Written by: JJ Tan, Founder, Jelly | Last updated: 21 July 2026
Key Takeaways for Restaurant Teams
- UK restaurant operators lose 10–20 hours weekly to manual invoice entry, and Jelly automates the workflow from inbox to Xero sync.
- AI OCR extracts line items from emailed or photographed invoices with 95–99% accuracy, which removes transcription errors and delays.
- Automated three-way matching and instant price alerts help teams react to supplier price changes within one business day and protect gross-profit margins.
- POS integration and live sales depletion provide real-time gross-profit visibility, with customers reporting 2–3 percentage-point GP gains within three months.
- Start saving hours and protecting margins today. Book a chat with Jelly and go live in one week for £129 per site.
Step 1: Create a Single Invoice Inbox for Every Supplier
Objective: Create one auditable entry point for every supplier invoice so no document is lost or entered twice.
Required inputs: A list of all active suppliers and their invoice delivery methods, such as email PDF, paper or EDI.
Action: Inside Jelly, generate a unique forwarding email address. Share this address with every supplier and instruct them to send invoices directly there. For paper invoices, use the Jelly mobile app described in Step 2.
Success criteria: Every supplier invoice arrives in Jelly within 24 hours of delivery, with zero manual re-keying.
- Log into Jelly and navigate to Invoice Settings to copy your unique inbox address. Once you have this address, move on to supplier communication.
- Email each supplier contact with the new address and a requested start date so they know when to switch their invoicing.
- While suppliers update their systems, set an internal rule to forward any invoices that still arrive in a personal inbox to the Jelly address as a safety net.
- After suppliers begin using the new address, confirm the first invoice from each supplier appears in the Jelly dashboard within one business day to verify the setup.
See how Jelly's invoice inbox eliminates manual data entry from day one
Step 2: Capture Paper Invoices with Mobile Photos and AI Extraction
Objective: Turn paper invoices into digital records at the point of delivery so ingredient costs update in real time.
Required inputs: Paper or PDF invoices and the Jelly mobile app installed on a kitchen device.
Action: Open the Jelly app, tap Scan Invoice, and photograph the document. Jelly's AI OCR engine reads every line item, including quantity, SKU, unit price and VAT, and creates a draft invoice record. AI-powered invoice capture achieves 95–99% extraction accuracy overall, reaching 99%+ on simple fields such as totals and vendor names, which removes the transcription errors that affect manually processed supplier invoices.
Success criteria: A draft invoice is populated with all line items within 60 seconds of photographing, with no manual typing from kitchen staff.
- Install the Jelly app on a shared kitchen tablet or the head chef's phone so it is always available at goods-in.
- Photograph invoices immediately on delivery instead of batching them at the end of the week.
- Review the AI-extracted draft for any flagged low-confidence fields, then confirm or correct those entries.
- Archive the paper original to maintain the required VAT audit trail.
Step 3: Map Supplier Packs to Base Inventory Units
Objective: Ensure every supplier SKU resolves to a single base inventory unit so recipe costs and stock counts stay accurate across all sites.
Required inputs: Supplier product catalogue, existing recipe ingredient list and agreed base units such as kg, litre or each.
Action: In Jelly's Kitchen section, link each extracted invoice line to the corresponding inventory ingredient and enter the conversion factor. Defining one base unit per ingredient and attaching all supplier variants to it prevents near-duplicate entries and keeps stock counts consistent across sites. Jelly handles the arithmetic automatically after you save the factor.
Success criteria: Every invoice line resolves to a base-unit cost, and recipe gross-profit margins update automatically when a new invoice arrives.
| Supplier Pack | Base Unit | Conversion Factor | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 kg case chicken breast | kg | 10 | £45 case ÷ 10 = £4.50/kg |
| 4 × 5 L olive oil case | litre | 20 | £60 case ÷ 20 = £3.00/L |
| 25 kg flour sack | kg | 25 | £18 sack ÷ 25 = £0.72/kg |
| 6 × 750 ml wine case | litre | 4.5 | £54 case ÷ 4.5 = £12.00/L |
- Assign a single base unit such as kg, litre or each to every ingredient before mapping begins.
- Enter the pack-to-base conversion factor for each supplier SKU in Jelly so costs roll up correctly.
- Flag catch-weight items such as whole fish and record actual weighed values at receiving.
- Run a spot-check on the top 20 highest-cost ingredients to confirm base-unit costs match invoices.
Step 4: Use Automated 3-Way Matching and Price Alerts
Objective: Validate every invoice against the purchase order and delivery note, and surface any price variance before payment is authorised.
Required inputs: Confirmed purchase orders, signed delivery notes and mapped inventory items from Step 3.
Action: Jelly cross-references the AI-extracted invoice against the recorded order and delivery. Automated three-way invoice validation provides comprehensive line checking and is significantly faster than manual matching. Any price movement triggers Jelly's Price Alert feature instantly, which gives chefs and finance managers clear data to request credit notes or renegotiate terms. At Amber restaurant in East London, this workflow consistently saves £3,000–£4,000 per month through faster reactions to price changes and recovered credits.
Success criteria: No price variances reach payment without investigation, and Price Alert notifications are reviewed within one business day of invoice receipt.
- Enable Price Alert notifications for all ingredient categories in Jelly settings so nothing slips through.
- Set a variance tolerance threshold, such as flagging anything above 2%, to reduce noise.
- Assign a named team member to review and action each alert so ownership stays clear.
- Log all credit notes received back into Jelly to keep spend data accurate.
See Jelly's 3-way matching and price-alert workflow in action
Step 5: Connect Your POS for Live GP and Stock Depletion
Objective: Connect front-of-house sales data to back-of-house ingredient costs so gross-profit margin updates automatically after every transaction.
Required inputs: Admin access to your POS account and Jelly dishes built in the Kitchen section.
Action: In Jelly, navigate to Integrations and connect your POS system. The process usually takes about five minutes. Sign in to the POS, grant permissions and select which categories, such as food and beverages, to sync. Each sale then pings Jelly in real time, depleting stock and updating the Flash Report with live GP margin. Sushi Revolution's monthly stocktake time reduced substantially after connecting their POS, and one operator improved gross profit from 65% to 72% within 12 weeks on approximately £500,000 in revenue.
Success criteria: The Flash Report updates within minutes of each service, and GP margin is visible without manual calculation.
- Confirm you hold admin-level access to your POS account before you start the connection.
- Map each POS menu item to the corresponding Jelly dish after the integration completes.
- Select only the relevant POS categories to keep the data feed clean and focused.
- Review the Sales Mix report after the first full service to verify depletion accuracy.
Step 6: Sync with Xero to Automate Bookkeeping
Objective: Push validated, line-item invoice data directly into Xero to remove double entry and speed up month-end close.
Required inputs: A Xero account with the correct chart of accounts and validated invoices from Steps 2 to 4.
Action: In Jelly, connect your Xero account through the Integrations menu. Once linked, approved invoices are pushed to Xero with a single click, carrying supplier name, line-item detail, VAT codes and nominal codes. Automating invoice processing reduces per-invoice handling time from 15 minutes to 30 seconds and creates the digital audit trail required for MTD compliance. Jelly customers report a 90% reduction in bookkeeping time after they enable the Xero sync.
Success criteria: All approved invoices appear in Xero within 24 hours of delivery, with no manual re-entry by the bookkeeper.
- Map Jelly supplier categories to the correct Xero nominal codes before the first push.
- Confirm VAT treatment is correctly assigned on each invoice type.
- Schedule a weekly review of the Xero AP ledger to confirm all invoices have posted cleanly.
- Notify your accountant that invoice data now flows into Xero daily instead of monthly.
Step 7: Build a Shared Ingredient Master for Multi-Site Growth
Objective: Establish a single, governed ingredient master that all sites share so stock counts, recipe costs and GP reports stay comparable across locations.
Required inputs: A consolidated ingredient list from all sites, plus an agreed naming convention and base units.
Action: Designate one team member as the Jelly data owner. That person approves all new ingredients, enforces the naming convention such as "Chicken Breast, Skin-Off, kg" and sets conversion factors at the corporate level. Allowing locations to create items freely is the most common failure point in multi-site master data consistency. Each additional site in Jelly is added at £129 per month with the same flat-rate pricing, and the shared ingredient master means new locations inherit all existing mappings immediately.
Success criteria: No duplicate ingredient entries appear across sites, and GP reports from different locations use identical cost bases so they are directly comparable.
- Audit existing ingredient lists across all sites and merge duplicates before going live.
- Publish a naming convention document and share it with all kitchen managers.
- Restrict ingredient creation rights to the designated data owner.
- Run a monthly cross-site variance report to catch any unit-of-measure drift early.
Step 8: Maintain Data Quality and Avoid Common Pitfalls
Objective: Keep invoice automation, price alerts and GP data accurate as supplier catalogues, menus and team members change.
Required inputs: A weekly Price Alert review log, a monthly GP report and updated supplier contacts.
Action: Assign a weekly 15-minute review slot to check Price Alerts, confirm any new supplier SKUs are mapped and verify that the Flash Report GP figure aligns with expectations. When a supplier changes a pack size or introduces a new product code, update the conversion factor in Jelly immediately instead of waiting for month-end.
Success criteria: No Price Alerts remain unresolved for more than five business days, and recipe costs always reflect current invoice prices.
- Add "Jelly Price Alert review" as a standing agenda item in weekly management meetings to ensure alerts are actioned promptly. When alerts reveal supplier changes, update supplier SKU mappings within 24 hours of any pack-size or product-code change so conversion factors remain accurate.
- Once mappings are updated, re-cost affected dishes immediately so menu pricing reflects current ingredient costs.
- Throughout this process, archive superseded invoice records in Jelly rather than deleting them to preserve the audit trail.
Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Scenario 1 — Chef photographs invoices in batches at week's end: Ingredient costs in Jelly fall behind live supplier prices, so dish GP margins become inaccurate during service. The fix is to photograph or forward invoices on the day of delivery. Jelly's mobile app keeps this as a 30-second task at the receiving dock.
Scenario 2 — Finance manager finds Xero totals do not match Jelly spend reports: This usually means some invoices were entered directly into Xero manually before the Jelly sync was enabled, which creates duplicates. Audit the Xero AP ledger for the transition period, remove duplicates and enforce a single-entry rule so all invoices enter via Jelly only.
Scenario 3 — Price Alert fires but no action is taken: Alerts lose value when they are not assigned to a named owner. Designate one person, typically the head chef or operations manager, to action every alert within 48 hours by requesting a credit note, switching supplier or adjusting menu pricing.
Scenario 4 — New site's stock counts do not reconcile with head office reports: The most common cause is a unit-of-measure mismatch, such as one site counting chicken by case and another by kilogram. Return to Step 7, audit the new site's ingredient list against the master and enforce base-unit conversions before the next stocktake.
How to Measure Success with Jelly
Three practical metrics show whether the automation workflow is delivering its full value.
Admin hours saved: Track the time spent on invoice processing, reconciliation and stock counting before and after Jelly. Restaurant managers spend 10–20 hours weekly on manual inventory administration under traditional systems, and Jelly customers consistently recover the majority of those 10–20 weekly hours within the first month.
Gross-profit margin improvement: Compare the GP percentage from the Flash Report in month one against month three to track the margin improvement mentioned earlier. Sushi Revolution achieved actual gross profits 2–3% higher by using Jelly to set separate GP targets for dine-in and delivery menus. The Howard Arms reached 80% gross profit after switching from manual processes, and the owner reported the ability to react instantly rather than weeks later.
Time to value: Jelly's benchmark is one week from sign-up to first Price Alert. If Price Alerts are not firing within five business days of suppliers sending invoices to the dedicated inbox, check that all supplier email addresses have been updated and that at least one invoice has been received and processed.
Advanced Tips and Next Steps for Extra Margin
Once the core workflow runs smoothly, two areas deliver the next layer of profitability gains.
Menu engineering with Sales Mix: Jelly's Sales Mix report, powered by the POS integration, shows which dishes are most popular and which are most profitable at the same time. Use this data to promote high-margin, high-volume dishes, re-engineer low-margin items and build a separate delivery menu with commission overheads factored in, all from within Jelly's Kitchen section.
Supplier negotiation with Price Alert data: Export a 90-day Price Alert history before any supplier review meeting. The data shows exactly which ingredients have increased, by how much and on which dates, which gives chefs and finance managers clear evidence to challenge unjustified increases and claim retrospective credits. Cairn Lodge Hotel's head chef used this approach to cut food costs by 5% within a single month.
Scaling to additional sites: Each new location is added at the same flat monthly rate established for the first site. Because the ingredient master, supplier mappings and recipe library are shared, a new site can be fully operational within the same one-week onboarding window as the first.
Get your restaurant invoice automation live within one week for £129 per month
Frequently Asked Questions
Who owns the invoice automation process day-to-day, the chef or the finance manager?
The workflow splits naturally between teams. Kitchen staff photograph or forward invoices at the point of delivery, which takes under a minute per delivery. The finance manager or operations director then reviews Price Alerts, approves invoices for Xero sync and monitors the Flash Report for GP trends. Jelly is designed so that neither role requires technical expertise, and the interface is deliberately simple so even the least tech-confident chef can complete their part after the initial onboarding session.
How often should invoices be processed, and what happens if a supplier sends a corrected invoice?
Invoices should be processed on the day of delivery so ingredient costs and dish GP margins stay current. If a supplier issues a corrected invoice, for example after a credit note is agreed, the updated document is forwarded or photographed into Jelly in the same way as the original. Jelly creates a new draft record, the finance manager reviews and confirms the corrected figures, and then pushes the updated data to Xero. The original invoice record remains in Jelly for audit purposes, so the full transaction history stays visible.
What happens when a supplier changes a product code, pack size or price mid-contract?
Jelly's Price Alert feature flags the change automatically as soon as the new invoice is processed. If the pack size has changed, the conversion factor for that ingredient must be updated in the Kitchen section, which usually takes about 60 seconds. Once updated, all recipes using that ingredient recalculate their costs and GP margins instantly. Manual spreadsheet systems often miss this type of change until the monthly accountant report, by which point weeks of margin erosion have already occurred.
How does multi-site rollout work, and how long does it take to add a second or third location?
Each additional site follows the same pricing structure with no setup fee and no per-user charge. Because the ingredient master, supplier mappings, conversion factors and recipe library built for the first site are shared across the account, a new location inherits all existing data immediately. The site-specific tasks, such as connecting the local POS, adding any location-specific suppliers and confirming the invoice inbox address with local suppliers, typically take less than a day. Jelly's benchmark of one week to first value applies to each new site, and operators managing multiple locations can compare GP performance across all sites from a single dashboard.