Case study

Inventory and cost

A hosted platform that runs the whole month-end cycle: tap-to-count on an iPad, invoices read automatically, and live cost visibility the operation never had.

Operations platformSeven vendor formats800+ prices

Dashboard showing live inventory value, suggested order, and latest count status — The operator's home screen: live inventory value, a suggested order, and where the month-end count stands.

At a glance

Platform: A web app, used on an iPad for counting and on a computer for the office
Languages: TypeScript; SQL for the database
Front end: Next.js 16 (App Router) and React 19, styled with Tailwind CSS 4
Back end and database: Supabase: Postgres with row-level security, so each business's data stays separate from every other's
Sign-in: Supabase Auth, with admin, manager and staff roles
Hosting: Vercel, deployed on every push
Other: Counts are saved on the device as staff go, so a weak signal never loses a count; month-end exports to a finished Excel workbook

The challenge

A multi-outlet kitchen was closing the month by hand. Paper counts, invoices keyed one line at a time, and no clear picture of what anything actually cost. Seven distributors each sent their data in a different format.

What we built

Staff count on an iPad, each working their own area at the same time, with every edit tracked. Clean vendor files are read instantly, and anything scanned or photographed is read automatically and held for review before it posts. A Cost Watch view puts every item on a true per-unit price and flags real increases, ignoring the false spikes that promo pricing creates.

Tap-to-count screen on an iPad, listing kitchen items with a quantity field for each — Tap-to-count on an iPad. Staff each claim an area and count at the same time, every entry saved as they go.

Invoice review screen flagging a mismatch between printed total and line items — Every invoice is checked before it posts, so a small mismatch is caught instead of slipping through.

Cost Watch table normalizing per-unit prices and flagging the biggest movers with trend lines — Cost Watch puts the real price movers first.

Month-end reports screen valuing inventory by area with an export button — Month-end valuation by area, exported to a finished workbook in one click.

Month-end went from a manual slog to a guided process, with live cost visibility the operation never had before.

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