Fourth

All-in-one workforce and inventory operations platform for the restaurant industry, powered by Fourth iQ.

Contact for pricing United States

Fourth is a comprehensive workforce and inventory management platform designed specifically for the restaurant industry. It unifies hiring, payroll, scheduling, and inventory control into a single ecosystem, while leveraging its Fourth iQ AI engine to forecast labor and supply demands.

Overview and Use Cases

Restaurateurs constantly face two intertwined challenges: determining tomorrow's staffing levels and calculating exact ingredient orders. Overstaffing eats into thin margins, while understaffing leads to service bottlenecks. Similarly, over-ordering ingredients spikes food costs and food waste, while under-ordering causes popular items to 86 out. Both challenges boil down to demand forecasting. This is where Fourth iQ comes in—using AI to predict labor and inventory needs, transforming scheduling and purchasing from intuitive guesses into data-driven decisions.

Core modules include HotSchedules (an industry-standard scheduling tool featuring shift swapping, time-tracking, and labor law compliance), Inventory Management (including recipe management, dynamic prep planning, and waste reduction), and Human Capital Management (recruitment, HR, payroll, and PEO services). Integration is a major strength, with seamless connections to POS systems like Toast and SpotOn, major suppliers like Sysco and US Foods, and recruitment platforms like Indeed and Snagajob. Trusted by enterprise chains such as Taco Bell, Dunkin', KFC, Pizza Hut, and Culver's, Fourth powers over 120,000 locations globally. Pricing is not publicly disclosed on their official website.

Fourth is ideal for restaurant operators ranging from single-unit locations to large enterprise chains, especially brands with high labor and food costs that require precise operational control.

Key Features

HotSchedules: Scheduling, time tracking, and labor law compliance
Inventory Management: Purchasing, recipe management, and dynamic prep planning
Human Capital Management: Recruitment, HR, payroll, and PEO services
Fourth iQ: AI-powered demand forecasting for labor and inventory
Food waste and shrinkage reduction analytics
POS integration (Toast, SpotOn, and more)
Supplier integration (Sysco, US Foods, and more)
Recruitment platform integration (Indeed, Snagajob, and more)

Pros

Unifies the two largest cost centers (labor and inventory) into a single system
HotSchedules has deep industry roots and high employee adoption rates
Robust ecosystem with out-of-the-box POS and supplier integrations
Enterprise-proven reliability trusted by major global restaurant chains

Cons

Pricing is not publicly disclosed on the official website
Payroll and labor compliance modules are tailored to US regulations
Feature-rich ecosystem may be overly complex for small, independent restaurants
AI forecasting accuracy requires a substantial amount of historical operational data

Use Cases

Automatically generate optimized shift schedules based on forecasted guest traffic
Predict ingredient demand to minimize food waste and stockouts
Benchmark labor costs horizontally across multi-location restaurant chains
Analyze recipe costs by integrating POS sales data
Digitize the complete candidate lifecycle from recruitment to onboarding

Editor's Note

The restaurant industry is arguably one of the sectors that benefits most from AI, yet it remains underserved—operating on razor-thin margins, requiring rapid decision-making, and generating vast amounts of operational data. Fourth takes the right approach by delegating high-stress scheduling and ordering decisions to predictive models. While international operators may need to bypass the US-centric payroll modules, the core philosophy of 'data-driven scheduling' is an essential blueprint for modern hospitality operations facing ongoing labor shortages.

FAQ

Demand forecasting models typically require several months to a full year of historical data to accurately account for seasonality, holidays, and weather patterns. Newly opened locations lacking historical data will have limited predictive value and must rely on baseline data from sister locations.

While standard scheduling apps simply help managers build a roster, Fourth introduces a predictive layer that answers 'how many people do I actually need?' and ties it directly to inventory and sales data. The former is a task-management tool, whereas the latter functions as a true operational decision-making system.