Ottimate is accounts payable software. Accounts payable (AP) is the money you owe your vendors, plus the work of checking, approving and paying each bill. Ottimate reads your invoices, codes them for your books, sends them for approval and pays the vendor.
RestaurantMate works earlier, when you buy. It shows what each of your vendors charges for an item before you order. Then it fills each vendor's online cart for you to review. After delivery it uses the prices you paid to value your counts and cost your recipes.
The two tools do different jobs, and some restaurant groups would use both.
Facts about Ottimate come from public sources, as of October 2026. Sources are listed at the end. Check them with Ottimate before you decide.
The short answer
Do you need invoices coded to your accounts, approved by a manager and paid? Look at Ottimate or another AP tool. RestaurantMate does not do that work.
Do you want to know which vendor has the cheapest chicken thighs before you place this week's order? RestaurantMate does that. Ottimate is not built for that.
If you searched for an "Ottimate alternative" or a "Plate IQ alternative", first decide which of those two jobs you want done.
What Ottimate does
Ottimate is the new name for Plate IQ. It sells AP automation to hospitality and other industries. It is built for finance and AP teams at restaurant groups, hotels and clubs.
According to its public sources, Ottimate:
- Reads invoices line by line.
- Codes each line to a GL account. GL stands for general ledger, the list of accounts your accountant uses (produce, dairy, paper goods and so on).
- Sends invoices through approval steps.
- Pays vendors from the same system.
- Flags price differences and likely duplicate invoices.
- Sends invoices to accounting and ERP systems. ERP means the software a company uses to run its finances. Ottimate names QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage, Acumatica and Microsoft Dynamics.
Its help center has also described a Price Comparisons report from the Plate IQ days. That article was last updated in March 2024, and the original link returned "not found" when we checked. Ask Ottimate whether the report is still offered.
Ottimate gets its prices from invoices. Ordering is not its focus.
What RestaurantMate does
RestaurantMate is a digital restaurant manager for restaurants and restaurant groups. Most of its work happens before there is a bill.
It shows prices before you order. Each night it refreshes your item prices at every vendor you buy from that has a website, using your own accounts. Every price is put on the same unit, such as price per pound or price per each. That way a 40 lb case and a 4 x 10 lb pack can be compared fairly. How price comparison works
It works with the vendors you already use. Vendors with a website connect with your own login. The RestaurantMate device, a small box in your restaurant, signs in to those sites from your own internet, because vendor sites block logins from cloud servers. Vendors without a website send invoices and price sheets to your location's RestaurantMate inbox. If we haven't connected one of your vendors yet, we build it for you, usually within days. About the device
It gets your order ready. You send your order to every vendor's online cart from one place. RestaurantMate fills each cart and checks every line, so you can review and check out. How the cart works
Then it reads the invoices. Invoices from vendor websites are pulled daily and read line by line. You can mark any item as damaged, short or wrong and keep track of it until it's sorted out. Invoices
It uses what you actually paid. Counts are valued at the prices you paid. Recipes are costed per plate from real invoice prices. COGS (cost of goods sold, meaning what your food costs you) sits next to sales from Toast or SpotOn and labor from 7shifts or Homebase. Counts · Recipes and food cost
Email alerts cover price changes, items delivered short or substituted, items below par after a count (par is the amount you want on the shelf), and rules you describe in your own words.
What RestaurantMate does not do
This is the main reason to pick one tool over the other, so here it is plainly.
RestaurantMate does not do AP. It does not route invoices for approval or pay vendors. It does not code lines to GL accounts. It does not sync with QuickBooks or any other accounting system.
There is a Bills tab for costs that aren't food, like electricity, rent and repairs. You upload a bill or have it emailed, and RestaurantMate files it by category and keeps it out of food cost. The tab is a record of what you were billed. You can't pay a bill from it, it won't remind you when one is due, and it doesn't track which bills are paid.
RestaurantMate does not connect to Ottimate. If you use both, each tool gets its own copy of your invoices.
Side by side
| Ottimate | RestaurantMate | |
|---|---|---|
| Main job | Accounts payable: capture, code, approve and pay vendor bills | Buying and food cost: compare prices, fill vendor carts, cost counts and recipes |
| Built for | Finance and AP teams at restaurant groups, hotels and clubs | Owners and managers of restaurants and restaurant groups |
| When you see a price | On the invoice, after delivery | Before you order (refreshed overnight), then again on the invoice |
| Price comparison | Report on what your locations paid for the same item (help article, 2024; ask if still offered) | The same item across your vendors, on the same unit |
| Ordering | Not its focus | Fills each vendor's online cart; you review and check out |
| Reads invoices line by line | Yes | Yes |
| GL coding, approvals, bill pay | Yes | Not offered |
| Accounting sync | QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage, Acumatica, Microsoft Dynamics | Not offered |
| Duplicate invoice check | Flags likely duplicates | Warns when an upload has the same vendor and invoice number |
| Counts and recipe cost | Not its focus | Yes, from the prices you paid |
| Price | Quote only (one review site lists "starting at $249 per month", date unclear) | 60 days free, then $99 per location per month; $300 refundable device deposit |
Ottimate column as of October 2026, from the sources at the end of this page.
Where Ottimate is stronger
Paying vendors. Approvals and payments are built in. RestaurantMate has neither.
Your accountant's side. GL coding and sync with the big accounting systems are work a bookkeeper or controller would otherwise do by hand.
Catching billing mistakes before money leaves. Ottimate flags price differences and duplicate invoices. That helps you avoid paying a price you never agreed to, or paying the same bill twice.
More than restaurants. If you also run hotels, clubs or other businesses, one AP system can cover all of them.
Size of the finance workflow. Ottimate is built for finance teams at groups. RestaurantMate is newer and is live in 10+ restaurants.
Where RestaurantMate is different
Before you buy vs after you pay
Ottimate looks at a price once it is on an invoice. That's the right moment to catch a billing error. For choosing a vendor it's late, because the food is already in your walk-in.
Here is an example with made-up vendors. You buy three 40 lb cases of chicken thighs a week.
- Heartland Foodservice: $86.00 for a 40 lb case. $86.00 ÷ 40 lb = $2.15 per lb.
- Prairie Meats: $79.60 for 4 x 10 lb. $79.60 ÷ 40 lb = $1.99 per lb.
The gap is 16 cents a pound. On 120 lb a week that's $19.20 a week, or just under $1,000 a year on one item.
An AP tool can flag Heartland's invoice if $86.00 doesn't match the price you agreed to. RestaurantMate shows both prices per pound the night before you order, so you can buy from Prairie Meats in the first place.
It compares vendors, and that works for one location too
The Plate IQ report compared your locations with each other: same vendor, same item, different prices paid. That helps if you have several stores. RestaurantMate compares your vendors with each other for the same item, which is just as useful for a single restaurant.
It covers the kitchen side
Ottimate is not built for counts or recipe costing. RestaurantMate does both itself. Send your recipes in any format (a photo, a PDF, a spreadsheet) to your agent or our team. RestaurantMate sets them up, clears the obvious ones and asks you only about the unclear ones. Recipe prices come from what you paid, and AI never guesses a price.
Running both
Some groups could run an AP tool and RestaurantMate side by side. It could look like this:
- The owner or chef uses RestaurantMate to compare prices and fill the carts, then checks out in each vendor's cart.
- Invoices arrive. RestaurantMate reads them for food cost, counts and recipes. Ottimate reads them for coding, approval and payment.
- The bookkeeper or controller works in Ottimate. The kitchen works in RestaurantMate.
The tools don't connect, so each one needs to receive the invoices. Both read the same invoices, so you pay twice for that part. If paying bills is a small job at your restaurant, ask whether you need an AP tool at all.
Who should pick which
Pick Ottimate if:
- A finance team or controller approves and pays a large number of invoices.
- Your accountant needs every line coded and synced to QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage or another accounting system.
- You want price differences and duplicate invoices flagged before you pay.
- You run hotels, clubs or other businesses next to your restaurants and want one AP system for all of them.
Pick RestaurantMate if:
- You buy from several vendors and want to see who is cheapest before you order.
- You run a restaurant or restaurant group without a finance team, and the owner, chef or manager does the buying.
- You want counts and recipe cost based on what you actually paid.
- Your bookkeeper or your bank already handles paying bills.
Use both if your group has a back office that pays the bills and a kitchen that does the buying. Each side gets a tool built for its job.
If you need an Ottimate alternative to pay your bills, RestaurantMate won't do that. Look at other AP software, or at restaurant back-office tools that include bill pay.
What it costs
Ottimate: quote only. As of October 2026 it lists no prices on its website. One review site lists "starting at $249 per month", but the date is unclear.
RestaurantMate: 60 days free, with no card needed to start. Then $99 a month per location. The device is a $300 refundable deposit, and one device covers up to two locations. Setup is $0 and done with you. You can leave whenever you want. Pricing
What one owner says
Miguel runs two restaurants in Los Angeles. RestaurantMate has cut his food purchases by about 10%, and by 20 to 30% on some items where he switched vendors, and his manager gets back 4 to 5 hours a week. When we asked him to wait three weeks before onboarding his second location, he wrote: "No, it would be great if you could onboard me today. I cannot imagine running my second location without RestaurantMate anymore."
Common questions
Is RestaurantMate a Plate IQ alternative? For part of the job. If you used Plate IQ to watch prices, RestaurantMate shows them earlier, before you order. If you used it to code and pay bills, you still need an AP tool.
Does RestaurantMate integrate with Ottimate? No. If you use both, send your invoices to each one.
Will RestaurantMate order without me? No. It fills each vendor's online cart and checks every line. You, or someone you give full ordering access, review the cart and check out.
Try it
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Sources (as of 2026-10-09)
- Ottimate home page (AP automation, accounting systems; no prices listed)
- Ottimate help center, How to Use Price Comparisons (original link, now redirects to a "not found" page)
- Archived copy of that article (modified March 22, 2024; captured April 22, 2025)
- Ottimate sponsor profile, FS/TEC (line-item reading, price variances and duplicates)
- Ottimate reviews on TrustRadius (worth reading before a demo)
- Software Advice, Plate IQ profile ("starting at $249 per month", date unclear) Prices and features as of October 2026, from public sources. Ottimate and Plate IQ are trademarks of their owners. RestaurantMate is not affiliated with Ottimate. If something here is out of date, email us and we will fix it.