Papaya Inventory is a complete ingredient-level inventory management system built for restaurants, hotels, and food courts. It helps you track what goes into every dish, monitor stock levels in real time, and reduce waste — whether you use it alongside Papaya POS or on its own.
Unlike basic item-level stock tracking (counting finished dishes), Papaya Inventory works at the ingredient level — so when a customer orders a burger, the system automatically deducts the bun, patty, lettuce, and sauce from your stock.
What can you do with Papaya Inventory?
Capability | Description |
Ingredient tracking | Track raw ingredients and supplies with units, yield %, par levels, and reorder points |
Recipes | Link ingredients to menu items so stock deducts automatically when orders come in |
Prep recipes | Define prep items (sauces, doughs) with batch sizes and ingredient lists |
Goods receipts | Record deliveries from suppliers with pricing and invoice tracking |
Stock counts | Count physical stock by area, compare expected vs actual, and track variance |
Wastage | Log waste with reasons to identify patterns and reduce loss |
Production | Produce prep items and automatically deduct ingredients |
Movement history | Full audit trail of every stock change with deep links to the source |
Merchant level vs Outlet level
Papaya Inventory is split into two levels:
Merchant level (shared across outlets) — set up your products, categories, recipes, prep recipes, option ingredients, and suppliers here. This is your master configuration.
Outlet level (per-location) — manage day-to-day operations here: stock levels, goods receipts, stock counts, wastage, production, and movement history. Each outlet has its own stock.
Getting started — 4 steps
Papaya Inventory includes a setup guide that tracks your progress. Here are the steps:
1. Create your menu items
If you haven't already, set up your menu items in Base Menu → Menu Items. These are the dishes your customers order.
2. Create inventory products
Go to Inventory → Products and add the raw ingredients you want to track (e.g. chicken breast, olive oil, burger buns). Set the unit of measure, yield percentage, par level, and reorder point for each.
3. Add recipes to your menu items
Go to Inventory → Recipes and link your inventory products to each menu item. Specify how much of each ingredient is used per serve — this is what powers automatic deduction.
4. Enable ingredient-level inventory tracking
Go to Settings → Inventory and toggle on Enable ingredient-level inventory tracking. Once enabled, stock will deduct automatically when orders are confirmed.
‼️ Make sure your recipes are set up before enabling this — otherwise the system won't know which ingredients to deduct.
All Inventory Hub articles
Explore each area of Papaya Inventory in detail:
Inventory Products & Categories — creating and managing your ingredients
Recipes, Prep Recipes & Option Ingredients — linking ingredients to menu items
Suppliers & Goods Receipts — managing suppliers and receiving stock
Stock Counts & Count Areas — physical stock counting
Wastage, Production & Movements — recording waste, producing prep items, and viewing movement history
Coming soon
Changelog & Audit Trail — tracking changes to menu items and inventory products
Purchase Requisitions & Purchase Orders — full procurement workflow
Inventory Insights & Analytics — reporting, dashboards, and cost analysis