Stock Variance From 6% to 2%. Forty Hours a Month Back.
Royal Punjab had a POS that took payments and did nothing else. No ZATCA integration, and no way to see where the food was going.
- Client
- Royal Punjab, Makkah
- Tech Stack
- Custom POS and ERP, ZATCA e-invoicing integration, full accounting module
- Services Delivered
- Development
Results at a glance
The numbers first. The build underneath.
The challenge
Royal Punjab was running a generic POS that did not integrate with ZATCA and did not work the way the restaurant did.
Read the detail
Those are two separate problems and both were expensive. The compliance gap meant Saudi e-invoicing had to be handled outside the system, with an accountant billing by the hour to reconcile VAT after the fact. The fit problem was quieter and cost more: a restaurant runs on recipes, batch tracking, waste and shift-level cash reconciliation, and none of that existed. Stock variance was sitting at 6%, which in a food business is margin leaving through the back door with nobody able to say exactly where.
The outcome
Stock variance reduced from 6% to 2%
- Around 40 hours a month of accountant time saved on VAT preparation, measured against billed hours
- Daily shift reconciliation 35% faster
Read the detail
Food waste down 4%
ZATCA e-invoicing compliant at the point of sale rather than corrected afterwards
Running across both branches for 7 months
6% → 2%
stock variance
40
accountant hours saved / month
Our solution
One system, built from scratch, covering everything the generic POS was not doing.
- Operations.
- Compliance.
- Accounting.
- The stock variance number is the one to pay attention to.
Read the detail
Operations. Recipe management, batch management and waste management, so food cost is tracked at the level it is actually incurred. Custom reconciliation of counter shifts, so cash is accounted for per shift rather than per day.
Compliance. ZATCA e-invoicing wired in at the transaction layer. Every invoice is compliant when it is issued, not fixed later.
Accounting. Full double entry, not a reporting bolt-on: chart of accounts, general ledger, trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet, payables and receivables aging, and VAT reports.
The stock variance number is the one to pay attention to. Going from 6% to 2% is not a reporting improvement, it is four percent of food cost that was disappearing and now is not.
Before
- A generic POS with no ZATCA integration
- VAT reconciled after the fact, on billed accountant hours
- No recipe, batch or waste tracking
- Stock variance at 6%
After
- ZATCA compliant at the point of sale
- Recipes, batches and waste tracked in the system
- Shift-level cash reconciliation, 35% faster
- Stock variance at 2%
Variance
Stock variance cut from 6% to 2%.
Compliance
ZATCA e-invoicing at the transaction layer.
Time back
Around 40 accountant hours a month no longer billed.
“The old POS was just a till. We needed recipes, waste, shifts, ZATCA, all of it in one system. That's what they built, and the stock numbers finally make sense.”
How we delivered it
The journey, architecture, and product surfaces behind the results.
Discovery
The existing POS was assessed against two things: what ZATCA requires, and how Royal Punjab actually runs a service. Both gaps had to be closed by the same system or the reconciliation problem would simply move.
Build or buy
No off-the-shelf product covered Saudi e-invoicing compliance and restaurant-specific operations together. That is the narrow case where building is the cheaper answer, and it is the only reason we recommended it.
Build
Four months. POS and operations first, ZATCA integration at the transaction layer, then the full accounting stack on top.
Live across both branches
Deployed to both Makkah locations, with shift reconciliation and stock counts running through the system from day one.
Seven months in production
Stock variance settled at 2%, down from 6%. Waste down 4%. Around 40 accountant hours a month no longer being billed for VAT preparation.
Before you book the call
Questions about this one
Is this specific to Saudi Arabia and ZATCA, or does it apply elsewhere?
The ZATCA e-invoicing layer is Saudi-specific, but the underlying build - recipes, batch tracking, waste, shift reconciliation - applies to any restaurant operation. We'd swap the compliance module for whatever your market requires.
How long did this take to build and prove out?
Four months to build, then seven months in production across both branches before these numbers were measured.
Is a 6% stock variance actually a big deal?
In a food business, yes - the case study frames the 4-point gap between 6% and 2% as food cost disappearing through the back door, not a reporting nuance.
Next Step
Same problem, different company?
Bring the bottleneck. In 30 minutes you leave with the order of operations - whether or not you hire us.