Farito.app

Inspiration

Many local restaurants in Latin America struggle with high-cost legacy POS systems and administrative delays due to mandatory electronic invoicing (such as the SRI in Ecuador). During peak hours, customers often face long wait times just to order or pay. We wanted to build a modern, high-speed, mobile-first SaaS that not only automates the kitchen and tax compliance in the background but also turns dining into an interactive, fun experience through collaborative tabletop QR ordering.

What it does

Farito is an all-in-one Progressive Web App (PWA) SaaS for restaurant management and automated electronic invoicing. It digitizes the entire dining experience through real-time collaborative QR ordering (our signature "Avalanche Mode") where customers at the same table share a synced cart and can split the bill easily. For owners, it automates shift changes, tracks cash flow registers, manages inventory with production costs, and instantly issues signed digital invoices to Ecuador's SRI authority upon order completion.

How we built it

Farito is developed as a Progressive Web App (PWA) using Next.js and TypeScript to deliver an app-like, ultra-fast experience on any mobile browser. We use PostgreSQL and Prisma ORM for high-performance data consistency, and Cloudflare R2 for cost-effective menu image storage. The core billing engine securely signs and sends XML documents to the government's SOAP web services in real time, automatically emailing customers their official PDF invoices (RIDE).

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest technical challenge was implementing real-time state synchronization for the "Avalanche Mode" (where multiple users at the same table add items to a shared cart and split bills dynamically). Ensuring data integrity and a lag-free UI under unstable mobile network conditions required careful state management. Additionally, handling the strict security and intermittent downtime of government API endpoints for invoicing required building resilient background queues and offline-ready transaction states.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Flawless Real-Time Sync: Achieving a reliable, lag-free collaborative cart experience on real mobile devices even under weak 3G/4G connections.
• Zero-Effort Tax Compliance: Fully automating the digital signature and SRI authorization pipeline, reducing administrative task times to zero for busy cashiers.
• High PWA Adoption: Building a lightweight web app that customers load instantly without downloading anything from an App Store, increasing usage.

What we learned

We learned that customer-facing design must be incredibly simple; visitors of all ages should be able to scan and order without a learning curve. We also realized how vital robust automated deployment (using PM2 and rollback testing scripts) is for maintaining zero-downtime services in a fast-paced restaurant environment.

What's next for Farito.app

• AI-Powered Recommendations: Implement lightweight machine learning models to suggest customized menu pairings based on previous orders and trending items.
• Regional Expansion: Adapt the electronic invoicing engine to support other Latin American tax authorities (such as Colombia's DIAN or Peru's SUNAT).
• Integrated Payments: Partner with local payment gateways to allow card transactions directly from the tabletop QR menu interface.

Built With

• and-high-administrative-overhead-from-manual-billing-and-cash-flow-errors.-additionally
• apis
• cloudflare
• complex-bill-splitting
• css
• git
• json-ld
• next.js
• node.js
• orm
• playwright
• pm2
• postgresql
• prisma
• pwa
• r2
• react
• shadcn
• soap
• standard-digital-menus-lack-interactive-features
• tailwind
• typescript
• ui
• vitest