Prep daily specials and prep lists from inventory
Less waste and fewer 86'd items
Illustrative example — a composite of common setups, not a specific business's story.
- Difficulty
- Light setup
- Setup time
- 2 hours
- Monthly cost
- $20
- Impact
- Medium
The short version
Each morning an agent compares inventory counts and sales history to suggest a prep list and a special that uses expiring stock.
What they did
Each morning an agent compares inventory counts and sales history to suggest a prep list and a special that uses expiring stock. The owner started with a small pilot: one workflow, a few days of supervised use where every output was reviewed before it went out, then gradually let routine cases run with lighter oversight.
Agent/tool used: ChatGPT with Square exports
How it went
In a typical rollout like this: less waste and fewer 86'd items. Most of the value comes from consistency, the task happens every time instead of when someone remembers. Expect a week or two of tuning the prompt and rules.
Worth knowing
AI drafts can be wrong or off-tone. Keep a human approving anything customer-facing at first, don't paste sensitive data (card numbers, health records, SSNs) into general chat tools, and check each tool's data and privacy terms.
Copy-paste prompt
Here's today's inventory [paste], items expiring within 2 days [paste], and last 4 [same weekdays] of sales [paste]. Suggest a prep list with quantities and one daily special that uses expiring items. Keep it practical for a small kitchen.
Replace anything in [brackets] with your own details.
Step-by-step setup
- Write down how you handle this today, in 5-10 bullets.
- Connect or export data from Square, Google Workspace.
- Set up ChatGPT with Square exports and paste in the prompt, filling in the [placeholders].
- Test it on 5-10 real past examples and fix anything that's off.
- Run it with you approving every output for one to two weeks.
- Once you trust it, automate the routine cases and spot-check weekly.
Published 2026-09-13. Want help setting this up?