7 Ways Analytics Software Boosts UK Restaurant Profits 2026

Key Takeaways

• UK hospitality margins often sit between 3–6%, so small percentage gains from better data and reporting can deliver meaningful profit improvement for restaurants, pubs, and hotels across the sector.
• Automated invoice processing, live dish costing, and price alerts give chefs and owners clear visibility of costs, which supports faster, evidence-based decisions on pricing and purchasing.
• Inventory, menu, and sales mix analytics help reduce waste, focus on high-margin dishes, and tailor menus to each sales channel, from dine-in to delivery.
• Dashboards, regular reports, and supplier analytics turn scattered data into clear KPIs, so management can act weekly instead of waiting for month-end accounts.
• Jelly provides UK hospitality teams with restaurant-focused analytics, invoice automation, and menu tools in one platform, helping operators improve profit while saving time in the kitchen and office. Book a chat with Jelly to see it in action.

Why Restaurant Analytics Matters For UK Hospitality In 2026

The UK hospitality market faces cost pressure from inflation, staff shortages, and complex supplier relationships. Real-time financial data now plays a central role in keeping established venues profitable, especially for sites with annual revenues above £500,000 that need tight KPI control.

Manual spreadsheets and delayed reports create blind spots. Chefs can lose 10–20 hours a week on costing and invoice checks, time that should support service and quality. Analytics and reporting software reduces this admin load and provides immediate visibility of costs, margins, and performance, so teams can adjust menus, purchasing, and staffing before problems affect cash flow. Book a chat to explore how this works in practice.

1. Automate Invoice Processing For Clear Cost Visibility

Invoices remain one of the richest sources of cost data but often sit in email inboxes or filing cabinets. Manual entry across dozens of supplier invoices each week adds errors and delays, which hide the true cost picture.

Automated invoice scanning captures line items, quantities, prices, and tax directly from email or photos. This process can cut bookkeeping time by up to 90% while providing daily data for costing and purchasing decisions. Integration with accounting tools like Xero keeps accounts payable up to date and reduces missed payments.

Jelly focuses this automation on hospitality needs. The software captures every line item, stores full price histories, and pushes the data into recipes, dashboards, and reports, so operators gain cost clarity without extra admin.

2. Use Live Dish Costing For Confident Menu Pricing

Menu items stay profitable only when ingredient costs are accurate. Manual dish costing can take more than 20 minutes per recipe, which makes full menu reviews difficult and infrequent.

Live costing links recipes to invoice data, so ingredient prices update automatically. Food cost percentage can then be tracked against recommended benchmarks of 28–35% for healthy margins, and teams can reprice or reformulate dishes before costs drift too far.

At Cairn Lodge Hotel, Head Chef Stuart Noble used Jelly to keep every dish cost current and cut food costs by 5% in a month. Recipes in Jelly’s Kitchen section draw from scanned ingredients, so chefs see profit per dish in a few minutes instead of lengthy spreadsheet work.

3. Set Price Alerts To Protect Margins From Supplier Changes

Small, frequent supplier price changes can erode margin quietly when teams only review costs monthly. Many restaurants only notice when GP has already dropped.

Price alerts highlight every change as soon as a new invoice arrives. Operators gain clear evidence for supplier conversations, can request credit notes for unexpected rises, and compare alternative products or suppliers where costs move out of line.

Amber Restaurant used Jelly’s Price Alert feature to identify increases quickly and saved £3,000–£4,000 a month through negotiations, credit notes, and supplier switches. The combination of instant alerts and full price history gave the team the data needed to push back with confidence.

4. Improve Inventory Turnover And Cut Waste

Stock that moves slowly ties up cash and increases waste. At the same time, stockouts harm service and reputation. Effective inventory control balances these pressures using reliable data on usage and sales.

Restaurant analytics links purchase data with sales, which supports accurate forecasts and tighter ordering. Inventory turnover, a key KPI for efficiency, becomes easier to track and improve across product categories. Better turnover usually supports stronger cash flow and lower disposal costs over time.

Jelly’s Kitchen section includes a Cookbook area where recipes, units, and wastage percentages combine into clear cost metrics. This helps teams understand how inventory flows through recipes and where portion size or ordering changes can reduce waste. Book a chat to see these tools applied to your menu.

5. Analyse Sales Mix To Build A More Profitable Menu

Sales reports show what customers buy, but they do not always show what truly makes money. A data-led menu strategy looks at both popularity and margin for each item.

Sales mix reports combine POS data with live dish costs. This reveals which dishes deliver strong profit and which underperform, so teams can adjust portion sizes, pricing, or placement on the menu. Focusing on high-margin, high-velocity dishes can lift Revenue per Available Seat Hour (RevPASH) in busy periods.

Delivery platforms also need separate attention, because commission can turn a profitable dine-in dish into a weak delivery item. Jelly integrates with systems like Square and ePOSnow to generate Menu Engineering (Sales Mix) reports, which show popularity, profit, and channel performance in one view.

6. Use Dashboards And Reports For Fast Financial Oversight

Waiting for month-end accounts limits the chance to correct issues in time. In low-margin hospitality, teams benefit from frequent insight into performance against key KPIs.

Real-time dashboards highlight gross profit, cost percentages, and cash indicators that show financial health for each site. Best practice for UK restaurant accounting places strong emphasis on this kind of ongoing visibility, not just year-end compliance work with accountants.

At The Howard Arms, owner Ruth Seggie used Jelly dashboards and Flash Reports to move gross profit from 60% towards 80%. Regular reporting on supplier spend and GP margin gave the team clarity, so they could make weekly adjustments rather than wait for quarterly reviews.

7. Manage Suppliers With Data, Not Guesswork

Supplier relationships often evolve informally, which makes it easy for price creep or inconsistent service to go unnoticed. A structured, data-led approach supports better terms and more reliable supply.

Analytics software stores a complete record of prices, deliveries, and spend by supplier. This information improves Food Cost Percentage through more effective consolidation and negotiation, not only through recipe change across menus.

Jelly strengthens supplier management with price histories and invoice audits that highlight patterns over time. Operators can compare vendors on cost and stability, use data when querying increases, and build a supply base that balances value with quality.

Jelly Compared With Manual And Complex Alternatives

Restaurant teams often choose between manual spreadsheets or general-purpose software that feels heavy for daily kitchen use. Both options can limit adoption and insight.

Frequently Asked Questions About Restaurant Analytics And Reporting Software

How quickly do restaurants usually see results?

Most venues start to see useful insight in the first week once automated invoice scanning is live. Many Jelly customers report gross margin gains of around two percentage points and savings from faster supplier negotiations within three months, as seen at Amber Restaurant, with £3,000–£4,000 monthly savings.

Will chefs and non-technical staff be able to use this?

Modern restaurant analytics tools focus on clarity rather than complex features. Jelly presents recipes, invoices, and reports in a kitchen-friendly interface, so chefs can cost dishes in about three minutes and understand margins at a glance. Most teams become confident within a few days of regular use.

What kind of return on investment is realistic?

Return on investment typically comes from three areas. Time savings reduce admin by 10–20 hours a week, improved gross margin adds 2 percentage points or more, and supplier negotiations based on data often cut monthly spend. In some cases, such as Amber Restaurant, this has meant a multiple of their subscription fee in monthly savings.

Conclusion: Build A Data-Led Back Of House In 2026

In 2026, UK restaurants, pubs, and hotels that manage costs with real-time data will be better placed to handle rising prices and labour constraints. Analytics and reporting software brings invoices, recipes, sales, and suppliers into one clear view, so teams can act early rather than react late.

Jelly combines invoice automation, live costing, sales mix analysis, and dashboards in one platform built for hospitality. This reduces admin burden and gives chefs and owners the insight needed to protect margins and plan with confidence. Book a chat to see how Jelly can support your restaurant’s profitability in 2026.