Written by: JJ Tan, Founder, Jelly
What You Will Achieve With This Stock Control Setup
- Multi-location stock control tracks ingredients, costs, and variances across café sites from one central system, giving live gross-profit visibility without spreadsheets.
- Centralised invoice capture and POS integration remove manual data entry and update theoretical stock the moment a dish is sold.
- Recipe costing, FEFO/FIFO rotation rules, and site-specific par levels reduce waste and stockouts while delivering accurate dish margins in minutes rather than hours.
- Real-time price alerts and weekly variance reports catch supplier price creep and discrepancies before they erode GP, often delivering a 2-percentage-point margin lift within 90 days.
- UK café groups using Jelly achieve measurable savings and ROI within the first week; see your live GP data in under a week.
What You Need Before You Start Jelly Setup
Gather a few essentials across every site before configuring your system.
- A current supplier list with contact details and invoice formats
- Admin-level access to your POS, such as Square, EPOS Now, Lightspeed, or Toast, which all work with Jelly’s five-minute integration
- A shortlist of your top 20 highest-cost or highest-volume ingredients per site
- Confirmation of each site’s delivery days and supplier lead times
Jelly onboards new sites in under one week at a flat £129/site per month. There are no variable user fees and no lengthy implementation project. Confirm your setup requirements with our team before you start.
Why Real-Time Multi-Site Stock Control Protects Your GP
In unmanaged multi-site operations, inventory variance is often significant and creates ongoing margin leakage on perishable items. For a café group with substantial turnover, this can mean large sums lost each year to waste, over-portioning, and untracked transfers before any supplier price increase hits.
Manual spreadsheets make the problem worse. Monthly reviews allow problems to compound for four weeks before detection, by which point a margin issue has already hit the P&L. Jelly’s automated workflow closes that gap to near real time by connecting seven operational steps into one continuous system. Here is how to implement that workflow across your café group.
Seven-Step Workflow for Multi-Location Stock Control
Step 1: Centralise Invoice Capture Across All Café Sites
Objective: Remove manual data entry and create a single cost record for every ingredient across all locations.
Action: Set up a dedicated Jelly inbox email address for each site. Ask suppliers to send invoices directly to those addresses, or have kitchen staff photograph paper invoices in the Jelly app. Jelly automatically scans every line item, including quantity, SKU, price, and tax, without manual input.
Inputs: Supplier invoices by email or photo
Success criteria: All invoices captured digitally within 24 hours of delivery, with zero manual re-keying
Suggested visual: Screenshot of Jelly’s invoice upload screen showing a scanned delivery note with line items populated automatically
Automated invoice processing pulls supplier prices and purchased quantities directly into the inventory and recipe-costing layer without manual re-entry, which forms the foundation every subsequent step depends on.
Step 2: Connect Your POS at Every Café Location
Objective: Automate sales-driven stock depletion so theoretical usage updates as soon as a dish is sold.
Action: In Jelly, go to Integrations, sign in to your POS, then grant permissions and select which categories to sync. Supported systems include Square, EPOS Now, Lightspeed, and Toast. The process usually takes about five minutes per site. Map each POS item to its corresponding Jelly dish. Only items sold since connection appear, which keeps the mapping clean.
Inputs: POS admin credentials and a confirmed menu item list
Success criteria: Live sales data flowing into Jelly’s Flash Report within one trading session of connection
Suggested visual: Jelly Integrations screen showing a connected POS with a green status indicator
POS integration automatically depletes theoretical stock from sales via recipe-level ingredient consumption, which removes the need for manual sales reconciliation across sites.
Step 3: Build Recipes in Jelly and Apply FIFO/FEFO in Your Stockroom
Objective: Create accurate dish costs in Jelly and match them with correct physical stock rotation for perishables.
Action: In Jelly’s Kitchen section, build each dish by clicking on ingredients already populated from scanned invoices. Jelly handles all unit conversions and wastage percentages automatically. Once recipes are built, Jelly can compare theoretical usage with physical stock, and that comparison only stays accurate when your team follows correct rotation practices in the stockroom. For perishables such as fresh pastry, dairy, and prepped fillings, apply FEFO (First Expired, First Out) rotation, labelling stock by expiry date and placing newer deliveries behind older stock. Use FIFO for ambient lines such as dried goods and canned items.
Inputs: Ingredient list from scanned invoices and recipe cards from the head chef
Success criteria: Every dish on the menu has a live cost and GP margin visible in Jelly’s dashboard
Suggested visual: Jelly Cookbook screen showing a dish with auto-calculated cost, GP%, and ingredient breakdown
Step 4: Set Site-Specific Par Levels for Each Café
Objective: Prevent stockouts and perishable waste by giving each site its own reorder thresholds based on local demand.
Action: Par levels must be set individually per site based on each location’s sales patterns, supplier lead times, and storage capacity. Start with your top 20 highest-usage lines. Calculate par as average daily usage multiplied by days to next delivery, then add a 25% safety buffer for high-velocity perishables such as oat milk. Review pars monthly as seasons, menus, and local events change demand.
Inputs: POS sales history by site and supplier delivery schedules
Success criteria: Par levels documented for the top 20 SKUs at each site and no emergency orders in the first four weeks
Suggested visual: Jelly inventory screen showing per-site par levels with current stock quantities alongside
Step 5: Record and Reconcile Inter-Site Stock Transfers
Objective: Remove phantom inventory and ensure both sending and receiving sites reflect every transfer accurately.
Action: When one site holds surplus perishable stock and another is running short, log the transfer in Jelly before the goods move. Transfers must be recorded by both the sending and receiving stores with the same item, quantity, and date, otherwise both locations’ food cost reports become inaccurate. Reconcile all inter-site transfers at month end to confirm the system matches physical reality.
Inputs: Transfer quantity, item name, sending site, receiving site, and date
Success criteria: No unrecorded transfers and month-end stock reconciliation completed in under 30 minutes across all sites
Suggested visual: Jelly transfer log showing a completed inter-site movement with timestamps and quantities confirmed at both ends
Without a paper trail for stock transfers, phantom inventory occurs because the sending location records the stock as issued while the receiving location fails to record the receipt, leaving the central system out of balance.
Step 6: Use Price Alerts and Variance Reports to Protect GP
Objective: Catch supplier price creep and stock discrepancies before they erode GP.
Action: Jelly’s Price Alert feature flags every ingredient price increase or decrease as soon as a new invoice is scanned, showing the supplier, the line item, and the change amount. Use this data to negotiate credits or switch suppliers with hard evidence. Run Jelly’s variance report weekly and investigate when variance exceeds 2%, treating over 3% as urgent. Apply the five-cause framework of waste or spoilage, theft, portioning errors, recipe non-compliance, or ingredient price drift.
Inputs: Scanned invoices and weekly physical stock counts
Success criteria: Price Alert reviewed within 48 hours of each delivery and variance below 2% at each site within 90 days
Suggested visual: Jelly Price Alert screen showing flagged ingredient increases with supplier name, previous price, new price, and percentage change
Amber restaurant in East London uses this workflow and consistently saves £3,000–£4,000 per month, achieving about 68× ROI on their Jelly subscription. Chef-Owner Murat Kilic says, “Jelly keeps my business alive.”
Step 7: Check Live Gross Profit by Site Every Day
Objective: Replace delayed monthly accountant reports with a daily GP view that supports same-week decisions.
Action: Open Jelly’s Flash Report each morning. It calculates GP margin from invoice costs and POS sales in real time, broken down by site. Any dish whose margin drops below target appears in red, and improvements appear in green. Use the Sales Mix report to identify which dishes are both popular and profitable, then adjust menus or pricing accordingly. Push finalised invoice data to Xero with one click for accounting reconciliation.
Inputs: Live POS sales, scanned invoices, and recipe costs
Success criteria: GP margin visible every morning without manual calculation and a 2 percentage point GP uplift achieved within 90 days
Suggested visual: Jelly Flash Report dashboard showing GP% by site with red and green dish-level margin indicators
Sushi Revolution used Jelly’s live GP visibility to achieve gross profits 2–3% higher on average, which supported the opening of a second restaurant. Their monthly stocktake now takes 5–20 minutes, down from 2–3 hours previously.
At £129/site per month, Jelly’s seven-step workflow is live within one week. Get your first Price Alert within 24 hours of your first invoice.
Common Multi-Site Stock Control Mistakes
- Skipping POS admin access: Jelly flags this upfront, but confirm admin credentials before your integration session to avoid delays.
- Using chain-wide par levels: Par levels are not one-size-fits-all and must reflect each site’s sales patterns and storage capacity. Set them individually from day one.
- Logging transfers after the fact: Record every inter-site movement before goods leave the sending site. Retrospective entries create reconciliation errors.
- Ignoring delivery channel splits: When a delivery marketplace feed is missing from the POS, a significant share of multi-channel revenue can remain invisible to inventory. Ensure all channels route through your connected POS.
- Monthly-only variance reviews: By the time you spot a variance in a monthly review, the damage already appears on the P&L. Weekly is the minimum; daily Flash Reports are better.
How to Track Results From Your Jelly Rollout
Track these four metrics from week one to see the impact clearly.
- GP margin by site (weekly): Target a 2 percentage point improvement within 90 days.
- Inventory variance (weekly): Aim for under 2% at each location; under 1% is excellent.
- Admin hours saved (monthly): Benchmark current spreadsheet time and target 10–20 hours saved per month.
- Price Alert response rate: Every flagged price increase should generate a supplier conversation or credit note within 48 hours.
Real-time variance tracking can help reduce food costs, which matches Jelly customers’ experience in the UK market.
Advanced Jelly Features for Growing Café Groups
Once the seven-step workflow runs smoothly, extend it with these options.
- Delivery menu costing: Duplicate existing Jelly dishes and factor in delivery commission overheads to build a separate, profitable delivery menu, using the same approach Sushi Revolution used to protect margins against 30% platform commissions.
- Supplier negotiation cadence: Schedule a monthly review of Price Alert history across all sites. Patterns of repeated increases from one supplier become the basis for a renegotiation conversation backed by hard data.
- Xero reconciliation: Use Jelly’s one-click Xero push to remove most bookkeeping time and give your accountant clean, line-item invoice data instead of manual summaries.
- Cross-site best-practice sharing: Outlier locations should be flagged so that best practices from higher-performing sites can be shared with under-performing ones. Jelly’s multi-site dashboard makes this comparison immediate.
FAQ
How long does it take to set up Jelly across multiple café sites?
Most operators generate live insights within one week. Connecting a supported POS such as Square, EPOS Now, Lightspeed, or Toast takes about five minutes per site. Suppliers then send invoices to a dedicated Jelly email address, and Price Alerts go live within 24 hours of the first scanned invoice. Recipe building in the Kitchen section takes about three minutes per dish, compared to the industry average of 28 minutes in a spreadsheet.
What is the difference between FIFO and FEFO, and which should UK cafés use?
FIFO (First In, First Out) means the oldest received stock is used first, with new deliveries placed behind existing stock. FEFO (First Expired, First Out) prioritises items closest to their expiry date, regardless of when they were received. For UK cafés, FEFO is the correct method for fresh produce, dairy, bakery items, and prepped fillings, or any ingredient where shelf life varies between deliveries. FIFO suits ambient lines such as dried goods, canned items, and frozen products. The UK Food Standards Agency’s Safer Food, Better Business (HACCP) guidance provides the regulatory framework for these rotation practices.
How do inter-site stock transfers work in Jelly, and why do they matter for food cost accuracy?
When one site holds surplus perishable stock and another is running short, the transfer is logged in Jelly before goods move. Both the sending and receiving sites record the same item, quantity, and date. This prevents phantom inventory, where the sending site shows the stock as issued but the receiving site never records the receipt, which leaves the central system out of balance and makes food cost reports inaccurate at both locations. Reconciling transfers monthly keeps the system aligned with physical reality across all sites.
What GP improvement can a 2–5 site UK café group realistically expect from Jelly?
Jelly customers see an average of 2 percentage points of GP improvement within the first three months, driven by automated Price Alerts, live dish costing, and faster variance response. Amber restaurant saves £3,000–£4,000 per month and has achieved about 68× ROI. Sushi Revolution achieved gross profits 2–3% higher on average after implementing Jelly’s live GP visibility. The Howard Arms reached 80% gross profit after previously being told 60% was the ceiling. Results depend on starting food cost, number of sites, and how actively the team acts on Price Alert data.
Conclusion: Move From Spreadsheets to Live GP Control
Manual spreadsheets leave 2–5 site café operators flying blind on margins, losing 2–4% on food costs and spending 10–20 hours monthly on admin that a connected system can handle automatically. The seven-step workflow above, from invoice capture to live GP reporting, gives you a repeatable process that closes that gap. Jelly delivers every step in a single, plug-and-play platform at £129/site per month, with value visible in the first week.
The fastest way to see whether Jelly fits your operation is to watch it work on your own invoices and POS data. See live GP across all your sites this week.