Three platforms, three tablets, three different chimes, and one kitchen that has to keep up. The mess is visible, but it is not what costs money: the real problem is that none of those orders leaves your stock and none of them enters your totals. After a month your inventory is wrong and your margin is a guess. Here is why, and the routine that fixes both without buying anything.
In short
- The noise is not the problem. The problem is that the platforms do not decrement your stock.
- A delivered sale does not carry the same margin as a dine-in sale: commission is added to the food cost.
- Enter platform orders into your till, even after the fact. That is what keeps one stock.
- Create a “delivery” channel to tell them apart, or your dine-in best sellers are wrong.
- BelloPOS integrates with no platform. We say so plainly, and give the manual routine that works.
What the tablet actually breaks
Three kinds of damage, and only the first is visible from the counter. The other two only surface at stock take or month end.
| What happens | Immediate consequence | What it costs later |
|---|---|---|
| The order lands on the tablet | Someone copies it out or holds it in their head. | Preparation errors, and nothing proving what was ordered. |
| The kitchen sends the dish | Ingredients leave the store. | Theoretical stock does not move: the gap grows every service. |
| The platform charges the customer | You see neither the payment nor the customer. | Your day’s takings are incomplete and the till close cannot be reconciled. |
| Commission is deducted | You are paid later, net. | The margin per dish is no longer the one on your recipe card. |
| Three platforms at once | Three screens to watch during the rush. | Unanticipated stockouts: you sell what you no longer have. |
The costliest row is the second. Stock that does not move when the goods leave is stock that lies, and it lies louder every week. Everything you build on it, reorder points, margins, supplier orders, inherits the error.
What a delivered sale really changes
Four differences from a dine-in sale. None of them is a detail.
- The commission: The platform takes a percentage of each order, set in your contract. It varies by platform, by city and by what you negotiated, so we publish no rate here: get your contract out, it is the only figure that concerns you.
- The displayed price: Many restaurants run a delivery price different from the dine-in price to absorb the commission. That is legitimate, but it means the same dish exists at two prices, and your till has to know.
- The packaging: Container, bag, cutlery, label: a per-order cost that does not exist in the dining room and appears on no recipe card written for it.
- The customer: They belong to the platform, not to you. You cannot call them back or build loyalty directly, which completely changes what a delivered order is worth next to a regular.
Add commission and packaging, then redo your https://blog.bellocommerce.com/en/restaurant-food-cost/ calculation: the food cost of a delivered dish is mechanically higher than the same dish served at a table. A dish that is profitable in the room can be break-even on delivery, and a dish already tight can lose money there.
The routine that keeps one stock
It is manual and takes ten minutes a service. That is cheaper than a wrong inventory, and it works with no integration at all.
- Create your dishes twice in the till, or create a “delivery” channel if your software allows it, at the price actually shown on the platform.
- Enter every platform order into the till, as it is prepared if service allows, otherwise in one block at close with the tablet in hand.
- Take them on a dedicated payment method, for example “Glovo” or “Yassir”, not as cash: your drawer must stay accountable for what it actually holds.
- Reconcile weekly, each platform’s statement against the total of its payment method in your till. Gaps are found while they are still small.
- Record the commission monthly, when the transfer arrives, as a cost of sale rather than a discount.
- Reread your best sellers by channel. The dine-in ranking and the delivery ranking are almost never the same.
At step 3, the dedicated payment method is what saves the close: without it a delivered order inflates your theoretical drawer and you go hunting for a discrepancy that does not exist.
To be clear: we have no integration
BelloPOS does not connect to any delivery platform. Orders do not arrive in the till by themselves and have to be entered. We would rather write that than let you find out after buying. If automatic order intake is your number one requirement, choose a solution that advertises it and test it in a demo, on your own platforms, before signing. What BelloPOS gives you here is accurate stock and reports once the entry is done, with no subscription and no connection.
The Moroccan context
Delivery changed many neighbourhood restaurants faster than it changed their tooling. A kitchen doing thirty covers in the room can do as many again on delivery without changing anything about how it is managed, and that is exactly where the stock gap settles in. Add the Ramadan pattern, where delivered volume spikes into a few hours, and an already-wrong inventory becomes unmanageable.
Second reality: channels coexist. Many places also take orders by phone and on WhatsApp, going through no platform at all. Treat them exactly like the rest: a channel, a payment method, an entry. An unentered channel is an invisible channel, and an invisible channel always shows up in the stock take eventually.
What to check in your contract
Five points, to reread before discussing software.
- The commission rate and what it applies to: the total with or without the delivery fee.
- The payment delay and its frequency.
- Who carries a cancellation and an uncollected order.
- The displayed price: are you allowed a delivery price different from the dine-in price?
- Customer data: what you get back, and what you are not allowed to use.
Mistakes to avoid
- Not entering delivered orders. Stock goes wrong, and so does everything depending on it.
- Taking them as cash in the till, which makes the close impossible to reconcile.
- Using the dine-in price for a delivered order whose platform price is different.
- Forgetting packaging in the cost of a delivered dish.
- Judging delivery on turnover. Look at margin after commission, which is a different ranking.
Frequently asked questions
How do I centralise orders from several platforms?
Without integration, the method that works is entry: every order arriving on a tablet is re-entered into the till, on a channel and a payment method dedicated to that platform. It takes a few minutes a service and keeps one stock, one history and accurate reports.
Why has my stock been wrong since I started delivering?
Because the platforms do not decrement your stock. Goods leave the store but no sale is recorded in your till, so theoretical stock stays unchanged. The gap grows every service until reorder points become unusable.
Does BelloPOS integrate with Glovo or Yassir?
No. BelloPOS connects to no delivery platform: orders have to be entered. We say so rather than letting you discover it. Once entered, though, they feed the same stock, the same history and the same reports as your dine-in sales.
Should delivery have a different price?
Many restaurants do it to absorb commission and packaging. Check first what your contract allows, then calculate: take the dish’s food cost, add packaging, apply the commission, and see what is left. That calculation decides, not a general rule.
How do I know whether delivery is profitable?
Compare the margin after commission and packaging, dish by dish, with the margin of the same dish in the room. The best-seller ranking by channel is almost always different, and it is what tells you which dishes to push on the platforms and which to keep for the floor.
What to take away
The three tablets are not the problem, they are the symptom. The problem is that an unentered channel leaves no trace in your stock or your totals. Until an integration exists, manual entry with a dedicated channel and payment method is what gives you an accurate inventory, a close that balances and a true margin per dish. Ten minutes a service, against a wrong inventory all year.
Accurate stock, across every channel
BelloPOS keeps a single stock, payment methods you define and reports by channel, on the restaurant’s own PC and with no connection. The restaurant module adds the floor plan and the kitchen display.
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