Shorts, outs and substitutions without angry chefs

A short is not the problem. A short the chef discovers at 10 AM, with the driver standing at the back door, is the problem. Restaurants plan a service around what they ordered, and the worst news is late news.

The fix is simple to say and hard to run on paper: mark every exception the moment it happens, check it before the order leaves, and tell the customer before the truck arrives.

The four states every item can end in

Every line on an order ends in one of four states. Give each one its own color and never mix them:

• Shopped (green): picked in full.
• Shorted (amber): some, but not all. Record it as shopped quantity of requested quantity, with units: "3 of 4 cases", never just "3".
• Replaced (purple): a different product was sent. Always record what it was replaced with.
• Out of stock (red): none available.

The quantity format matters more than it looks. "3" tells the restaurant nothing. "3 of 4 cases" tells them exactly what is missing.

Mark it in the aisle, not at the dock

Exceptions get lost between the shelf and the paperwork. If a picker has to remember to write it down later, some of them won't.

In Drofilla, the picker marks the exception on the item itself, with a swipe: short, out of stock or substitute. The item keeps its state, its quantity and, for a substitution, the replacement product.

Check every order before it leaves

A second pair of eyes catches the wrong-size can and the miscounted case. Validation is that second pair of eyes: every item is checked before the order is checked out and loaded. Replacements show what was ordered and what was sent, side by side, so the person validating can approve or fix them on the spot.

Tell the restaurant before the driver does

The restaurant should never learn about an exception from the driver. Drofilla sends an update under your company name when items are shorted, replaced or out of stock, including what each item was replaced with. If the customer replies, your team or your AI assistant answers in the same thread.

FAQ

Should pickers substitute without asking? That's your policy, not the software's. What matters is that every substitution is recorded with the replacement, so the customer and your team see exactly what was sent.

What about items sold by weight? They follow the same states, with the weight recorded on the item. See our guide on catch weight picking.