Commissary kitchen software from store par to prep list to delivered tray.
Stores order from the commissary against par, the kitchen gets a production plan by recipe and batch, transfers move product and cost to each store, and vendor invoices are read automatically so recipe costs stay current. A concept for restaurant groups running their own central kitchen.
Reply within one business day · Written scope and fixed price before any work starts
A proposed product shown with illustrative designs and demo data. We deliver it today as a custom build on our engines.
Status as of November 2026. How we label products
Store orders in
11 / 12
cutoff 22:00
Recipes to produce
34
Raw shortages
2
Labor plan
41 hrs
Batches by station
| Recipe | Station | Ordered | Batches | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salsa roja | Sauce | 62 qt | 4 × 16 qt | Ingredients on hand |
| Carnitas, portioned 4 oz | Protein | 820 ptn | 3 × 70 lb | Pork short 40 lb |
| Pickled red onion | Cold prep | 38 qt | 2 × 20 qt | Ingredients on hand |
| Corn tortilla masa | Dough | 180 lb | 4 × 45 lb | Ingredients on hand |
| Chipotle crema | Sauce | 24 qt | 2 × 12 qt | Crema out |
Late or missing
- Westgate store: no order yetUsing last Thursday ×1.1
- Pork shoulder PO draftedGulf Meats · 6 a.m. delivery
- Crema substitute needs chef OKSour cream + chipotle
Transfers sent
12
Transfer value
$18,420
Received in full
10
Variances
2
By store
| Store | Items | Value | Received | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fuego · Downtown | 28 | $2,140 | Full | Confirmed |
| Fuego · Westgate | 24 | $1,865 | -2 qt salsa verde | Short |
| Fuego · Harbor | 31 | $2,410 | Full | Confirmed |
| Fuego · University | 22 | $1,590 | Temp 44°F on arrival | Check cooler |
Invoices read
214
Price increases
37
Theoretical food cost
28.4%
+1.1 pts
Actual food cost
30.2%
Menu items losing the most margin
| Menu item | Old cost | New cost | Driver | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carnitas bowl | $3.42 | $3.88 | Pork shoulder +14% | Margin -4.1 pts |
| Avocado tostada | $1.96 | $2.31 | Avocado 48ct +22% | Margin -3.3 pts |
| Chicken tinga taco (3) | $2.18 | $2.24 | Chicken thigh +3% | Within range |
| Elote cup | $0.94 | $0.91 | Corn -4% | Improved |
In short
Agenbord Trace for Commissary Kitchens is a proposed system for multi-unit restaurant groups that produce sauces, doughs, proteins and prep in a central kitchen. It connects store ordering, production planning, batch recipes, transfers with cost, and vendor invoice capture, so food cost per store is real. It is a concept with illustrative designs, delivered as a custom build reusing our production ERP engine's inventory and procurement modules.
What slows restaurant groups with a commissary down today.
Store orders arrive in five formats at 10 p.m.
Kitchen managers text, email or fill in a shared sheet after close. The commissary chef rebuilds tomorrow's prep list by hand and either over-produces - and throws product out - or shorts a store on Friday night.
Transfers move food but not cost
When the commissary sends 40 quarts of salsa and 300 portioned chicken thighs to a store, the cost often stays on the commissary's books. Store food cost looks great, the commissary looks terrible, and nobody trusts either number.
Recipe costs are three price increases out of date
Produce and protein prices move weekly, but recipe cards are updated once a year. Menu pricing decisions get made on costs that stopped being true months ago.
How the work flows through the system.
Each workflow runs on one shared record, so nobody re-types numbers between steps.
Store order to production plan
Store kitchen manager → commissary chef → production crew
- Each store counts on hand on a tablet; the system suggests an order from par and the store's sales forecast.
- The kitchen manager adjusts and submits by the cutoff; late orders are flagged.
- The commissary gets a consolidated production plan by recipe, with batch counts and raw ingredients needed.
- Prep lists print or display by station with yields, portion sizes and labels with use-by dates.
- Shortages of raw ingredients become a purchase order draft for tomorrow's vendor delivery.
Transfer with cost
Commissary → driver → store
- Packed orders create a transfer per store at the batch's actual cost, or at a set transfer price.
- The driver delivers; the store confirms received quantities and notes shorts or temperature issues.
- Inventory and cost move from the commissary to the store, and adjustments post automatically.
- Each store's food cost now includes everything it received from the commissary.
Invoice to recipe cost
Receiving → accounting → culinary director
- Vendor invoices are photographed at receiving or forwarded by email.
- The AI reads line items, matches them to the PO and your items, and flags price changes and short shipments.
- Approved invoices update item costs, which flow into every recipe and sub-recipe that uses them.
- The culinary director sees which menu items lost the most margin this month.
What's included in Agenbord Trace for Commissary Kitchens.
Store ordering
Par-based ordering from stores with counts, suggested quantities, cutoffs and an order history per store.
Production planning
Consolidated plans by recipe and batch, with raw-ingredient requirements and station prep lists.
Recipes & sub-recipes
Batch recipes, yields, portion specs and allergens, nested so a sauce cost flows into every dish that uses it.
Transfers & transfer pricing
Transfers to stores at actual or set cost, with receiving confirmation and variance tracking.
Commissary inventory
Raw, in-process and finished goods with batch dates, use-by labels and waste logging.
Purchasing & invoice capture
POs to vendors, receiving, and invoice capture by photo or email with price-change alerts.
Recipe costing
Live recipe and plate costs, theoretical vs. actual food cost by store and by commissary.
Labels
Prep and transfer labels with product name, batch, made-on and use-by dates, and allergens.
AI that does specific jobs and shows its work.
Every AI feature is tested on your own records before it's switched on, and a person approves anything that moves money or goes to a customer.
Vendor invoice reading
Reads invoices from photos, PDFs and emails, matches lines to POs and items, and flags price increases, substitutions and shorts. Limits: accounting approves every invoice; lines it can't match are left for a person. We test it on a batch of your past invoices before go-live.
Order suggestion from sales
Suggests each store's commissary order from par, on-hand counts and recent sales from the POS, with the reason shown for each line. The kitchen manager can accept or change every quantity.
Who it's for and who it isn't.
A good fit if you are
- Restaurant groups with 4-60 locations and one or two central kitchens
- Fast-casual and full-service brands making sauces, doughs, dressings and portioned proteins centrally
- Groups whose stores order from the commissary by text or a shared spreadsheet
- Operators who can't see true food cost per store because transfers aren't costed
Probably not the right fit if you are
- Single restaurants without a central kitchen
- Large chains already running enterprise back-of-house software across hundreds of units
- Food manufacturers selling to retail (see the food & beverage manufacturing edition)
Designed around the rules you work under.
Plain-English notes, not legal advice. Software supports your compliance process; it doesn't replace your attorney, CPA or compliance lead.
Menu calorie labeling for chains of 20+
Restaurants that are part of a chain with 20 or more locations doing business under the same name must declare calories for standard menu items and have more nutrition information available on request. Recipes, sub-recipes and portion specs held for costing are designed to support that nutrition workflow. eCFR - 21 CFR 101.11.
Food Traceability Rule for restaurant groups
FDA's Food Traceability Rule applies receiving records to many restaurants that buy foods on the Food Traceability List, with some exemptions, and FDA has said it won't enforce the rule before July 20, 2028. How it applies to a commissary shipping to its own stores depends on your setup; confirm with counsel. Details are on our food distribution page.
What exists today and what's being built.
Reused from our production engines
Capabilities of the engine this edition is built on.
- Materials and inventory management
- Procurement and supplier ledgers
- Mobile approvals with an audit trail
- AI copilot over company data
Built for your project
Scoped and delivered as a custom build.
- Par-based store ordering with cutoffs
- Production planning by recipe and batch
- Nested recipes with yields, portions and allergens
- Costed transfers between commissary and stores
- AI vendor invoice capture and price alerts
- POS integrations (Toast, Square, Clover) and label printing
Connects to the systems you already run.
Systems we integrate with
Named platforms are examples we build against through their public APIs - not partnership claims.
How it compares - honestly.
Established products are often the right answer. Here's when each one is the better choice.
| Product | What it is | The better choice when |
|---|---|---|
| MarketMan | Restaurant inventory and purchasing software with recipe costing, vendor ordering and invoice processing, used from single units to groups. | Your main need is inventory, ordering and costing across stores, and your commissary is simple enough to run as one more location. |
| Restaurant365 | Restaurant accounting and operations platform combining a general ledger, inventory, scheduling and reporting for multi-unit groups. | You want restaurant-specific accounting and back-office operations in one packaged platform and are ready to move your books into it. |
| Crunchtime | Back-of-house operations software for multi-unit and enterprise brands, covering inventory, food cost, labor and operations execution. | You're a larger multi-unit brand that wants an enterprise operations suite and has a team to roll it out across many stores. |
What it costs, up front.
Trace for Commissary Kitchens is a concept delivered as a fixed-scope custom build. Many groups start with store ordering and production planning beside the tools they already use. Typical ranges:
Ordering & production
From $40k
Store ordering against par, consolidated production plans, recipes and prep labels, with POS sales integration.
3–4 months
Commissary system
$80k–$200k
Adds transfers with cost, commissary inventory, purchasing, AI invoice capture and recipe costing by store, synced to accounting.
5–9 months, phased
Multi-brand & multi-kitchen
$200k+
Several brands or central kitchens, wholesale sales to third parties and heavier integrations.
Phased
Restaurant groups with a commissary: common questions.
What is commissary kitchen software?
It runs a restaurant group's central kitchen: collecting store orders, turning them into a production plan, managing batch recipes and inventory, and transferring finished product - with its cost - to each store.
Can it work with MarketMan or Restaurant365?
Often, yes. A common first project keeps your existing inventory or accounting platform and adds commissary ordering, production planning and costed transfers beside it, connected by API or scheduled exports where the vendor allows.
Which POS systems does it connect to?
Toast, Square and Clover publish APIs we can use to pull sales for order suggestions and theoretical food cost. Other POS systems are scoped case by case.
How should transfers be priced?
Either at actual batch cost or at a set transfer price that includes commissary labor and overhead. The system supports both; your accountant decides which gives the clearest store P&Ls.
Does it help with menu calorie labeling?
Recipes, portions and ingredients are stored in a structured way that a nutrition analysis can use. Calorie values themselves come from a nutrition database or lab analysis, and chains of 20+ locations should confirm their process with a specialist.
Is this available today?
Not as a ready-made product. It's a concept delivered as a custom build reusing our engine's inventory, procurement and approval modules.
Sources
- eCFR - 21 CFR 101.11 Nutrition labeling of standard menu items in covered establishments
- FDA - Menu labeling final guidance
- FDA - FSMA Food Traceability Rule
Regulatory notes are plain-English summaries, not legal advice.
Concept
Want Agenbord Trace for Commissary Kitchens built for your business?
Send us your workflow and the systems you use. We'll reply within one business day, then a free 30-minute call, then a written scope with a fixed price - including an honest view on whether an off-the-shelf product would serve you better.
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