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Ask Tom - Prompt Ideas for Actionable Insights

Jenny Vaughn
Updated

Tom is MarginEdge's AI-powered, built-in chat assistant that gives restaurant operators instant answers to your most pressing operational questions. 

We’ve compiled this prompt library to give you ideas on questions you can ask Tom to get better insight into your restaurant. 

Article Contents 

Where can I find Tom?

You can access Tom in the top right navigation bar. 

What can I ask Tom? 

Here are some ideas on what you can ask, organized by which topics may feel more urgent versus more long-term strategic. 

Immediate action needed

These prompts flag time-sensitive issues that can directly hit your bottom line or block a process if left alone.

🏢 Directors of Ops / GMs: 

  • "Give me a daily flash report—yesterday's sales, food cost %, and any purchases that look out of line."

🍳 Chefs: 

  • “Which ingredients am I at risk of running out of before my next delivery?”

📊 Accountants: 

  • "Show me all invoices received this week that are still unapproved—who do I need to follow up with?"
  • "Are there any duplicate invoices in the system this month?"
  • "What's still open that I need to resolve before I can close this accounting period?"
  • "Which invoices have GL coding that differs from how that vendor was coded last period? Flag anything that looks like a miscoding."
  • "Show me all bills I've approved but haven't paid yet, are any at risk of going past due?"
  • "Which bills are due in the next seven days, and what's the total cash I need to cover them?"

🏠 Owners: 

  • "What's my outstanding payables balance right now, and how does that compare to this time last month?"

Monitor closely

These prompts track trends and changes you'll want to keep an eye on before they snowball into bigger problems.

🏠 Owners: 

  • "Show me my top 5 cost categories as a percentage of sales this month—which ones are trending in the wrong direction?"
  • "Which menu items give me the best margin per dollar of food cost, and how can I push more of them?"
  • "What's my projected cash outflow for bills over the next 30 days based on what's already in the system?"

📊 Accountants: 

  • "Are there any vendor payments this period that fall outside my usual range, anything I should double-check before it goes out?"
  • "Show me all credits and returns logged this period—are there any outstanding credits I haven't received from a vendor?"
  • "Which products have had price increases in the last 60 days? Show me the items and percentage increases."

🍳 Chefs: 

  • "Which frequently used products have recent price increases? How are those increases impacting recipe costs?"
  • "Am I being charged the same price for the same item across different deliveries from the same vendor?"
  • "Which of my ingredients have had the biggest price increases this quarter?"
  • "Which inventory categories have the most shrinkage this period versus my theoretical usage?"
  • "Am I wasting more than I should be? Walk me through where waste is coming from."
  • "Which of my menu items are priced below the cost threshold I should be hitting for my target food cost %?"
  • "Which of my recipes rely most heavily on ingredients that have gone up in price this quarter?"

🏢 Directors of Ops / GMs: 

  • "Which recipes have plate costs that have drifted furthest from my targets since I last updated them?"
  • "How often does each vendor short me on an order, and which ones have the worst fill rates this period?"

Strategic review

These prompts dig into performance, margins and spend patterns that shape your bigger financial decisions.

🏠 Owners: 

  • "What was my prime cost percentage last period, and how does it compare to the same period last year?"
  • "How much am I spending with each vendor this year, and where do I have an opportunity to consolidate or renegotiate?"
  • "Summarize my business performance this quarter in 5 bullet points—the good, the bad, and what I should act on."
  • "What are my three biggest opportunities to improve profitability this month without changing my menu?"
  • "Show me my year-over-year cost trends for food, beverage, and labor as a percentage of revenue."
  • "Which vendors deliver the most consistent pricing, and which ones surprise me with changes from order to order?"

📊 Accountants: 

  • "Give me a summary of all accruals I should be recording this period based on invoices received but not yet posted."
  • "Show me all transactions coded to 'miscellaneous' or catch-all accounts this period—I want to recode anything that's been dumped there."
  • "What is my total spend by vendor category (produce, protein, dairy, beverage) this period versus last period?"

🍳 Chefs: 

  • "What is the plate cost for my top 5 selling menu items this week?"
  • "Which of my menu items has the worst contribution margin? Should I reprice, reformulate, or remove it?"
  • "What's the price history on my top proteins over the last 6 months? Which ones are most volatile?"

🏢 Directors of Ops / GMs: 

  • "How many orders did we place with each vendor last period, and what was the average order value?"
  • "Show me my sales mix last period—which menu categories are growing, which are declining, and how is that affecting my overall food cost?"
  • "If I could fix only one thing this period to improve profitability, what should it be?"
  • "Which vendors am I paying most often, and could I shift to a schedule that smooths out my cash flow?"

Exploratory / advisory

These prompts open the door to ideas, benchmarks and what-if scenarios that help you plan ahead.

🏠 Owners: 

  • "How does my food cost compare to the industry average?"
  • "If I cut my food cost by 1.5 percentage points, what would that mean in dollars to my bottom line?"

🍳 Chefs: 

  • "Can you give me ideas on how I can update my least profitable recipes to improve plate cost?"
  • "Which ingredients am I ordering most frequently in small quantities? Could I be buying in larger volumes to lower my per-unit cost?"
  • "Show me my top 10 ingredients by total spend this period—are there any I could substitute to reduce cost without impacting quality?"
  • "If I swapped one ingredient in my three most popular dishes, where would I save the most without changing the flavor?"
  • "If I moved my top five produce items to a single vendor, how would my total cost change?"