Restaurant ERP: Orders, Inventory & Staff Management

Running a cafe chain of three locations with paper-based processes is a daily struggle that leads to order errors, inventory shrinkage, payroll miscalculations, and a complete absence of cross-location visibility. We've reached the point where manual systems are actively costing us money and preventing consistent quality across locations. What we need is a purpose-built web ERP that covers every operational aspect of a cafe business: from the moment a customer sits down to a table through kitchen preparation, inventory depletion, staff scheduling, and end-of-day financial reporting.

The system must run entirely in a web browser on tablets and desktop computers — no native app development needed at this stage — and must work even when internet connectivity is intermittent, using a service worker to cache operations locally and sync when the connection returns. A clean REST API is required so we can connect a mobile app in a future phase. The software should be intuitive enough that our floor staff and kitchen team can learn it in one training session without ongoing IT support.

Modules required:
1. POS and table management — waiter tablet interface, visual table map, split bills, custom item modifiers
2. Kitchen display system — real-time order queue for kitchen staff, preparation time tracking, item status updates
3. Inventory management — ingredient tracking per recipe, low-stock alerts, supplier order generation
4. Staff scheduling and payroll — shift planning, worked hours logging, automatic salary calculation
5. Reporting — daily revenue by location, best-selling items, waste and write-off report

Tech stack: PHP 8 + MySQL backend, React or Vue.js frontend, offline mode via service worker, REST API for future mobile app.