Prep, rush, close. The three parts of a pizza night.

A pizza shop runs on a prep block nobody sees and a rush that decides the week. Helm Shift ships with those shifts, with dough and cheese as first-class inventory categories, and with the units a pizza shop actually counts in.

Start free for 30 days, no card required See how it works

The mismatch

The prep block is invisible to most software.

Generic scheduling tools see a shift as a block of hours. A pizza shop sees a prep block, a rush, and a close, and the prep block is where the night is won or lost. Meanwhile the inventory list wants you to file 00 flour under “dry goods” and mozzarella under “dairy”, which is technically true and completely useless when you are counting at eleven at night.

What ships on day one

Set up as a pizza shop.

Shifts named for the night

Prep, Lunch, Dinner rush and Close. The names are the ones you already use on the whiteboard, so nobody has to translate.

Categories that match the line

Dough, Cheese, Sauce, Toppings, Boxes & packaging, Beverage. Your two biggest costs get their own category instead of hiding inside a general one.

Units you actually count in

00 flour by the bag, mozzarella by the case, pepperoni by the kilo, sauce by the case, boxes by the box. Counting stops being a conversion exercise.

What it does

The schedule, the stock and the cost of a week.

Builds the week for you. Set availability once and the schedule drafts itself, prep blocks included. Staff see it on a phone link, no app, no password.

Counts on a phone. Paste from the list you already keep. Par levels flag the flour and the cheese before Friday, and the supplier order builds itself.

Shows labour cost as you schedule. You see what a Friday costs before you commit to it, not after payroll.

Costs the menu. Put a recipe on a pizza and you get its food cost and margin. Anything without a recipe shows a dash, never a fake 100%.

How to judge it

Run it against your own Friday.

Helm Shift was built in Halifax and is open to independent pizza shops across Nova Scotia and Ontario. The 30 days are free and there is no card, so schedule a real Friday in it and count a real walk-in. That will tell you more than anything on this page.

Try it on next Friday.

Plans start at $49 CAD a month. Works alongside whatever POS you already use.

Start free for 30 days, no card required How the four setups differ