Only through the use of a software program, like ChefTec, can a foodservice operator get their actual costs within a half of a percent of their theoretical or ideal costs.   Teaching restaurant owners and food & beverage professionals the importance of using a back office software program could mean the difference between the success or failure of their operation.

Barry Brown, President Profit Strategies & Solutions Inc. & Lead Instructor
for Restaurant Management, Systems and Controls Western Culinary Institute / Le Cordon Bleu

The following will help you to understand if a POS is right for you. Answer each one of these questions and see if they happen in your operation. If so, then you may need a more sophisticated control system.

• Do you have a successful lounge and/or snack bar as part of your bowling center?
• Do you operate your foodservice business with employees, managers, shift leaders, etc?
• Are you making a profit from your foodservice operation, or do you lose money because of it?
• Do you want to track and account for each item that you sell?
• Do you manually audit your employee’s time cards?
• Do your employees clock in or out late without authorization?
• Do your employees accurately charge for everything that is sold?
• Do you suspect theft of money, food and/or beverage?
• Do your employees order food or beverages for themselves without accounting for it?
• Do you know your individual sales breakdown by item and category?
Once you have answered these questions, make a list of the areas you need help with.

Benefits of a Point-of-Sale System:

Custom Reporting
Many POS systems have the ability to generate hundreds of reports that will offer you information that is particularly useful to the decision-making process of your establishment. TAKE OUT AND PUT ABOVE

Menu Item Performance
What items on your menu are the most profitable, the least profitable and the biggest sellers? What is your daily gross profit by individual item sold? How much of an item are you selling in relationship to its main category? (For example: How much of your beer sales are Budweiser draft and then recorded in units sold, dollars and percentages?)

Food and Beverage Usage
A POS can help determine the amount of food and beverage used. How many hot dogs did you sell last week? Last Month? Last Year? How many Budweiser Beers did you sell? How many did you buy? How many are left in the cooler? For example: Inventory & Recipe software programs that give you total control over your recipe and menu and snack bar item costing along with tighter inventory controls like ChefTec are an excellent addition to POS. This software is relatively inexpensive and easily interfaces with almost every POS System.

Labor Costing
An effective POS should have a module that helps you with Employee Scheduling. This program will determine your scheduled employee costs for regular and overtime hours. In addition it will calculate your labor cost percentage by job category. Having this feature will help you to enforce your posted schedule, minimum wage rates, tip credits and overtime regulations. Certain POS Companies have a Labor Scheduling program, which removes the barriers to effective labor management. The painstaking efforts of writing a schedule, honoring special needs, handling unique requests, scheduling vacations, and maintaining labor costs are achieved effortlessly.

Frequent Dining Software
POS can help you to attract new customers, reward returning customers and keep them coming back. This is accomplished through various customer loyalty programs. The right POS for your bowling center should have the capability to maintain thousands of customer names and other pertinent information and print rewards after you have set up your customized reward criteria.

Credit Card Interfacing
A must feature! Most POS systems are designed to read and record all sales using all major credit cards. With Credit Card readers, your employees only need to swipe a credit card once to instantly access all the information necessary to process transactions. No more keying in credit card numbers.

Selecting A POS / Finding the Best Dealer

Make sure you are selecting the right POS for your business. Look at the various POS features listed below, (Rewrite and explain) and compare them to any system you may want to purchase.

Explain all of these better
• Color Touch Screens
• Automatic End of Day Reports
• View open checks on screen at any time
• Adjust closed checks with a complete audit trail
• Time and attendance/Labor scheduling
• Tip Charge Backs
• Training Mode
• Use of full color menu buttons with your choice of size
• Automatic "Out of stock" display and printing capability
• Custom Reporting
• Guest check transfer and ability to combine checks
• Guest count tracking
• Infinite number of days of data stored for reporting
• Employee Labor Management modules that helps you to control your restaurant’s labor resources to minimize labor cost.
• Edit time and attendance for prior days
• Up to the minute sales information
• House account tracking
• Password protection

When purchasing a POS, you need to also consider the company & their dealer. You want someone whom you can trust and begin a partnership that will make your operations more efficient and profitable. A dealer who has extensive experience in the restaurant business would be a great resource in terms of equipping you and your employees with the knowledge, training and tools necessary to resolve problems. Most importantly, judging whether this type of professional will be available to you after the sale is completed.

You must ask the POS Company and/or dealer these questions before you consider giving them your business:

• How long has the company and dealer been in business?

• How to Locate a Dealer?

• Are they local? Dealers will travel great distances to make a sale, sometimes too far to support you adequately. You want a dealer who can react quickly to any problem and be on site if necessary. If your bowling center is in a small town or not close to the POS dealer, make certain that they are set up for next day service through overnight mail. For Example: I had a client in Grand Rapids, Michigan who was supported by a POS Dealer in Houston, Texas. All software support was done over a modem line and if new parts for the POS were needed, they were sent overnight with instructions on how to replace. The old parts such as a broken printer were sent back to the dealer return mail.

• Does the dealer offer training or phone tech service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year? Your busiest times are not Monday-Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. It is more likely that a problem will occur on a Saturday night at 9:00 pm – make sure your dealer can provide you service when you need it. Ask for references, call them and ask about their tech service.

• Are people from the company from the restaurant industry? Do they understand your problems? Do they sell software to other industries too? This is critical. How can a dealer help you if they do not understand your business? A good dealer will be able to make recommendations on how to design your system to make everything efficient.

• What does the implementation services consist of? For the best results, this service should include: a site survey (so they know your operation), custom development of your POS database, installation of hardware and software, staff training, ongoing on-site and phone tech support and software maintenance & updates for 1 year.

• What is the POS Company and dealers guarantee? Our recommendation is that you receive or purchase a full year of phone and on-site support.

• References? Ask the dealer for specific references about the software, any problems, training etc. Call the references given to you by the dealer. Ask the reference if she/he knows where else the system is in use. CALL ALL REFERENCES. If possible, meet with the owner or manager for an independent demonstration.

• How Much Does a POS Cost? My answer to that question is “the cost of an effective and properly utilized POS is FREE.” When a POS is set up and used properly, it should save you along with helping you to bring in thousands of dollars a year in every area that was mentioned in this article.
The problem with most POS systems that fail to pay for themselves within the first year is that for the most part, the POS system is not being utilized to its fullest potential.

The right POS System will help you manage and control all aspects of your foodservice business by simplifying your daily functions. It is important to determine which of the above features you will use before signing on the dotted line. Often an owner believes that just by purchasing a POS System their bowling center will be more profitable. While purchasing a POS System is the first step, it is certainly not the only step. Proper training, utilization and ongoing commitment to systems and controls are the only way POS System will begin to dramatically improve your bottom line. Take the necessary time to research and investigate the POS that best suits your needs. Then, master your POS System and all of the reports that will help you to increase your bottom line.

For more information regarding your Foodservice Profitability or POS Systems Please contact Barry Brown at Profit Strategies & Solutions. 4664 Firwood Road Beaverton, Oregon 97007 Office 503-449-0356 Fax 503-210-0398 E-mail: profitstrategies@aol.com or website: restaurantprofits.com