Guide / hospitality, honestly
Hotel inventory software, free: the honest answer
Free covers the list of what a hotel stocks — not the par levels, expiry dates and purchase discipline that keep a store room and kitchen supplied. Here is the free ladder, and the boundary where a business system like BSimple stops.
The key facts
- Genuinely free: a spreadsheet per store room — fine for one person, fragile the moment volume or staff turnover hits.
- Free tiers: capped versions of paid tools; the caps usually land on users, locations or history.
- Hotel stock is par-level stock: linen, minibar, F&B and cleaning supplies are managed to par and counted, not reordered ad hoc.
- BSimple is not free and not a hotel system: plans start at $180/month (AUD), free to trial; it runs stock, purchasing and invoicing — not bookings or occupancy.
- 01The key facts
- 02What "free" actually covers
- 03What hotel stock management actually needs
- 04Where BSimple fits — and the boundary
What "free" actually covers
A spreadsheet is the honest free option, and hotels use them everywhere: a tab per storeroom, one person updating, quantities corrected at a count. It fails the way all shared spreadsheets fail — two people editing, quantities nobody trusts between counts, and purchasing driven by whoever remembers to check.
Free tiers of inventory tools move the list into a database with mobile counts, at caps that vary by product. What free tiers reliably do not include is the purchasing side — par levels that raise purchase orders, supplier price variance, goods receipts updating stock — which is precisely the half a hotel runs on daily. The free small-business stock software guide maps what the market's free options actually include.
What hotel stock management actually needs
Hotel inventory is closer to a small distribution operation than to retail, and the requirements follow:
- Par levels by location. Linen, amenities, minibar and kitchen stock are managed to par: count, compare to par, order the gap. A tool without par levels is a list, not a system.
- Expiry on food and beverage. F&B stock needs lot and expiry tracking, because room-service stock and kitchen stock both age.
- Purchasing discipline. Supplier orders raised from what counts show, receipts updating stock, and price variance caught before it is paid.
- Counts that do not stop the property. Cycle counts per storeroom, not a property-wide freeze.
If a free tool covers the list but not par levels and purchasing, the gap is the expensive half — the half where over-ordering and expiry waste actually happen.
Where BSimple fits — and the boundary
We build BSimple, so weigh that. What it can do for a hotel or small hospitality group: live quantities across storerooms, par/reorder levels with purchase orders raised from demand, batch and expiry tracking on F&B, stocktakes from any browser, and the commercial loop — orders, invoicing and the Xero or MYOB handoff — on one record. The hospitality inventory guide covers the fit for hospitality operations in depth.
The boundary is just as plain: BSimple is not a property management system. It does not handle bookings, occupancy, room rates or front desk, and it does not integrate with your PMS — it manages the inventory layer of the operation, from $180/month (AUD) with a free trial to test it on your own store rooms. If you only need the free half, stay free honestly; if you need the purchasing half, trial the full product against one storeroom before deciding.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there free hotel inventory management software?
A spreadsheet, genuinely — while one person maintains it and par levels live in your head. Free tiers of tools cover the list with caps; the par-level, purchasing and expiry layer that hotel stock runs on is the paid product nearly everywhere in this market.
Is BSimple free?
No — plans start at $180/month (AUD). The trial is free and is the full product, so you can run one storeroom through counts, par levels and purchase orders before deciding whether the paid half earns its keep.
Does BSimple manage bookings or room occupancy?
No. BSimple is not a property management system — bookings, rates and front-desk operations are a PMS' job. BSimple manages the stock and purchasing layer: storerooms, F&B, amenities, purchase orders and invoicing.
What should a hotel trial to test the fit?
One storeroom end to end: set par levels, count what is actually there, raise the purchase order for the gap, and receive it. If that loop reads clean on your own stock, the record fits — start here.
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