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VendorWatch
Scan invoices. Track vendor prices. Catch overcharges.
VendorWatchScan invoices. Track vendor prices. Catch overcharges.
What it does
VendorWatch scans paper or PDF invoices with the iPhone camera and pulls out line items, prices, and quantities. It compares each line against the prior invoice from the same vendor and flags price increases, missing items, duplicate charges, and case-pack changes (where the case dropped from 12 units to 10 but the case price stayed the same — that's a 20% per-unit increase hidden in the spec change).
The fastest way an independent restaurant loses money is paying invoices without verifying line items. Vendors raise prices mid-week and rarely flag it. Some hide it in spec changes. Some round up. Some bill twice. The first invoice an operator scans usually catches an error.
Every scanned invoice builds the price history. Over time, the operator has a complete record of what every key ingredient cost from every vendor across every week. That history is what lets you negotiate, switch vendors, or just verify your accountant's COGS number against what you actually paid.
Point the iPhone camera at a paper or PDF invoice. Line items, prices, quantities, vendor info — pulled into structured data.
Every scan checks the new line items against the same vendor's prior invoice. Price increases highlighted. Missing items flagged. Duplicate charges caught.
Vendors sometimes shrink the case (12 → 10 units) without changing the case price — a 20% per-unit increase hidden in the spec. The app catches it.
Build a longitudinal record of what every ingredient cost from every vendor. Useful for renegotiation and for understanding which vendors are drifting.
Real restaurant invoices arrive folded, faded, food-stained. The OCR is tuned for thermal-paper invoices and partial folds, not just clean PDFs.
First 25 invoice scans per month free, indefinitely. No credit card required.
Scan the invoice when the order arrives. Compare against the PO and the prior week's price. Reject or call out discrepancies before the truck leaves.
Run COGS at week's end against the scanned-invoice price history. Catches the gap between what you thought you paid and what actually hit the bank.
Pull six months of scanned invoice data on a key ingredient. Compare against a competing vendor's quoted price. Real numbers, not vendor pitch decks.
VendorWatch is published by ALSTIG INC, founded by Ben Mouton — a 14-year independent restaurant operator. Every app on the ALSTIG stack came from a problem hit during the run — the originals proven in service at Mouton's Bistro & Bar in Cedar Park, TX, which Ben ran for fourteen years before selling in 2026. Free to start. No platform contracts.
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