Culinary management has all the challenges of a regular business with responsibilities that require unique skills. The restaurant manager has to contend with issues involving personnel, equipment, advertisement and bookkeeping. In addition to this, the restaurant deals with food and food safety.

The restaurant manager must decide what the menu will be, how much quantity of any particular foodstuff to have on hand, what special equipment is needed and what training is needed for the personnel.

The successful manager will be able to track multiple threads that affect his business. He will be able to recognize any upcoming or outgoing trends, and adjust the menu as needed. He will know the average times a month any dish on his menu will be served. This will inform his decisions on how much food to buy at any time.

Any tool that helps the manager keep track of the daily, monthly, even yearly details and decisions will be immensely appreciated.

Computers have the capabilities to store and transmit information, to issue reports connecting and comparing requested sets of information. Computers can also perform automatic tasks, relieving people of mundane, rote work, so they can concentrate on other issues.

Computers can have software packages that are designed for the business world, and able to work equally well in the restaurant and the manufacturing plant. There are two that would be very useful to the restaurant manager: the enterprise resource planning program and the facilities management program.

Enterprise resource planning, or ERP, is a set of software programs that uses spreadsheets, and databases to give the restaurant manager quick information of important aspects of his business.

The manager can review a history of which foods have sold and when, allowing him to know what type of food to order in a season and in what quantity. ERP can also gather information on product cost, personnel cost, marketing, sales, inventory; and then issue reports so the manager can see where his money is being spent, and how his money is coming in.

The facilities management software is a set of programs that deal with the physical aspects of business. One program helps to design the physical layout of the restaurant; making sure the flow of items from the storage unit, through the kitchen and out to the dining area, works as efficiently as possible.

Another program keeps track of phone and computer lines and computer terminals. The facilities management software will keep a list of any dangerous chemicals, electronically storing information needed on how to store these chemicals and what to do if someone is injured by these chemicals. There is also a program to help you communicate with any remote building in your system; whether it is a storage facility or another restaurant in a chain. Another program will help with plans for severe weather.

The manager who can utilize these programs will find he has far greater control over the day-to-day aspects of his business, and more information, easily obtained, for making decisions about future menus, products and expansions.