lines with no ingredient) and how yesterday went against the same weekday last week. Each item opens the workspace that clears it. Look here first every morning.
- Intake — see step 1. Anything you drop is read and comes back for confirmation; nothing is written until someone confirms.
- Stock — what you hold, the reorder list with the quantity to order, and Adjust stock for a count, a delivery, wastage or a move between Locations. Pick the Location once at the top: stock is held per Location.
- Bookings — today's book (or any other day), how full you are, and the walk-in queue. Call, Arrived, Seat, Done and No-show are on each row. The floor plan and booking rules stay on the Bookings page and in the storefront's settings.
- Catalog — everything you sell: change a price or take something off sale for today. Photos, variants, menu schedules, happy hour and allergens open the product's own screen.
- Buying — Raise an order to a supplier, Mark as sent, then Record a delivery against it to put it on the shelf (each line needs a product for stock to move). Below that, what supplier bills say you bought and the lines still waiting for an ingredient. Adtro never sends the order to the supplier and never books a cost — the bill does that, in FinBot.
- Costs — margin per dish against your target food-cost percentage, supplier price changes, and what the recipes say you should have used against what the bills say you bought.
- Reports — Location against Location, and the window you pick against the one just before it (a 10-day window compares with the 10 days before, not last month).
Things that trip people up:
- Daily / Manager, under the rail, is a VIEW, not a permission. Daily shows only Today, Intake, Stock and Bookings — the shift. Manager adds Catalog, Buying, Costs and Reports. If you cannot find prices or margins, switch to Manager. What someone can actually change is still set by their role in Settings > Team (inventory, bookings).
- A workspace missing even in Manager view does not apply to your business type: Stock is hidden for businesses that hold no stock, Bookings for those that take no bookings, and Costs for anything that is not a restaurant or café.
- Costs is empty until step 3 is done. No supplier price means no ingredient cost, which means no dish cost — each gap is shown with its reason, never as a zero.
- The date control only appears above workspaces it changes: a range on Buying, Costs and Reports (plus a Compare tick on Costs and Reports), a single day on Bookings, and none on Intake, Stock or Catalog.
- Staff and rosters belong to the HR assistant. Today shows the overtime warning and links across.
Ask the Operations assistant (the Chat tab) in words: "mark Kaya Toast out of stock", "set Curry Chicken to $8.50", "restock Milo to 100", "close us on all public holidays", "set booking slots every 30 minutes", "which dishes are below target margin?", "what sold best last week?". Each change comes back as a card somebody with the right permission confirms — nothing changes silently.
Faster: iBot inside your dashboard can walk you through this — or do it for you. Open Assistants and just ask.