Restaurants deal with invoicing at three levels simultaneously. Supplier invoices arrive daily from food and beverage vendors. The POS generates customer receipts for every table and takeout order. Event invoices go out to catering clients, corporate accounts, and private dining groups.
Most businesses only manage one of these flows. Restaurants manage all three, often with a lean back-office team.
Getting invoicing right matters more in foodservice than in most industries. Supplier invoice errors — a delivery short-charged at the wrong unit price, a credit memo not applied — quietly inflate your food cost. Catering invoices sent late or without clear payment terms delay revenue that the business already incurred costs to deliver. And as B2B clients and event revenue grow, informal receipt-based billing becomes a liability.
The right invoicing software for a restaurant centralizes these workflows, connects to your POS and accounting system, and handles the hospitality-specific wrinkles — deposits, gratuity, tax on catering services — without requiring workarounds.
What Restaurants Need from Invoicing Software
Restaurant invoicing requirements differ meaningfully from a generic service business. Key needs include the following.
- POS integration for receipts. Customer receipts should flow from your POS automatically. Recreating them in a separate invoicing tool is redundant work that also introduces reconciliation risk.
- Catering and event invoice templates. These need deposit tracking, balance-due calculations, itemized menus or packages, optional gratuity, and payment due dates — none of which standard POS receipts support.
- Supplier bill management (AP). Processing inbound vendor invoices, matching them against purchase orders, and approving payment should be part of the same financial workflow, not a separate paper stack.
- Payment collection. For catering clients and B2B accounts, the ability to accept payment by card, ACH, or check via an invoice payment link eliminates the friction of manual payment handling.
- Accounting sync. Every invoice — inbound and outbound — needs to land in the accounting system cleanly, without manual re-entry.
Best Invoicing Software for Restaurants
The 5 tools below cover the full range of restaurant invoicing needs, from POS-integrated receipt flows to full AP/AR management for catering-heavy operators.
| Tool | Best For | Price (from) | Catering Invoices |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toast | Toast POS users; integrated receipts + basic invoicing | Included / add-on | Limited |
| Square for Restaurants | Square users; built-in invoicing | Free / $60 per mo | Yes |
| QuickBooks Online | Full AP + AR invoicing; accounting backbone | $30/mo | Yes |
| FreshBooks | Catering-heavy operators; clean client invoicing | $19/mo | Yes |
| TouchBistro | TouchBistro POS users; event and catering billing | POS-bundled | Yes |
Tool-by-Tool Breakdown
Toast handles customer receipts natively through its POS and supports basic invoicing for catering and large-party events through its Catering & Events module. For restaurants already on Toast, this integration eliminates the need for a separate invoicing tool for most use cases. Supplier AP management is not part of Toast’s core feature set and requires connecting QuickBooks or a dedicated AP tool.
Square for Restaurants includes Square Invoices in its ecosystem, allowing operators to send itemized invoices with payment links, schedule recurring billing, and track payment status. It works well for restaurants running catering alongside their Square POS setup. The free tier of Square Invoices covers basic needs; the paid tier adds automatic payment reminders and custom templates.
QuickBooks Online is the strongest choice for restaurants that need both inbound AP (supplier bill management) and outbound AR (catering invoices, corporate accounts). It handles the full invoicing lifecycle — create, send, track, collect, reconcile — and syncs with most POS systems via connectors. For restaurants growing their B2B and catering revenue, it is the most complete financial backbone. See also our full overview of invoicing software and the restaurant software hub for related tools.
Accounting-First Options
FreshBooks is built around client invoicing and works particularly well for catering-focused restaurant operators. Its invoicing interface is clean, deposits and payment schedules are easy to configure, and automated follow-up reminders reduce chasing. FreshBooks is less suited to complex multi-location operations or heavy supplier AP workflows, but for an independent restaurant with meaningful catering revenue, it is easier to use than QuickBooks.
TouchBistro integrates reservations, events, and invoicing within its POS ecosystem. For operators on TouchBistro, its Events module allows creating event packages, collecting deposits, and generating final invoices without leaving the platform. Like Toast, it does not replace a general accounting tool but reduces the number of systems a TouchBistro user needs for front-of-house billing.
How to Choose
Start with your POS. If you are on Toast or TouchBistro, their built-in invoicing and event tools likely handle customer-facing billing well enough that you only need to add an accounting tool for supplier AP and tax purposes.
If your catering business is significant — events representing more than 15-20% of revenue — invest in proper AR software. FreshBooks is the fastest to set up for outbound event invoicing. QuickBooks Online is the right choice if you also want to manage supplier bills in the same platform.
For multi-location groups with high supplier invoice volume, QuickBooks Online’s AP workflow handles the load. A dedicated AP tool like BILL.com, integrated with QuickBooks, reduces manual effort when processing dozens of vendor invoices per week.
Do not let invoicing be the last thing you systematize. Late or incorrect catering invoices and unchecked supplier credits are two of the most reliable ways to quietly erode a restaurant’s already-thin margins. If your suppliers require compliant digital invoices, also review e-invoicing software.