Dive Brief:

• DoorDash launched a Reporting API that allows partner restaurants to access data about their sales, operations and finances directly or through select partners ItsaCheckmate and Nextbite, the company announced Wednesday.
• The tool allows restaurants to create custom analyses to be processed through their own data warehouse and/or platform instead of using the DoorDash Merchant Portal. 
• This latest offering builds on DoorDash’s suite of merchant tools, including its Business Manager App, Report Builder and Portal Dashboards, which allow operators to access business performance data in various ways.

Dive Insight:

DoorDash’s Reporting API tool was created in response to restaurant feedback, the company wrote in an email to Restaurant Dive. When the platform rolled out its Report Builder feature set in 2022, which allowed merchants to create customized reports, restaurants — particularly multi-unit operators — requested more flexibility to access sales and operational data on a continual basis.

“We were happy to partner with DoorDash on the early roll-out of the Reporting API. Previously, this was a painful manual download process for us,” said Greg Williams, CFO of cold-pressed juice chain Pressed, said in a statement. “The direct data feed that the Reporting API provides will allow us to have a better view of our business performance holistically, across all channels.”

DoorDash is currently partnering with third-party platforms ItsaCheckmate and Nextbite for data aggregation, but expects to explore additional partnerships in the future. These companies “must meet specific data privacy and security standards, be integration-ready and have a proven track record of offering solutions that can provide business insights and accounting reconciliation for merchants,” DoorDash said in the press release.

While restaurants can use these platforms to view reports of sales, operations and finance across multiple local platforms, they also have the option of downloading the data and to share with other third parties that meet their needs. 

To ensure that the data is secure, DoorDash uses multiple layers of authentication so only authorized merchants and partners can access the API tool and its data. Security measures are in place when both requesting the data and downloading it, the company said. The merchant and partner data is also encrypted to ensure only authorized users can access it, DoorDash said. 

DoorDash and other third-party operators have been rolling out tools for partner restaurants to better access customer data, which had long been a sticking point for operators. DoorDash revamped its product offerings for small- and mid-sized restaurants last year with expanded access to diner insights and educational resources. The Merchant Product Suite was updated to allow restaurants to choose the tools that best meet their needs.

Grubhub Direct, which offers commission-free branded ordering channels for independents, offers a dashboard with diner data. Uber Eats launched its Uber Eats Manager app in 2020 to provide insights into sales, operational statistics, earrings and sales trends in real time. 

As part of its partnership with DoorDash, Nextbite concurrently launched its True Revenue product, which gives restaurants a better understanding of complex third-party delivery transactions, the company said in a separate email to Restaurant Dive. This product, which integrates with DoorDash API, gathers data from delivery transactions, including orders, rebates and cancelations, and puts the data together in a standardized format.

True Revenue then builds a unified overview financial statement and creates a streamlined tool for post-sales reporting and accounting from delivery. The solution can work with Nextbite’s Ordermark online ordering/delivery management platform or as a standalone product, the company said. This tool is expected to eliminate a resource drain on operators that are processing delivery sales data separately.