Helm Shift is now operating in Ontario. See what’s included →
Public Changelog

What's new in Helm Shift

A running log of what we ship, every release, every meaningful fix. We update this when we deploy, not when we feel like marketing. See something you want? Tell us.

v16 2026-08-15 Talk to your team · order your way

Your team gets a place to talk, and ordering stops being a form.

Added
  • Messages for the whole team, an Everyone channel, an Announcements channel, and one channel for each role you actually have, so the line cooks have somewhere to sort out Friday without anyone chasing people one at a time. The channels build themselves from your roster. Nobody sets anything up.
  • Announcements only you can post in, your team reads them, and only a manager can write one. Everywhere else, anyone can talk.
  • Your staff can only edit their own messages, and removing one leaves a record rather than making it vanish. A manager can take a message down, but cannot rewrite what somebody said.
  • Order from a real list, open your catalog and see everything you carry with what is on hand against par, when it was last counted, and which supplier it comes from. Filter to just what is low, tap what you need, and review. Built for one thumb, standing in the walk-in.
  • Paste the order you already send, drop in the list you have been texting your supplier for years and Helm Shift matches the lines to your items. Anything it is unsure about waits for you.
  • Work the draft before it goes, change a quantity, drop a line and undo it, add more from the catalog. The total moves as you go, and an emptied order cannot be placed by accident.
  • Order history, live orders and finished ones now sit in separate tabs, with search by supplier.
  • Send a stock report back, when a report from your team is too vague to act on, hand it back with a note saying what is missing instead of dismissing it.
  • Four ways to ask Helm, a quick answer for mid-shift, a normal one, a slower one for planning, and a careful one for a hard question. Pick per question. The quick answers are free to use as much as you like.
Improved
  • Helm answers in plain English now, short sentences, real hours instead of shorthand like "35h", and the answer first with the reason after it. It reads like a person, not a report.
  • Overtime is watched while you build the week, the hours limit is set from your province (48 in Nova Scotia, 44 in Ontario) and you are told before you publish, not after payroll.
  • The audit log is now Change History, and each line reads as a sentence saying what happened and who did it, rather than a code.
  • Helm has a face, the assistant you talk to is Helm, and Helm Shift is the app it lives in.
Fixed
  • The Menu screen scrolled into empty space, an invisible element was stretching the page well past the end of your items. Fixed everywhere, not just on Menu.
  • Labour cost on a long shift, a thirteen-hour double was being costed the same as a five-hour lunch. It now counts the hours actually worked.
  • The schedule will not suggest someone who is off, if a draft ever proposed a person who marked that day unavailable or had approved time off, the shift is handed back to you as open instead.
  • A security pass on messages and stock, several paths where one team member could have changed another's records were closed, along with a database permission that could have emptied a table outright. No account was affected. We found these ourselves.
v15 2026-08-05 Ontario · four trades

Open in Ontario, and set up as what you actually are.

Added
  • Ontario, Helm Shift is now open to independent operators across Ontario as well as Nova Scotia. Same product, same price, same founder answering the email. Setup is a guided 30-minute call.
  • Four trade setups, all live, restaurants, bars and pubs, cafes and bakeries, and pizza shops. Each one arrives with its own shift names, categories, units and starter items, so a bar gets a close that runs to 2:30am and part-bottle counting while a cafe gets a 6am open. Pick yours during setup.
  • Pages for each trade, plus an explainer covering exactly what changes between the four setups and what does not.
Improved
  • Pricing copy corrected across the site, several pages priced scheduling at $99 when scheduling, sick-call cover, the staff phone app and live labour cost are all in Lite at $49. The lower number was the true one.
v14 2026-07-31 Multi-location · faster counts

More than one room, and counts that take minutes.

Added
  • Locations, run several venues under one login and see them side by side. Because the same product carries one identity across your locations, you can finally see that one room is paying more for the same case than another.
  • Paste your count in, paste from whatever list you already keep, on paper or in a phone note, and Helm Shift matches the lines to your items. You confirm anything it is unsure about; nothing is applied silently.
  • Weekly pour and food cost, paste a product mix from your POS export and get recipe cost against what you actually sold, over a stated week. It is the weekly number, labelled as the weekly number.
Fixed
  • A security pass on every table, six paths where a team member could have written data outside their own role were closed, along with one where an invite could have been used to grant a higher role than the sender held. No account was affected; we found these ourselves and fixed them before anyone was on the platform.
  • Staff editing, a bug that blocked edits on staff with certain availability settings, and a sick-call suggestion that named the wrong person, are both fixed.
v13 2026-07-21 Receipts · schedule by email

Snap the receipt, email the week.

Added
  • Receipt capture, take a photo of a delivery receipt and the AI reads the lines into suggested stock updates. You review every line before anything changes, same rule as always.
  • Schedule by email, anyone on your team who prefers email can now get their week sent to them automatically every time you publish. One checkbox on their profile, that's it.
Improved
  • A speed and accessibility pass across the app and this site, faster page loads, clearer error messages, better keyboard and screen-reader support, and a lighter first visit.
v12 2026-07-17 Locations · voice · smarter reorders

More locations, your voice, and reorders that do math.

Added
  • Add locations yourself, Professional runs up to 3 locations and Enterprise has no cap. Add one from Settings, switch between them anywhere, and see labour and food cost across all of them in one view.
  • Voice inventory, say "we're down to two bottles of olive oil" and it becomes a suggested stock update. You review and apply it, nothing changes on its own.
Improved
  • Reorder suggestions now do real math, they watch how fast you actually go through each item over the last four weeks, how much gets logged as waste, and your par levels, then size the suggestion to roughly two weeks of cover.
  • Smarter spreadsheet import, when your columns are ambiguous the AI proposes a mapping and shows you exactly what it guessed. You confirm before a single row imports.
v11 2026-07 Scheduling that knows your team

The schedule learns who's strong where.

Added
  • Skill ratings, optionally rate staff 1 to 5 and the AI leans your stronger people onto the days your forecast says will be busy. Soft nudges only, never lock-outs.
  • AI preferences, two plain-language notepads in Settings, one for scheduling, one for suppliers. Write "Marcus never closes Sundays" once and every AI draft respects it.
  • Recurring supplier orders, save your standing weekly order once, then send it by email in one click. Sending is always your decision.
  • Video tutorials, hosted by Helm, short walkthroughs of every screen at helmai.ca/how-it-works, presented by our robot host.
Improved
  • Sick-call cover on your terms, ranked replacement suggestions now appear when you press "Find cover with AI", not before. Ask when you want the answer.
v10 2026-06-23 Lite plan

A plan for the smallest teams.

Added
  • Helm Shift Lite, $49 CAD a month, the scheduling essentials for one location and up to 15 staff: the AI schedule builder, sick-call cover suggestions, the staff phone view, and Ask Helm. Exactly what a small place needs, nothing it doesn't.
  • A clearer ladder, Starter adds inventory, menus, and labour reports, Professional adds multi-location and forecasting, Enterprise removes the caps. Compare them all at helmai.ca/compare-plans.
v9 2026-06-06 Transparency

Everything out in the open.

Added
  • The complete guide, every screen of Helm Shift explained in plain language at helmai.ca/how-it-works. Understand the whole tool before it asks for your time or your card.
  • A page for home, a dedicated page for Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canadian restaurants, where Helm Shift is built.
v8 2026-06-01 Smarter assistant · CAD

A smarter assistant and honest pricing.

Added
  • Pricing in Canadian dollars, everywhere, every plan is now shown and billed in CAD. What you see is what your statement says, and HST stays simple.
Improved
  • The in-app assistant got a sharper brain, the assistant that already knows your staff, stock, and schedule now runs on a faster, more capable AI. Same rule as always: it suggests, you decide.
v7 2026-05 Ready for real restaurants

Hardened, guided, and on your phone.

Added
  • Guided first run, a short built-in tour on each screen the first time you open it, dismiss it once and it stays gone.
  • In-app notification centre, time-off requests and team activity land in one bell, on every screen.
  • Add to Home Screen, staff put Helm Shift on their phone like an app, no app store needed.
  • Email-confirmed accounts and stronger sign-in, every new account is verified, and passwords meet a real standard.
Improved
  • A full speed-and-reliability pass across the app, the schedule builder, and billing, the kind of work you don't see, you just stop noticing.
v6 2026-05-21 Easier scheduling

Build the week in a few taps.

Added
  • A schedule anyone can run, every team member gets a row across the week. Tap a shift to change it, double-tap for exact hours, drag it onto anyone, any day. Nothing goes live until you save.
  • Auto-fill from availability, one tap drafts the whole week around who can work and their target hours. You always review before publishing.
  • A clean published view, your team sees a simple read-only schedule; you make changes in the builder.
Improved
  • Plain-language screens, bigger buttons, clearer labels, and one-tap pop-ups for adding staff and inventory.
v5 2026-05-12 The Helm Shift release

A new name and the full platform.

Added
  • Helm Shift, the product formerly known as Helm AI, relaunched with the two-tone wordmark you see today.
  • The AI scheduler, drafts a full week of shifts in seconds around availability, time-off, and target hours. If the AI is ever unavailable, a simpler scheduler steps in so you're never blocked.
  • Real billing, monthly, self-serve plan changes, and a 30-day free trial with no card on file. If a card ever declines, you get a friendly email with a one-tap fix, not a locked account.
  • The staff app, Today, Schedule, Pool, Team, and Me on every phone. One-tap call-in-sick, availability your staff manage themselves, a shift pool where two people can't claim the same shift, and voice or photo inventory reports.
  • Sick-call coverage, when someone calls in, Helm Shift suggests who can cover, ranked, with the reason for each suggestion. You approve with one tap.
v4 2026-05 AI vision & voice

Count by photo. Log by voice.

Added
  • Photo counts, snap your walk-in and the AI reads what's on the shelf.
  • Voice notes, say "we're out of limes" and it's logged.
  • A full activity log for every AI action, so nothing happens behind your back.
v3 2026-05 Communications

The app learns to speak up.

Added
  • Notifications, alerts that reach the right person reliably, by app and email.
  • In-restaurant messages, managers and staff send short notes inside the app, not in a group chat at midnight.
v2 2026-05 Smarter scheduling

Swaps, conflicts, and coverage.

Added
  • Shift swaps, staff request and accept swaps with no chance of a double-claim.
  • Conflict detection, every added or moved shift is checked against double-booking.
  • Daily coverage forecast, how many people each day actually needs, based on your history.
v1 2026-04 Mark one

The foundation.

Added
  • From idea to working product in one season, Helm Shift was first sketched in January 2026 and became a working platform by spring. Everything below shipped since.
  • The core platform, scheduling, inventory with par levels and suppliers, time-off, and team management in one login.
  • Strict per-restaurant privacy, one restaurant's data can never be read by another. Built in from day one, not bolted on.
  • Web and mobile foundations, built to live on the devices a restaurant actually uses.