The Three Technology Solutions Every Restaurant Owner Needs (And Why You Can’t Afford to Wait)

Let me guess—you’re running your restaurant on a patchwork of systems that barely talk to each other. 

Excel spreadsheets for scheduling, manual invoice entry that takes hours each week, and financial reports that arrive too late to actually help you make decisions. 

I get it. 

I’ve been there, staring at three or four Excel sheets open at once, trying to piece together what was really happening in my restaurants.

That’s exactly where I was when I first discovered integrated restaurant management systems. What I thought would be a nice-to-have upgrade turned into an absolute lifesaver for our operations. 

Recently, I had the chance to sit down with Bill Lindsey, a partner at Cogswell with decades of experience helping restaurant operators streamline their technology systems, to understand how the integration landscape has evolved—and why it’s easier than ever to get your systems working together.

Bill Lindsey’s Three Decades in Restaurant Technology

Bill Lindsey isn’t just another tech consultant talking theory. 

As a partner at Cogswell, he’s spent decades watching restaurant operators struggle with disconnected systems and has been at the forefront of developing solutions that actually work in real restaurant environments. 

He was instrumental in launching Compete Restaurant Management Systems, which many operators (myself included) relied on during the 2000s before it was acquired by Restaurant 365.

“What has changed began with the cloud and the implementation of APIs,” Bill explains. “What that really means in effect is that all of the integrations that we did in Compete from an inventory, labor, and accounting perspective, you can make with virtually any combination of products today.”

This shift has fundamentally changed how restaurant owners should think about their technology stack. Instead of being locked into one vendor’s limited capabilities, operators now have the freedom to choose best-in-class solutions that seamlessly work together.

The Great Restaurant Technology Solution Decision: All-in-One vs. Best-in-Class

Before diving into specific solutions, every restaurant owner faces a crucial choice: Do you want one vendor handling everything, or do you want to pick the best individual tools and connect them?

“The first decision people need to make is whether they’re looking for an all-in-one solution, one vendor that serves all needs, or best in class,” Bill notes. “And that decision has become much easier to make these days.”

The game-changer here is API integration—those automated programming interfaces that allow different software systems to communicate seamlessly. “If you sign up for Cogswell and you say, I want all of this accounting stuff to be fully integrated, there’s about a five-minute process of putting in your password and your username and creating that API link,” Bill explains.

This means you can literally change your accounting system from QuickBooks to NetSuite, update your credentials, and continue operating without your restaurant staff even knowing the difference. The barrier that used to keep restaurant owners trapped in mediocre systems has been demolished.

Solution #1: AP Automation

If you’re going to implement just one integrated solution, Bill is adamant about where to start: “The fastest, easiest return on investment is AP automation.”

This isn’t just about scanning invoices—though that’s part of it. We’re talking about a complete workflow transformation that touches every aspect of your cost management:

• Hands-free receiving: Staff scan or photograph invoices and get back to work
• Automated inventory updates: Quantities and costs update automatically
• Streamlined accounts payable: Bills flow directly into your accounting system
• Integrated bill pay: Schedule payments, manage ACH transfers, and handle virtual credit cards all from one platform

“We have what we call hands-free receiving,” Bill explains. “We grab that data and automate the receiving function, updating quantities and costs. Our staff sets up any new items that they find on the invoice, but it also has another fork in the road—inventory for the stores, but for accounting, now we’ve got full automation into accounts payable.”

The time savings alone justify the investment, but the real value comes from accuracy and real-time cost visibility. When I think about the hours we used to spend manually entering invoices and reconciling inventory, this kind of automation would have been transformational.

Solution #2: Labor Scheduling 

After getting your cost of goods under control, the next critical integration is labor management. This goes far beyond putting names on a wall schedule.

“To complete the full prime cost and prime tracking of expenses, you’ve got to have labor automation,” Bill emphasizes. “And that starts with labor scheduling.”

Modern labor solutions handle complexities that would be impossible to manage manually:

• Intelligent forecasting: Predict staffing needs based on historical data and external factors
• Automated scheduling: Apply business rules and labor regulations automatically
• Staff portals: Enable shift swapping and time-off requests without management intervention
• Multi-location management: Handle different labor laws across jurisdictions
• Payroll integration: Calculate overtime, tip credits, and compliance requirements

The regulatory compliance aspect alone is worth the investment. “In some jurisdictions, and Colorado is a good one, there are townships. You could work down the street at another restaurant and have a different set of payroll rules,” Bill points out. For operators with multiple locations or shared staff, this complexity is nearly impossible to manage accurately without software.

Solution #3: Daily Financial Audit 

The third essential integration might be the most eye-opening for restaurant owners who’ve been flying blind on daily performance. Bill calls it the “daily financial audit,” and it’s about getting actionable financial data when you can still do something about it.

“A lot of people say, well, we wait till the end of the week. And it’s like, it’s too late. I need to know that yesterday things didn’t go according to plan, that I didn’t quite hit my revenue number, my labor cost is creeping up, because I might be able to react to that today,” Bill explains.

This solution pulls data from your POS system and creates sophisticated mappings that transform raw sales data into meaningful financial insights:

• Flash P&L reports: Revenue, statistical labor, and theoretical food costs available the next morning
• Real-time variance tracking: Compare actual performance against forecasts and budgets
• Delivery service reconciliation: Accurately account for third-party delivery fees and commissions
• Statistical account tracking: Monitor key metrics without waiting for full payroll processing

“If I’m running a restaurant, the first thing I want to look at in the morning is my flash P&L,” Bill shares. “What’s my revenue? What’s my statistical labor? Because I really won’t know the financial labor until later with rules and so forth applied to it.”

The Power of Theoretical vs. Actual Food Cost

One of the most sophisticated aspects of integrated restaurant management is the ability to track theoretical food cost in real-time and compare it to actual usage through inventory counts.

“If you’re putting recipes into a product like Cogswell, you’re going to live off of your ideal or theoretical food cost. And then at the end of the period when you count what’s left, that’s where you sync up and determine what your variance is,” Bill explains.

The goal is maintaining a 2% or less variance between theoretical and actual food cost. Once you achieve that level of accuracy, you can make business decisions based on theoretical costs and know you’ll hit your targets when you count inventory.

This level of precision transforms restaurant management from reactive fire-fighting to proactive business optimization. You’re no longer wondering why your food costs were high last week—you know in real-time when portions are off, waste is occurring, or theft is happening.

The AI Revolution: What’s Coming Next

While these three integration categories form the foundation of modern restaurant operations, Bill sees artificial intelligence as the next major disruptor. “Within the next year or two years, AI is going to change everything. We don’t yet know exactly how deep it’s going to go or what all it’s going to eliminate.”

Advanced forecasting solutions like Clear Cogs and FiveOut are already demonstrating the power of AI-driven predictions. These systems consider factors traditional restaurant software ignores: weather patterns, local events, sports schedules, even little league tournaments in your area.

“The minute that your team made the final four, you better adjust your staffing and you better order additional product because you’re going to be busier than you would have been,” Bill notes. This level of sophisticated forecasting will become table stakes for competitive restaurant operations.

Implementation Reality: Start Simple, Scale Smart

The beauty of modern restaurant technology integration is that you don’t need to transform everything at once. Bill’s recommendation is straightforward: “If you’re using a product like Compete or Restaurant 365 and you’re in love with any portion of it, keep that portion. You find something that works well for you, don’t let go of it until you have to.”

This isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. Many Restaurant 365 customers use Cogswell for inventory management because it offers superior functionality for their specific needs, particularly operators running commissaries or complex multi-unit operations.

The key is choosing solutions that integrate well rather than systems that claim to do everything adequately. “Having the user interface, the UI as it’s called, tailored for the audience you’re working with makes all the sense in the world,” Bill explains. “If you look at the number of apps that you have on your iPhone, I’ll rest my case right there.”

Get The Right Restaurant Tech Guidance

Restaurant technology integration isn’t about having the coolest gadgets or impressing your staff with fancy dashboards. It’s about survival in an industry where margins are razor-thin and operational efficiency determines profitability.

“Without that information, I don’t know how you can effectively manage a restaurant unless you’ve got a hundred dollar per plate check average that covers up a lot of ills,” Bill concludes. “But if you’re like most restaurants where you’re really on tight margins, you’ve got to manage timeliness of data, accuracy of data, theoretical versus actual, schedule versus payroll, forecast versus schedule versus payroll, forecast versus purchases and prep.”

The restaurants that embrace integrated technology solutions today will have competitive advantages that compound over time. The restaurants that continue managing through disconnected systems and manual processes will find themselves increasingly unable to compete on efficiency, accuracy, and profitability.

The question isn’t whether you can afford to integrate your restaurant technology. The question is whether you can afford not to.