Strong evidence (grade B: first-hand account)A detailed first-hand write-up, including the approaches that failed.

A Café Owner Turns a Photo of the Inventory Sheet Into Shopping Lists by Store

You can take a photo of a paper stock sheet and get a shopping list sorted by store.

What happened A café owner built a custom GPT that reads a photo of the daily paper inventory sheet and returns a checkbox shopping list grouped by vendor, replacing hand-written lists that took 2–10 minutes each, after an OCR tool that worked well cost over $250 a month.

Who this is about: Small café that buys from several local suppliers

ChatGPTSlackObsidianLocal & serviceAssisted

Get the prompt

OperationsAdded Oct 15, 2026Source: colemorgan.com

What it takes

Cost: Free planChatGPT: Free plan. ChatGPT Plus costs $20 a month. Go, Pro, Business and Enterprise plans are listed on chatgpt.com/pricing.Price checked Oct 15, 2026 on help.openai.com. Prices change; check before you buy.
Setup time: Under an hourOur estimate from the source, for one business.
Skill needed: No codeApps and settings only.

Explain it simply

Café staff fill out a paper sheet showing what's running low and post a photo of it. The owner made a custom ChatGPT that reads the photo and turns it into a checkbox shopping list sorted by which store sells each item. It even asks about anything missing from the sheet, so he no longer writes the lists by hand.

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What was done

Staff fill out two paper inventory forms each day and post photos in Slack. The owner used to turn them into a checklist for each store by hand. He built a custom GPT, uploaded a spreadsheet of every item and the vendor it comes from, and told it to output a markdown checklist grouped by vendor and to ask about any item missing from the sheet (for example, whole milk).

How it went

A photo of the sheet now becomes a ready-to-paste list grouped by store (for example Sam's Club, Hannaford, Restaurant Depot), replacing list-making that took 2–10 minutes each time. Earlier attempts failed: an off-the-shelf OCR tool that worked well cost over $250 a month, and a ChatGPT-written Python script wasn't accurate enough. Accuracy improved with a newer ChatGPT model, with no changes to his instructions.

Limits: each list took only 2–10 minutes by hand, the post doesn't say how long the GPT takes, and it still needs a manual upload. The newer model sometimes asks too many questions, so he has to say "just output my markdown list." The Slack auto-trigger is planned but not built.

Prompt

PromptAdapted from the source

You manage supplies for [café name] remotely. Staff send photos of the daily inventory sheet. Your only job is supply checks.

1. Read the counts from the photo.
2. Compare them with the item list in your knowledge file, and ask about any item the sheet doesn't mention before you finish.
3. Output only a markdown checklist, grouped by the vendor each item is bought from.

Knowledge file: a spreadsheet of every inventory item and its vendor.

Adapted from the instruction file in the post.

Business fit

Who this helps, and how:

Retail store owners: photograph a handwritten stock count and get a reorder list split by supplier.
Local & service
Mechanics and tradespeople: turn a photo of the van's parts checklist into a pickup list for each supply house.
Local & service
Local service businesses: turn the cleaning or supply closet count into a weekly order by vendor.
Local & service
Medical and health professional business owners: turn a paper supply count into a reorder list grouped by distributor.
Local & service

Your turn

Ideas to try on your own work. These are starters, not results anyone has measured.

Which paper sheet do you still turn into a shopping list by hand?
What should the list do when a photo leaves an item out?
How do you want the list grouped so each store trip stands alone?

Similar tools

Other tools for this job, and how they differ. Chosen by our editors, never paid for.

Claude
Upload the item list once and send photos of the sheet, similar to a custom GPT.
Gemini
Google's version of a custom assistant, handy if you work in Google Sheets.
MarketMan
Restaurant inventory and purchasing software, for a full system instead of a photo-to-list helper.

“Strong evidence” (grade B) means: The person who did the work describes the setup and results in detail. How we grade. Spotted a mistake? Suggest a correction.