AI, chat & alerts
Low-Stock Alerts and Restaurant Notifications
How low-stock, expiry and insight alerts work in Wox, who receives each one, and how every person tunes their own notifications so the important ones still get read on a busy Saturday.
A notification is a request for someone's attention, and attention in a restaurant is scarce. At one o'clock on a Saturday, nobody in the kitchen reads a phone that buzzes every four minutes. The alerts that matter, the walk-in running low on sulguni before the evening service or a crate of herbs about to pass its date, have to stand out from everything else.
This guide explains which alerts Wox sends, how the low-stock threshold works, who receives what, and how each person controls their own channels. The aim is simple: fewer notifications, and every one of them worth reading.
What Wox notifies you about
Notifications are grouped into categories, and each person chooses for every category how it reaches them. The categories that matter most in daily operations are these:
- Inventory: low stock, items about to expire, and expired stock written off as waste.
- Insights: the most urgent daily findings from Wox Analyst, such as a cash shortage at close or a jump in food cost.
- Staff tasks and shift: tasks assigned to you and the close of the business day.
- Chat: messages from team chat.
- Documents: progress on invoices and other documents you upload.
Further categories cover approvals, purchasing, suppliers, support replies and system messages. Ordering from suppliers inside the web app is currently switched off, so purchasing notifications will stay quiet for most restaurants.
How low-stock alerts work
Every inventory item can have an alert point: the quantity at which it counts as low. When stock in a storage falls to or below that number, the item is flagged as low stock and a notification goes out. It fires once, at the moment stock crosses the line, not again with every sale that follows. If stock is replenished above the alert point and later falls again, you are alerted again.
Low-stock alerts go to the organization's owners. They appear in the notification bell in the web app, as push notifications on phones with the Wox mobile app, and as browser notifications where the browser has been allowed to show them.
- 1Open the inventory item in the Wox web app.
- 2Find the alert point field.
- 3Enter the quantity at which you want to be warned, in the item's stocking unit.
- 4Save, then repeat for the items that would stop service if they ran out.
Choosing the right alert point
An alert point should cover the time it takes to get more. If you use about 4 kg of sulguni a day and the supplier delivers the day after you call, an alert point of 4 kg leaves nothing in hand; 8 to 10 kg gives you a day to react. Items you can buy from the shop around the corner can sit lower. Items that arrive once a week need far more room.
An alert point is a warning, not a target. Par levels set the quantity you restock to. Use both: the par level for planning orders, the alert point for the moment something needs attention today.
An alert that fires every day is not an alert any more. It is background noise.
Expiry warnings
If you record expiry dates on stock, Wox checks them every night. Items inside the warning window, seven days by default, raise an alert to owners, admins and the managers of that location. When an item passes its date, Wox writes the expired quantity off as waste and tells the same people, so the stock balance stays honest and the loss shows up in the waste report.
Daily insights from Wox Analyst
Wox Analyst reviews each location's data every day and writes insight cards: a cash drawer that came up short, food cost climbing, a public holiday that may call for different opening hours. Only the urgent ones, warnings and critical findings, are pushed as notifications to owners and managers, and their number per location is capped. Everything else waits in the in-app feed. AI is not included on the Free plan.
Which supplier prices went up this month?
Supplier price changes
From your rs.ge waybills, the biggest increase is Sulguni, up from ₾14.20/kg to ₾16.90/kg, a rise of 19.0% on September 22, 2026. It goes into 4 dishes, including Imeruli khachapuri.
- Sunflower oil: ₾5.40/L to ₾6.10/L (13.0%) on October 2, 2026
- Tomatoes: down from ₾4.80/kg to ₾3.20/kg (33.3%)
Sulguni
₾14.20/kg → ₾16.90/kg
Ask about sales, stock, costs or bookings...
Wox Analyst is AI-generated and may be inaccurate. Verify important details before acting.
Choose how you receive notifications
Each person controls their own notifications in settings. Every category has two channels. In-app writes the notification into your inbox in Wox. Push sends it to your phone or browser. Push is delivered from the in-app inbox, so turning in-app off for a category also stops its push.
- 1In the Wox web app, open Settings and go to Notifications.
- 2Read through the categories and what each one covers.
- 3Turn push off for categories you only need to see when you open Wox.
- 4Turn in-app off only for categories you never need, since that also stops their push.
- 5Save your changes.
- 6On your phone, allow notifications for the Wox app when asked; on a desktop, allow browser notifications if you want push there.
Tune alerts by role
Not everyone needs everything. In a typical restaurant, owners keep push on for low stock and insights, managers keep it on for expiry warnings and staff tasks, and shift leads rely on tasks and chat. Everyone else reads the inbox when they open Wox.
- 1For each role, write down the three or four alerts that require that person to act.
- 2Ask each person to keep push on only for those categories.
- 3After a month, review alert points. If an item alerts every day, its alert point is too high or its par level too low; if an item ran out without an alert, raise its alert point.
- 4Once a month, ask the team which notifications they ignore, and turn those off.
Common mistakes
- Setting an alert point on every item. Start with the twenty or so items you cannot serve without, and add more only when a real stockout shows you need it.
- Setting alert points without thinking about lead time. A threshold that ignores delivery days will always warn too late.
- Leaving every push channel on for everyone. People learn to swipe notifications away, including the important ones.
- Never revisiting the settings. Menus, suppliers and staff change, and alerts should change with them.
Questions people ask
Who receives low-stock alerts in Wox?
Low-stock alerts go to the organization's owners, in the web app's notification bell and as push on phones and browsers where it is allowed. Expiry warnings also reach admins and the managers of the location concerned.
Why did I not get an alert for an item that is already low?
A low-stock alert fires once, when stock crosses the alert point. If the item was already below it, or has no alert point set, no new alert is sent. Once stock is replenished above the alert point, the next drop will alert again.
Can Wox send low-stock alerts by SMS or email?
No. Low-stock and other operational alerts arrive in the Wox inbox and as push notifications on the mobile app and in the browser. Each person chooses which categories use push.
What is the difference between an alert point and a par level?
The alert point is the quantity at which Wox warns you that an item is low. The par level is the quantity you aim to restock to. The alert point should sit below par, with enough room to cover the time it takes to get more.
Related guides
Par Level Management and Reorder Points
How to set and maintain par levels so restaurant reordering is timely, consistent, and driven by actual usage to control food cost.
Restaurant Purchase Order Management
A guide to creating, sending, receiving, and reconciling restaurant purchase orders to keep food costs as a percentage of sales on target.
Mobile Inventory App and Offline Counting
How to use the mobile app for restaurant inventory counts offline, ordering on the go, and real-time data sync across shifts.
Background reading
How to Calculate and Control Restaurant Food Cost Percentage
Food cost percentage is the single most important financial metric for restaurant profitability. It measures how much of every revenue dollar goes toward the ingredients on each plate. For an industry where average net profit margins hover between 3% and 5%, even a one-point shift in food cost can mean the difference between a profitable quarter and a losing one. This guide explains exactly how to calculate food cost percentage, what the benchmarks are by restaurant type, and which operational strategies bring that number under control.
Actual vs. Theoretical Food Cost: How to Calculate and Track Variance
Most restaurant operators know their food cost percentage. Fewer understand why that number is what it is. Actual food cost tells you where you ended up. Theoretical food cost tells you where you should have been. The difference between the two—variance—tells you why. This guide explains how to calculate both, how to interpret the gap, and what to do when variance exceeds acceptable thresholds.
Food Cost Variance: A Worked Example and How to Find the Cause
A worked food cost variance example, the six causes behind most gaps between actual and theoretical food cost, and the week-long tests that tell you which one is costing you money.
The feature behind this guide
Restaurant inventory management, simplified
How Wox helps you track food cost and reduce wastage in your restaurant