Plate IQ is an automated accounts payable platform.
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Restaurant365
Score 9.5 out of 10
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Restaurant365 in Irvine, California offers what they describe as a complete restaurant management solution; it is back office oriented and so includes accounting and payroll, workforce management, scheduling, food costing and inventory controls, as well as analytics and reporting. Finally, the vendor boasts easy connections with external systems (e.g. POS systems).
We used DocuWare first; great experience; however, it was not made specifically for restaurant clients like Plate IQ is. Plate IQ does a much better job of recognizing common items, and they've continued to add a function that is important for restaurant owners. Restaurant …
It is well targeted at restaurants and similar service organizations with complex COGS. It dovetails well with complementary systems like FinTech payments. It wasn't designed by accountants, so there is a bit of roughness. Reporting is very limited: would like to see some SQL / build your own report functionality. Lookups are reasonably robust (filter for amount, time, vendor, etc). It is occasionally unstable but recovers gracefully. From our use case, it would be preferable to have the user approving the invoice ALSO have the ability to attach documents. This is left to the payment approver, who in our case is the "check signer".
I think any business that needs to track its expenses and create a P&L and balance sheet could benefit from this program. Once you get the training on it, it really makes the whole thing a breeze, saves you time, and creates beautiful reports. I don't know any business that wouldn't need it. Maybe if your business is selling one thing, maybe it won't be worth it for you. I think the sales would need to back up the subscription price, so I would weigh that into the equation. But there is nothing R365 doesn't do. It does inventory, it does waste tracking, it gets into the nitty gritty of business.
We used DocuWare first; great experience; however, it was not made specifically for restaurant clients like Plate IQ is. Plate IQ does a much better job of recognizing common items, and they've continued to add a function that is important for restaurant owners. Restaurant 365, we felt, was trying to be a complete package of accounting/AP/AR/inventory. After looking at each piece, we didn't feel that each of them was as strong as the other.
The sales integration and labor integration with our POS is really where it is light years better than QB. Quickbooks is good, but R365 is like QB on steroids. The drill down feature is fantastic, which QB doesn't have, and again, the sheer number of reports and customization is an asset. There is so much customization on R365 that I forgot to mention earlier on. And the level of support! You can go to their online support center and get answers so fast! You chat with a live person, not a bot, and they are real people giving you real answers.
In my opinion, it has had zero impact on ROI now that we are paying for an additional year.
Another negative is that we've spent a lot of time discussing this issue with Plate IQ, to no avail. They feel it's appropriate to charge a company for an entire year of service even though said company emailed to cancel prior to the end of the first year of service.
We also wasted a lot of time onboarding this company only to find out that the software left a lot to be desired.
