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Food banks and pantries work tirelessly to tackle hunger and provide food security to their community. Whether you’re a large food bank that collects and distributes food to hunger relief organizations or a smaller agency that provides direct community assistance, we at PlanStreet understand the unique challenges facing food-based charitable organizations. Food banks and pantries are a critical part of the social safety net and are dedicated to nurturing their communities. Having a robust food bank management software can solve many of the common challenges faced by your organization.

The purpose of food bank software is to efficiently manage the distribution of meals from different locations and donors, enabling better resource management. The software also helps with food service distribution for food banks and pantries, which aids with donation management, time tracking, custom operations, USDA support, barcoding and scanning, private/shared databases, and more.

Food bank software helps with:

• Volunteers are the operational heart of a food bank but often need more software experience. Food banks and pantry programs depend on volunteers to keep services running. Ensuring these volunteers can be easily trained to use food pantry software to serve your community effectively is critical.
• Navigating TEFAP and CSFP compliance and reporting requirements is exhausting. Your food bank software must provide your organization with the robust reporting needed to stay compliant.
• Keeping paper records up-to-date and getting an accurate client count can feel impossible. The best food bank software systems make it easy for you to manage duplicates and account for the complex living arrangements of your clients.

Key Features to Look for in Food Pantry Software:

• Tracking Purchased vs. Donated Goods
  Many food banks need help to meet the needs of their agencies on donated food. As a result, some items are purchased to meet the needs of the community, and frequently, the same type of food items that were donated are also purchased to augment quantities. An effective food bank software should be able to track both donated and purchased goods for detailed reporting and analysis by category. The software should allow you to pick and allocate both donated and purchased goods to agencies, as required. (Some agencies may mandate only donated food or no donated food, for example.)

• Delivery routes
  Routes can be determined based on the geographical pooling of clients in the food management software.

• Electronic signatures
  Use inexpensive and readily available tablets to take electronic signatures for TEFAP, CSFP, and other programs making maintaining compliance that much easier.
• Volunteer Scheduling
  Instead of paper applications, bring the volunteer application online with food bank software. Using the software for volunteer applications helps your organization gather the most accurate volunteer information regarding a volunteer’s skills, experience, and interests.
• Reporting
  It’s common for a food bank’s management team to report to a board or upper management, and having access to real-time critical inventory data will make reporting more efficient and stress-free. Some key reports that may be useful include Item by Category reports looking at purchased vs. donated goods, Agency Fulfillment (are agencies getting everything they need?), and demand by season/weather. Good Food Bank software will deliver critical reports to you automatically via email or other means at predefined intervals such as daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
• Referrals
  Many food banks and food pantries work with referrals. These referrals are often emailed to the food bank, which must be verified and cataloged. PlanStreet’s food bank management system provides a portal to your referrers, which means that they can input all critical data online and submit it to the food bank in real-time. Food programs can then process the referral by scheduling when the food will be sent to the person in need. Food bank software’s scheduling module shows a calendar view of when people will be getting their food parcels.
  Driver modules allow drivers to see their delivery schedule and update the system in real time so that the food bank knows who has taken the food delivery and who hasn’t so that appropriate actions can be taken.
• Inventory control
  Proper food bank management software keeps track of your inventory, so you will always be caught up. The software should capture all critical data during the referral process. Data such as age, ethnicity, location, dietary needs, etc., can be used to apply for funding by showing how many people are being helped, which age groups are being catered for, and which areas you serve. By using our robust reporting module, you can generate the reports in seconds rather than spending weeks compiling the data.

Benefits of PlanStreet’s Food Pantry Software:

• Better efficiency
  Our effective food bank management system will economize your team’s efforts by helping leadership identify redundancies and inefficient processes to ensure that your valuable time, funding, and donations are used in the way that creates the most good.
• Eliminate paperwork
  By eliminating manual, paper-based processes, your team can spend less time with labor-intensive administrative tasks and redirect that time to outreach, food drives, and fundraising.

• Technical support
  Food bank software by PlanStreet helps your team with troubleshooting and software customizations to ensure that your food bank management system is a reliable resource.
• Room for growth
  Our food bank management system sets your program on the road to growth and expands efforts to have an even more significant impact on your local community.

PlanStreet’s flexible food pantry management system is the tool your team needs to maximize efficiency and make the most of the resources you already have available. Our food bank software has been implemented throughout various non-profit industries and is a trusted platform for countless organizations. PlanStreet was developed to alleviate the stress and administration tasks of nonprofit organizations. Our software aims to help you help your community. For more information on our extensive food bank software, contact us: Call us at 859-214-0373 or Email sales@planstreetinc.com