How to read a restaurant invoice without OCR.
A weekly five-minute paper-and-pen workflow. Seven things to spot before you sign — without scanning, OCR, or new software.
OCR is seductive: snap the invoice, see the line items, save them encrypted. We built that. We retired it because the misreads on Sysco multi-line allowances and Restaurant Depot pack swaps were too high to trust unaided. The fix wasn’t better OCR. It was a checklist a line cook can run in three minutes flat. That’s this article.
What you need
- Last week’s invoice from the same vendor (paper, photo, or PDF — doesn’t matter).
- This week’s invoice.
- A yellow highlighter and a pencil.
- Five minutes. The first time it’ll take twelve. Week three it’s under three.
The seven-line check
1. Did the unit of measure change?
Unit swaps are the most common quiet hike. Last week’s “Roma tomatoes 25 lb” becomes this week’s “Roma tomatoes 20 lb” at the same line price. A 25% effective hike with no number on the page changing.
Red flag: same item, different number after the unit (lb, oz, ct, ea, cs, dz, gal). Highlight every line where the unit-suffix doesn’t match last week.
2. Did the pack size change?
A “pack” is the secondary unit — how many of the units come in a case. “6/10” (six #10 cans), “4/1 gal” (four 1-gallon bottles). When 6/10 quietly becomes 4/10, you got 33% less product at last week’s price.
Red flag: pack notation in the description column doesn’t match. Common at Sysco, US Foods, Restaurant Depot, and PFG when a manufacturer reformulates.
3. Did the line price move more than 8%?
Most legit weekly moves are under 5%. Seasonal protein and produce can swing 15–20% in normal weather; that’s noise, not signal. The flag is anything between — the 8–14% range is where reps quietly pass through cost without a heads-up.
Red flag: pencil the percentage move next to the line. Anything in the 8–14% range gets a circle. You’ll call your rep about three of these per month.
4. Are there new SKUs you didn’t order?
Sub-outs. Your “hand-cut bacon 18 lb” isn’t in stock so they ship “applewood bacon 15 lb” at 1.4× the price. You didn’t approve it. You can refuse delivery for sub-outs in most contracts — but only if you catch them before signing.
Red flag: line item with an item code that doesn’t match anything on last week’s invoice or your standing-order sheet.
5. Are there surcharges, fuel fees, or “market adjustments”?
Surcharges are line items that look like fees, not prices. Fuel surcharges are normal but should be a flat dollar amount, not a percentage. “Market adjustment” is a euphemism for “we raised prices and don’t want to print a new catalog.”
Red flag: any line in the subtotal block you don’t recognize from previous invoices. Highlight, ask the rep, and ask for it in writing if it’s a recurring percentage.
6. Is the credit / return column populated?
Credits from short-shipped or rejected items show up the next week, not the week the short happened. They’re easy to miss because they appear as a small negative number a row above the subtotal.
Red flag: you flagged a short last week, no credit appears this week. Call the rep within 48 hours; many vendors close the credit window at 7 days.
7. Does the total foot?
Sum the line totals on a calculator and compare to the printed subtotal. Math errors at the line level are rare but they happen, and they almost always favor the vendor.
Red flag: your sum ≠ their printed subtotal. Note the exact difference and call before paying.
What to do with what you find
Three flags or fewer is normal weekly variance. Note them on the invoice in pencil and file. Four or more is a conversation: text or call your rep before payment. Surcharge creep and unit/pack changes that aren’t challenged become the new baseline within two months — that’s the leak we’re trying to plug.
If you’re looking for somewhere to capture this systematically, the Invoice Receiving Checklist is a fillable sheet that mirrors the seven-line check above — one row per delivery, persistent on your device. Pair with Plate Cost Calculator when you’re ready to push price changes through to your menu.
Why we don’t recommend re-buying OCR
Two reasons. First, none of the OCR products on the market read multi-line allowances and pack-size annotations reliably enough to skip the manual review — the “automation” rebuilds the workload as a verification task. Second, the leak isn’t in the line items. It’s in the seven things above, six of which OCR can’t see at all (it can’t tell that a unit changed; it just reads the unit). The eyes-on review is the work, not the data entry.