Turn partner-platform numbers into decisions

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Free restaurant tools: a complete beginner’s walkthrough

Use a tool to answer a specific question, not just to generate a number. The settlement analyser reads supported local payout files and explains their recorded adjustments. The margin calculator models the income left after costs you type. Neither tool operates your restaurant account, changes menu prices, applies for a licence, prepares a tax return or guarantees profit.

1. Settlement analyser: understand a payout file

Use it when: you have a supported Zomato or Swiggy settlement export and want to inspect payout cycles, deductions, retention and warnings. It processes report contents in your browser rather than uploading them to our server. Subscription activation and plan checks are separate network requests; a tool page is not a promise that the entire website makes no network requests.

1. Learn safely with a sample. Open the analyser and click “Try Zomato sample” or “Try Swiggy sample.” No partner login or subscription is required. If results already exist, the tool asks whether to replace the displayed results; your selected file is not changed.
2. Choose your authorised report. Click the “Drop your payout pack here” area or drop a supported file into it. Use exporter ZIP, supported settlement JSON or tabular settlement CSV, not a PDF, image or arbitrary renamed file. The format documentation explains the supported structures.
3. Run the calculation. Click “Run local settlement scan.” Read the message before interpreting results. Free mode accepts one file up to 15 MB and displays up to three cycles. Check “X of Y payout cycles analysed”; the visible total may not cover your complete month.
4. Check the source and scope. Verify the detected platform, cycle dates, order count and one payout against the unchanged original. Missing or unsupported fields are not proof that a cost is zero.
5. Read the outputs correctly. Net payout is the recorded settlement amount; net order value is the report’s sales basis; net deductions reflect the available adjustments. Payout retained is payout ÷ net order value × 100. It is not restaurant profit margin.
6. Act on evidence. Review warnings, match the bank credit independently and investigate unexplained entries through authenticated platform support. The tool does not connect to your bank or prove that a platform “paid” status reached the account.

Free versus subscribed: free analysis includes one file, up to three cycles, core totals and alerts. Subscribed access adds batches, all cycles, the full table and reconciliation CSV download. The public samples do not bypass these access boundaries. To practise bank matching, use the invented two-platform demo. If a real file is rejected, follow troubleshooting; never send passwords, OTPs or unredacted bank statements to support.

2. Margin calculator: estimate contribution and operating income

Use it when: you want to test a basket price, recipe cost, funded discount or advertising allocation before making a live business change. No file, account or subscription is required. The tool recalculates typed values locally. Choose the platform, but replace its inputs yourself: the label does not fetch your agreement, auto-detect fees or guarantee a platform’s current rate.

Open the margin calculator. For this fictional exercise, enter every value below, including zero fields, so existing defaults cannot affect the result. These are teaching assumptions, not Zomato or Swiggy prices or tax advice. Sales use a consistent restaurant-revenue basis before the separately entered funded discount.

Click “Calculate income margin” to move to the results. With these inputs, sales are ₹50,000; commission ₹10,000; tax on commission ₹1,800; discounts ₹2,000; ads ₹1,500; and refund allowance ₹1,000. Food and packaging total ₹18,500. Contribution income is ₹15,200. After ₹5,000 period overhead, estimated operating income is ₹10,200, or 20.4% of entered sales.

Estimated cash payout before food costs is ₹33,650, including the assumed ₹50 withholding. It differs from both contribution and operating income. The model does not claim your actual bank transfer will equal it; real settlements can include additional tax movements, prior adjustments and different timing. “Operating break-even order price” is the modelled price needed at the entered order volume and cost pattern, not a prediction of customer demand.

3. Check the result before changing a real price or campaign

• Period: overhead, sales, advertising and order count must belong to the same scenario. Do not enter monthly rent against seven days of orders unless you intentionally allocate it and label the method.
• Units: a ₹1,500 ad budget across 100 orders means ₹15 per order, not ₹1,500 per order. Percentage fields expect 20 for 20%, not 0.20.
• No double subtraction: do not enter a funded discount again if your revenue is already net of it. Do not add tax again if it is already inside an all-in fee.
• Model limits: the commission tax percentage applies only to commission. Other service taxes need a correctly documented all-in amount in their own cost field. Confirm legal treatment with a qualified adviser.
• One change: increase sample food cost from ₹160 to ₹170. With everything else unchanged, period contribution and operating income each fall by ₹1,000. Then decide what evidence a real change needs.
• Keep a private record: neither calculator saves a review history or edits partner-platform settings. Preserve your source values, assumptions, date and decision yourself. Reset restores sample defaults; it does not retrieve your actual restaurant data.

For a new partner, start with the launch checklist. For a cash discrepancy, use reconciliation. For ingredient and fixed-cost decisions, use contribution margin and the weekly review. Unclear contracts and tax treatment require the relevant official records and qualified advice, not a more precise-looking calculator.