Monday morning. The CFO of a restaurant chain with 25 locations opens last month's expense consolidation. There are three industrial oven purchases worth 18,000 euros that nobody in management authorized. Two area managers ordered new equipment directly from the supplier because "it was urgent." The third renewed a maintenance contract without comparing quotes. Nobody approved anything. Nobody recorded it. And now the quarter's CAPEX is overblown.
The problem with buying without asking permission
In many HORECA chains, the process of purchasing assets and services remains informal. The location manager needs a new dishwasher, calls the regular supplier, accepts the quote, and communicates it to headquarters when the invoice has already been issued. There's no approval workflow. No comparison of offers. No record of who decided what or why.
This model works when you have two or three locations and the owner personally controls every expense. But when the chain grows, the lack of a structured approval process turns CAPEX into an unpredictable budget line.
Duplicated spending between locations
Without centralized visibility, it's common for two locations in the same area to buy the same type of equipment from the same supplier but at different prices. Or for one location to acquire new furniture while another group location has unused units in storage. Nobody cross-references the information because there's no system to do it.
Suppliers without group negotiation
When each manager negotiates individually, the group loses negotiating power. A cold equipment maintenance contract negotiated for 25 locations can cost 30% less than 25 individual contracts. But if there's no workflow to centralize the decision, each location signs on its own.
What isn't approved, isn't controlled
60% of HORECA chains don't have a digital approval workflow for CAPEX purchases. Everything is managed via email, WhatsApp, or directly by phone.
No decision traceability
When something goes wrong with a purchase, nobody knows who authorized it. The manager says they asked their area director. The area director says they approved it verbally because it was urgent. There's no record, no evidence, and the cost is already assumed.
No budget control by location
If there's no system that checks each purchase request against the location's or CAPEX budget allocation, deviations are detected when the accounting close arrives. By then, decisions have already been made and money already spent.
Data measured in active Controliza clients.
How Controliza Solves It
Controliza's CAPEX module within Purchasing digitalizes the approval workflow from end to end. Every asset or service purchase request goes through a configurable multi-level workflow based on amount, type of expense, and requesting location.
Request from the location with full information
The manager creates a purchase request from the app indicating what's needed, why, the estimated budget, and the proposed supplier. The request includes photos, documents, and any context needed.
Configurable multi-level approval
You can define approval levels by amount: purchases up to 500 euros are approved by the area director, up to 5,000 by the operations director, and above that by the CFO. Each approver receives the request with a click to approve, reject, or request more information. Everything is recorded.
Real-time budget control
Each request is automatically checked against the CAPEX budget assigned to the location and expense category. If a purchase exceeds available budget, the system flags it before approval.
Does your chain control who approves each CAPEX purchase?
Discover how Controliza's CAPEX module gives you complete traceability and real-time budget control. Request a personalized demo and eliminate uncontrolled purchases.
How Controliza solves it
Controliza’s CAPEX module within Purchasing digitizes the approval flow end to end. Every request to purchase assets or services goes through a configurable multi-level workflow based on amount, expense type, and requesting location.
Request from the venue with all the information
The manager creates a purchase request from the app, specifying what is needed, why, the estimated budget, and the proposed supplier. The request includes photos, documents, and any context needed so the approver can make an informed decision without calls or emails.
Configurable multi-level approval
You can define approval levels by amount: purchases up to €500 are approved by the area manager, up to €5,000 by the operations director, and above that by the finance director. Each approver receives the request and can approve, reject, or ask for more information in one click. Everything is fully recorded.
Real-time budget control
Each request is automatically checked against the CAPEX budget assigned to the venue and the expense category. If a purchase exceeds the available budget, the system flags it before it is approved. This lets you anticipate budget deviations instead of discovering them at month-end close.
Full traceability and asset management
Once the purchase is approved, the asset is automatically added to the venue’s asset register with the purchase date, supplier, warranty, and associated documentation. When the delivery arrives, the goods receipt compliance process verifies that everything is in order before payment is authorized.
Does your chain control who approves each CAPEX purchase?
Discover how Controliza’s CAPEX module gives you full traceability and real-time budget control. Request a personalized demo and eliminate uncontrolled purchases.
From approval to execution: how to prevent off-contract purchasing and validate what actually comes in
Approving a purchase is only the first filter. The real problem comes later, when the order is placed outside the approved catalog, the supplier is changed “for speed,” or the delivery note arrives with a different price than agreed. In many HORECA chains, the loss of control doesn’t happen at the request stage, but at goods receipt. That’s where off-contract purchasing takes off, extra costs become embedded, and the traceability you need to protect margins, food cost, and your operating budget breaks down.
When there’s no control layer between approval and delivery, each site ends up improvising. A different item is purchased instead of the one defined by head office, substitutions are accepted without validating their impact on recipe costing, or goods are received with quantities and rates that don’t match what was agreed. The result doesn’t just affect spend: it also disrupts waste, inventory, and operational consistency. A chain may believe it has its process under control and still lose between 3% and 8% of spend due to execution issues, price deviations, and purchases that don’t align with contract terms.
With Controliza Compras, the workflow doesn’t end at approval. You centralize the approved catalog, restrict purchasing to authorized suppliers, and turn every order into a traceable operation. And if you connect replenishment with Predicción, each order starts from the forecast and actual stock, not from shift-level urgency. That way, you reduce stockouts, avoid overstock, and eliminate the most expensive pattern in multi-site chains: buying differently at each location to solve the same problem.
Final validation happens at goods receipt. Trazoon compares the delivery note against the order and detects price or quantity deviations before the error enters your system. That gives you a compliance dashboard by site, area, and supplier so you can identify where issues keep recurring and take action. Because controlling purchasing isn’t just about authorizing spend: it’s about making sure what was approved, ordered, and received actually matches.
Approval only works if purchasing is standardized
An approval workflow by itself does not fix uncontrolled purchasing if every location can still buy whatever it wants, from whoever it wants, at whatever price is available that day. The real leak appears before approval: non-standard catalogs, unauthorized suppliers, and no shared criteria for what should be purchased. That is how chains end up with contract leakage, price volatility, duplicated items, and equipment or consumables that do not match operational standards.
Controliza solves this by connecting approval to centralized execution. With Controliza Compras, you define an approved catalog, authorized suppliers, and purchasing rules by category, location, or zone. Requests no longer start from a phone call or a WhatsApp message, but from a controlled environment where each order is aligned with group conditions. Combined with Forecasting, purchases can also be triggered from expected demand and real stock, reducing overbuying and emergency orders that usually bypass control.
And control does not end when the order is placed. At goods reception, delivery notes are validated against agreed price and quantity, creating traceability from request to receipt. The result is lower food cost drift, less waste, fewer off-contract purchases, and a compliance view by location, area, and supplier so you can detect deviations before they become budget problems.
