For restaurant groups paying many vendors across many locations
Restaurant Accounts Payable Automation Software for Multi-Unit Operators
Try it now, capture a real invoice
Your file is used only for this demo and deleted automatically within hours.
Restaurant AP is high volume and low margin: dozens of vendor invoices a week per location, short delivery windows, and a manager who forwards a photo of the invoice instead of keying it. AutoPayables reads each invoice from email or upload, codes every line to a GL account and location, flags the same invoice arriving twice, and exports approved bills to QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite or Sage. It is general accounts payable software, not a food cost system, and this page says plainly where a restaurant-specific tool does more.
3
Duplicate checks run on every invoice before approval
Line
Level at which each charge is coded, not just the invoice total
4
Ledger export layouts: QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite, Sage
$49
Per month for 200 invoices, one price for the whole account
Accounting sync
What restaurant accounts payable needs from software
The parts of the job that eat a controller's week.
Capture from email or upload
Managers forward or drag in supplier invoices. Vendor, invoice number, dates, tax, totals and line items are read into a draft bill with a confidence score, so the person reviewing sees what to check.
Line-level GL coding
Each line carries its own GL account, so a produce, dairy and paper goods invoice lands in food cost, beverage and supplies without a spreadsheet in the middle.
Duplicate invoice checks
Every bill is checked by file content, by vendor plus invoice number, and by vendor plus amount plus date. The copy the vendor emails to head office does not get paid twice.
PO matching where you use POs
Invoices that carry a PO number are matched on vendor and amount within a tolerance you set, useful for equipment, repairs and larger buildout spend.
Approval above a threshold
Bills over the dollar amount you set need approval, logged with approver and timestamp. It is one threshold for the account, not per-store routing.
Coded bills to your ledger
Approved bills export in the import layout your system reads, so your bookkeeper loads a batch instead of retyping each bill.
How a restaurant AP week runs here
From a forwarded invoice to a batch in your books.
Set up a GL account per location
Add the locations and cost categories you code against, such as food, beverage, packaging and repairs, before you start.
Forward invoices to one address
Kitchen managers forward the invoice or drop the PDF in. Nobody keys line items by hand.
Review flags and code lines
Duplicate and PO checks run automatically. You correct low-confidence fields and assign each line to its account.
Approve and export
Approve bills above your threshold, then export the batch to QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite or Sage.
Where AutoPayables fits a restaurant group, and where it does not
An honest read, so you buy the right shape of tool.
Look at a restaurant-specific tool for
- Inventory counts, recipe costing and daily food cost percentage
- Direct feeds of distributor invoices into the system
- Per-store approval routing
- Payroll, scheduling and full restaurant accounting in one suite
- Moving the money through the vendor platform
What AutoPayables does today
- Accounts payable only: capture, coding, duplicate checks, approval and export
- Email forwarding and upload as the intake path
- One dollar approval threshold for the account
- Your existing ledger stays the system of record, we feed it coded bills
- Payments recorded against bills while money moves through your own bank
Who runs AP this way
Operators who want clean coded bills without a full restaurant suite.
Multi-unit franchisees
Five to fifty units on QuickBooks or Xero, where the owner's bookkeeper is the bottleneck on invoice entry.
Restaurant groups with a central controller
Managers forward, one person reviews and codes, and duplicates are caught before payment.
Caterers and commissary kitchens
Heavy supplier invoice volume with line items that split across production and event costs.
Hospitality operators with a bookkeeper
Outsourced accountants who want an import-ready batch rather than a pile of PDFs.
Restaurant invoice volume is the real problem
A single location can receive invoices from a broadline distributor, a produce vendor, a bakery, a beverage distributor, a linen service, a waste hauler and a repair contractor in the same week. Multiply by ten locations and the accounts payable work is mostly typing: vendor, number, date, then each line to the right account. The delivery driver hands over a paper invoice, the manager photographs it, and head office receives the same invoice again by email at month-end.
What to compare before you pick software
| Need | General AP tool (AutoPayables) | Restaurant-specific platform |
|---|---|---|
| Read invoices into coded bills | Yes, from email or upload | Yes, often with distributor feeds |
| Line-level coding to locations | Yes, manual by line | Yes, often tied to item catalogs |
| Duplicate invoice checks | Three checks on every bill | Varies, ask for the rule |
| Inventory and recipe costing | No | Yes, core feature |
| Ledger export | QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite, Sage | Varies by vendor |
| Pricing | Published, $49 per month for 200 invoices | Ask each vendor, confirm per-location fees |
If food cost reporting is why you are shopping, start with a restaurant-specific platform. If the pain is invoice entry and double payments, a general AP tool is cheaper and simpler.
Coding restaurant invoices without a spreadsheet
Set up GL accounts by location and category, for example Downtown Food, Downtown Beverage and Downtown Supplies. When a broadline invoice arrives, each line is assigned to the account that owns it, and the exported batch carries those lines into your ledger. This is manual coding on the line, which is exact and fast for dozens of units, and slower than rule-based allocation once you pass fifty.
Catching the double payment
Restaurants are unusually exposed to duplicates because the same invoice reaches you twice by design: a paper copy at the door and an emailed copy later. The three checks compare the file itself, the vendor and invoice number after normalizing spaces and dashes, and the vendor with the same amount and date when a number is missing. A hit is flagged on the bill before it reaches approval.
Where this page does not fit you
If you need approval routing that differs per store, separate ledgers per entity, or a platform that pays vendors for you, look at the comparison above and at our Ottimate alternatives page. For multi-site setups in other industries, see multi-location invoice processing, and for cost see AP automation pricing.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on scope. Restaurant-specific suites add inventory and food cost on top of AP. If you mainly need invoices read, coded to location and sent to QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite, a general AP tool such as AutoPayables does that at a flat published price.
Yes. Forwarded or uploaded supplier invoices are read into a draft bill with line items, then a person reviews flagged fields. You still approve, but nobody retypes the invoice.
Check each bill by file content, by vendor and invoice number, and by vendor, amount and date. AutoPayables runs all three on every bill before approval.
No. It covers accounts payable only. If you need recipe costing, inventory counts and food cost percentage, a restaurant-specific platform does more. If you only need AP, it costs less.
AutoPayables is $49 per month for 200 invoices with one price for the whole account, so a multi-unit group is not charged per location.
Stop keying supplier invoices by hand
Try AutoPayables on a real week of restaurant invoices and see the coded batch before you commit.