Restaurant operators rely on accurate inventory and food cost data to protect margins, make smarter purchasing decisions, and understand profitability across every location. Yet for many organizations, inventory management remains fragmented across multiple systems, spreadsheets, and manual processes.
The Forte Summer 2026 Release addresses this challenge by expanding the Forte platform with comprehensive inventory management, recipe management, and Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) capabilities, giving restaurant organizations greater visibility into one of their largest controllable expenses.
Inventory Management That Fits Your Business
Every restaurant organization approaches inventory differently. Some are looking for a straightforward, integrated solution. Others have already invested heavily in specialized inventory platforms they depend on every day.
With this release, Forte supports both approaches.
Organizations can leverage Forte's native inventory tools to layout an inventory, take counts, and post for accounting purposes. Designed for simplicity and ease of implementation, the native solution allows restaurants to begin tracking inventory and food costs without introducing another complex application.
For organizations with established inventory processes or complex needs, Forte also supports importing inventory, recipe, and cost data from third-party COGS systems. Rather than forcing a replacement of existing investments, Forte brings that data together with sales, labor, accounting, and operational reporting to provide a more complete financial picture.
Recipe Management Built for Operational Accuracy
Recipes form the foundation of accurate food costing and a consistent guest experience.
The Summer Release introduces flexible recipe management that enables operators to build recipes from inventory items, define yields, map to sale items, and calculate recipe costs using current inventory pricing. The ability to import Recipes creates a way for restaurant groups to modernize systems without losing or manually rebuilding historical knowledge.
As ingredient costs fluctuate, recipe costs update automatically, giving finance and operations teams greater confidence in menu profitability and helping identify opportunities to improve margins before they impact the bottom line.
Consolidated COGS Visibility
Understanding food cost requires connecting purchases, inventory, recipes, and sales into a single view.
Forte's enhanced COGS calculations bring these operational data points together, allowing restaurant organizations to better understand theoretical versus actual usage, monitor food cost trends, and identify potential variances across locations. By mapping inventory items and recipes to Point of Sale items, profit and margins can be shown at the item level per location.
Combined with Forte's existing sales, labor, and financial reporting, operators gain a more complete understanding of restaurant performance without manually assembling reports from multiple systems.
Flexibility Without Compromise
One of the core goals of the Forte platform is flexibility.
Some organizations want an all-in-one platform. Others want to preserve the systems and workflows they've already built while modernizing certain operational tools and insights. Forte now supports both paths without compromising reporting or operational visibility.
Whether inventory originates inside Forte or from an existing COGS platform, customers can centralize operational and financial insights within a single reporting experience. Forte's integration with AP automation solutions, including deep links back into those source systems, further connects operations and finance teams.
Connect, Simplify, Innovate
The Summer 2026 Release continues Forte's mission of helping restaurant organizations simplify operations and connect their tech stack while improving financial and operational visibility.
By combining inventory management, recipe costing, COGS calculations, labor, accounting, sales, and operational tools like the Manager’s Log into a unified platform, Forte aims to reduce operational complexity and provide restaurant leaders with the information they need to make faster, more informed decisions.
We're excited to deliver these new capabilities and look forward to helping restaurant organizations and accounting partners gain even greater control over inventory, food costs, and profitability.
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