# Food Pantry & Donated Goods Inventory App | Sarasoris

URL: https://sarasoris.com/donated-goods-inventory

## Inventory for food pantries and donated goods

Log donations as they arrive and distributions as they leave. Know what is on the shelves, what is running low and what went out last month.
For food pantries, clothing closets, diaper banks, school supply drives, thrift stores and disaster relief stores.

**Short answer.** Food pantries and other donated-goods programs need inventory that starts with intake, not purchasing: log donations at the door on a phone, track stock by location, record distributions by program, and report totals in items or pounds. Sarasoris builds this as a custom app, at a fixed price set after a $1,500 Discovery.

### Is your pantry inventory still on paper?

- Donations are counted on paper and typed into a spreadsheet later, if at all.
- A funder asks how much went out last quarter and it takes a week to answer.
- Expired stock turns up by accident.
- Each location keeps its own spreadsheet, and none of them agree.
- Nobody can say which program or partner received what.

### What does donated-goods inventory software do?

- Intake at the door from a phone: donor, item, quantity, weight and expiry
- Scanning with a phone camera or a barcode reader
- Stock by location: shelf, storeroom, site or truck
- Distributions recorded by program, client visit or partner agency
- Low-stock and expiry alerts
- In-kind donation records your team can use for acknowledgements
- Monthly totals for your board, funders and partners, in items or pounds

### Why not use general inventory software?

General inventory software is built for businesses that buy and sell. Donated goods work the other way around: things arrive unannounced, in mixed condition, and leave without an invoice. A custom app follows how your intake and distribution actually run, and produces the numbers your funders and partners ask for in the shape they ask for them.
Compare: [custom app vs. Airtable](https://sarasoris.com/custom-app-vs-airtable) · [custom or off-the-shelf?](https://sarasoris.com/compare)

### Does it connect to our donor system?

In-kind gifts can flow to Bloomerang, Salesforce Nonprofit, DonorPerfect or Little Green Light where their tools allow it, and everything exports to a spreadsheet. The same app can grow to cover [volunteer shifts](https://sarasoris.com/volunteer-scheduling-app) and [impact reports](https://sarasoris.com/nonprofit-impact-reporting).

### How much does it cost to start?

Discovery is $1,500, and most projects cost $8,000 to $80,000. You get a fixed price in writing before the build starts. A common first module is intake and stock levels; distributions and reports come next. See [pricing](https://sarasoris.com/pricing).

### Related

- [Volunteer scheduling app for nonprofits](https://sarasoris.com/volunteer-scheduling-app)
- [Impact and board reports for nonprofits](https://sarasoris.com/nonprofit-impact-reporting)
- [Airtable and no-code vs. a custom app](https://sarasoris.com/custom-app-vs-airtable)

### Questions

#### Can volunteers use it?

Yes. Screens are designed for people who use them once a week, on their own phones or a shared tablet, with as little typing as possible.

#### Does it work without a signal?

It can. If your storeroom or site has poor reception, the app can be built to keep working offline and catch up when it reconnects.

#### Can it track pounds as well as items?

Yes. Each kind of item can be counted by unit, weight or both.

#### Can it record client visits?

Yes, if you need it. Client records are sensitive, so we decide together in Discovery what is stored and who can see it.

#### What does it cost?

Discovery is $1,500, and most projects cost $8,000 to $80,000. You get a fixed price in writing before the build starts.

Tell us how the work gets done today.
Use the [contact form](https://sarasoris.com/contact) or write to hello@sarasoris.com. The first conversation is free.

Last updated October 18, 2026