One key aspect to running a profitable restaurant is managing the controllable costs, such as food, labor and supplies. With these, food can be the most difficult cost to handle.

Simultaneously monitor portion sizes, prevent theft, watch waste and order efficiently must be done in order to manage food costs effectively.

An inventory software will be able to help you identify accurately when your food costs are out of line. Using inventory control software will typically save you 1 to 2 percent of sales, and possibly will save you much more. And it’s savings that goes straight to your bottom line as profit.

A POS-based inventory control system, operators will easily spot and solve food cost difficulties apparent by just simply focusing on portion control. And when your employees know that the system is carefully keeping track, it can prevent more waste as well as theft.

A single restaurateur will be able to realize this lesson, when it comes to food cost problems, probably a week of using inventory control software.

Inside his restaurant, he’s portion controlling, yield testing and conducting physical inventory, but it wasn’t until he uses an inventory software where he discovers his inventory was out by exactly 20 pounds of blue marlin each week; coincidentally, a box weights exactly the same! Upon knowing, it was relatively that easy to identify the source of the problem: one of the prep cooks was stashing a box of goodies every Friday night.

Boosting the bottom line

In a typical restaurant point of sale inventory control program, the operator sets up the software by first entering their recipes and product costs. The system then tracks the restaurant’s ideal usage according on those recipes and actual sales.

The inventory control software can aslo track product usage in situations where some orders is not in line with the standard recipe. The operator can then do a physical inventory and generate reports compare it with the calculated ideal usage to be able to spot their differences. The software can be set up to track as many items as the operator chooses.

In a majority of restaurants, in their top 10 items 80 percent of their food cost problem. And you can schedule nightly counts of key items and weekly or even monthly counts of some other items.

Even an ounce of over-portioning 1 item per order can mean hundreds of dollars in a month for restaurants. By eliminating over-portioning on 100 orders per day for 30 days on a $1.67 per pound of one item, may well add up to more than $300.00 in savings or $3600.00 in a year!

Reduce waste and free up cash for other things! A better tracking and control of stock helps an operator reduce the amount of stock they keep on hand. Losses due to carrying too much extra inventory can add up to a loss of between 2% and 5 % on an average operator’s profit-and-loss statement.

According to one of our clients it was a lot of work to set up because they have a fairly extensive menu, and by helping them program it properly, we were able to drop their food cost by 2 to 4 percent – all of which went to their bottom-line profits.

So if you’re using a restaurant POS system or are deciding on a purchase make sure you understand the additional profits that you can reap and the “how to’s” by learning and properly using the inventory module of the system.

The author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-Fof-Restaurants.com with over 20 years experience in restaurant point of sale (POS) helping restaurants nationwide increase their efficiency and bottom-line profits.

Visit POS-Fof-Restaurants.com for more information on how our national network of restaurant point of sale professionals can help your business achieve greater success in these difficult economic times.

Not so long ago, controlling labor cost for food-service establishments was done mostly by natural process. Having an effective labor control meant by being able to manage your staff during a rush to keep an ongoing operation and send them home as quickly as possible when the rush is over.

Restaurant managers kept track of business from previous weeks in order to make projections of future sales, and then, with great expenditure of effort, converted those numbers into an employee schedule. And at night when the restaurant closes, the manager sits down with a sack of time cards, calculating for the day’s labor percentage where success or failure of those efforts is going to be determined.

However, those days are no longer with us and a restaurant’s point-of-sale system has taken over many of the functions a restaurant manager used to do by hand.

Since the minimum wage sets to rise to $7.25 for the next few years, business owners looks for business tools they can use to control labor cost.

At a Pizza Inn restaurant, their general manager Jim Phillips uses his restaurant POS system from Pixel Point to track labor throughout the day.

“I check my labor cost every 45 minutes when I’m in the restaurant,” Phillips  said. Just by simply clicking on a POS terminal, you can easily see where your labor stands or check on your hourly stats.

With a restaurant POS system, you can view forecasted sales, actual sales and a variance between the two. It can even show scheduled hours versus actual hours for added convenience.

“The system tells me everything I need to know,” Phillips said. “I can look at the POS and see the number of pickups for any given hour; the number of dine-ins and the number of buffets. It gives me my supervisor hours, my kitchen hours and my assistant’s hours all in a breakdown.”

An extra pair of eyes

There are POS reports that shows trends over time which provides ease for tracking labor cost manager performance per shift, according to Speedline Solutions marketing manager Jennifer Wiebe. The system can also produce reports when someone manually edited time clock reports that can help spot potential abuse.

You can even use the detailed information provided by time clock reports for labor board reviews of attendance-related employee terminations.

And at the end of day, a system such as Phillips’ can generate payroll- and employee-information export files to integrate with above-store accounting systems or third-party payroll services.

It can also assist managers when assigning staff shifts by the forcasted sales report and by generating schedules from them.

Operators can efficiently schedule to meet their labor targets using sales forecasting and their labor plans. Pixel Point’s scheduling tool is linked with employee skills and availability which can speed up scheduling process.”

Hours and breaks restriction is easily done with schedule- and time-clock alerts. The schedule can also include a built-in time clock that requires a manager’s access to override late clock-ins or early clock-outs.

Mostly, operators will set their clock-in and clock-out times within 5 minutes before or after the actual time.

“Employees can’t clock in until 5 minutes before their scheduled shift or clock out late without a manager override. The system tells me if an employee is supposed to be off but he is still on the clock.”

This article’s author is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-FOR-Restaurants.com - a national organization of retail and restaurant POS systems dealers.

Less purchases can have as dramatic an effect on your retail or hospitality business as a point of sale (POS) system. Let our experts show you how you can increase your profits and get control of your business.

Having A Control Over Your Business

A right POS system will give you a new level of control over your operations, it helps fine-tune your business model, boost your profits, as well as your efficiency. A wrong system, however, is like wasting valuable time and money for your business, it can even be the cause of frustration.

In a sense, a POS system is a glorified cash register. The most basic POS system which consists of a computer, a cash drawer, receipt printer, and an input device such as a keyboard or scanner. However, in addition to being more efficient than cash registers, POS systems can create detailed reports that can help you make more informed business decisions.

POS systems can save you a great amount of money, increase your profits, and lesses the amount of time you spend on one business plan to the next.

Save money, have more control over your business, and be more productive; sounds like a great combination, right? Well here are some of the best ways a modern POS system can help your business.

Eliminating shrinkage

A computerized point of sale system can drastically cut down on shrinkage, due to theft, waste and misuse of your staff. Because employees will know inventory is being carefully tracked, internal shrinkage will dwindle.

Improve Accuracy

Whether you use barcode scanning or not, POS systems ensure that every item in your store or on your menu is sold for the right price. Your staff will never have to guess prices again, and you can change prices with just one tweak in the computer.

Getting margins

You can get better magins by having a detailed sales report, focusing on higher-margin items would be cinch. By moving items within a retail location, or promoting under-performing foods in a restaurant, you can help boost sales of high-profit items.

Know where you stand

With the help of a POS system, you can instantly know how much money you have in your cash drawer, how much of that money is profit, as well as how many of a particular product you have sold today, yesterday, last week or even last month.

Better inventory management

Detailed sales reports make it much easier for you to keep the right stock on hand. Track your remaining inventory, spot sales trends, and use historical data to better forecast your needs. A POS software can be used to alert you when it’s time to reorder for stocks that are about to run low. Many store owners who think they know exactly what trends affect them find a couple of surprises once they have this data.

Building a customer list

List the names and address of your best customers, you might never know when they’ll come in handy! You can use it for targeted advertising or incentive programs.

Reduce paperwork

POS systems can dramatically reduce the time you have to spend doing inventory, sales figures, and other repetitive but important paperwork. The savings here: time and peace of mind.

Efficiency in transactions

In retail settings, checkouts can be made faster if you use a barcode scanner and other POS features to aid you. Restaurants will find their order process greatly streamlined as orders are relayed automatically to the kitchen from the dining room. In both cases, your customers get faster, more accurate service.

Keep in mind that realizing these benefits requires a commitment to utilizing the POS system capabilities to their fullest. Without proper training and analysis, any sophisticated POS system will be just another cash register with no special functionality.

Retail vs. Hospitality Needs

Since there are two segments in the POS market, they require different needs: retail operations and hospitality businesses like restaurants, bars, and hotels.

Retail

Of the two groups, retailers have simpler POS needs. Retails can complete their transactions all at once and uses less variation for the products that they sell. Some POS features retailers may specifically want include the ability to support kits (e.g. 3 for $2 deals), returns and exchanges, and support for digital scales. Your POS system will need to support matrixes if you sell items that come in a variety of styles, like clothing or shoes. For example, matrixes let you create one inventory and price entry for a particular sweater, but still track sales according to size and color.

Hospitality

Restaurants and other hospitality businesses differ in requirements.

Efficiency is the key focus for casual restaurants. For retail-style restaurants like sub shops, POS systems that relay inputted orders cut down on time-per-transaction and reduce the errors that can happen when hastily-scrawled orders are passed back to the kitchen. For quick-service restaurants, POS systems are practically a requirement for living up to their name: orders entered on terminals in the front are automatically displayed on monitors in the food preparation area, ready to be quickly assembled and delivered to the customer.

For table-service restaurants and fine dining, POS requirements are somewhat different. Their needs includes the ability to create and store open checks, as parties order more over time, and to determine which waiter is responsible for which table. The efficiency gains from better management can be impressive. If a restaurant with 20 tables and an average check of $45 can increase turnover by one party per table, that is an extra $900 on a busy night.

Return on Investment Worth the Trouble

Switching from a traditional cash register to a computerized POS system can be difficult. There are many factors to consider and some pitfalls to avoid. However the return on investment and benefits to your business can really make it worth your time and effort.

Need more information or an online resource?

Go to POS-For-Restaurants.com

The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types throughout the U.S.

A Guide to Restaurant Point of Sale Management Software

Some of the best restaurant POS software that can really help you boost your sales and save money on costly repairs!

A lot of people may thing that the restaurant business is not worthy of investment and would rather venture on a different business. However, a growing number of restaurant-specific software programs have emerged to help you with nearly every aspect of running your business. And there’s more good news: most of this software fists the budget for smaller retail businesses that operate only a few restaurants or even a single location. The current available software products can help your business:

1. Greatly increase profits|Double your profits|Increase your profits
2. Lower food costs
3. Streamline staff scheduling
4. Improve customer managing and table serving
5. Improve customer reservations system
6. Control inventory
7. Designing menus

Cost out your recipes

Offering accurate recipe cost to your customers can get your business on the fast track to success. With the right figures, you can easily identify your most profitable menu items as well as items that aren’t performing well. Software programs eliminate human error in this vital area.

Reservations and table management

A restaurant reservation POS software can help reduce no-shows, take reservations from your website, cancelled reservations, differentiate VIPs from regulars, take customer information and more. With this POS software, you can maximize and improve both table and guest management.

Inventory control and tracking

In order to minimize waste and to avoid running out of necessary ingredients, restaurant owners need need to have full control over his inventory management as well as keeping track of goods.

I recommend:

The best contacts and resources to help you make the right choice for your restaurant Point of Sale software are available at POS-For-Restaurants.com

Proper ordering and purchsing of goods

Look for a software that streamlines the ordering and purchasing process, giving you more time to concentrate on revenue-generating activities.

I recommend:

The best contacts and resources to help you make the right choice for your restaurant Point of Sale software are available at POS-For-Restaurants.com

Software for creating menu designs

If you frequently change menus or you simply don’t want the hassle and expense of hiring a graphic designer, use software that helps you create designer-quality menus.

Staff scheduling

Every restaurant owner knows that scheduling employees can be a real headache. When performed manually, the task is time-consuming and often results in mistakes, such as understaffing or overstaffing.

I recommend:

The best contacts and resources to help you make the right choice for your restaurant Point of Sale software are available at POS-For-Restaurants.com

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• If you operate more than one restaurant, test-drive the software in one before implementing it system wide.
• Using your restaurant software programs’ powerful reporting features, you can easily review your sales, customers and menu. Analyze them and make changes, this will surely help you improve your performance and increase profits.

Bar and Restaurant POS software features

Bar owners shouldn’t have to to worry too much about product shrinkage or lack of inventory. When you have the right bar POS software, you can say goodbye to these worries and focus more on your business and growing profits.

You can handle almost any customer transaction using bar POS software. It can display information such as the average bar tab in a given night, the number of open tabs, returns or voids, and credit card processing details. Using this software allows you to easily manage inventory, determine which top-selling items to keep in stock, and track the performance of new products.

Useful Features of a bar POS software
The most important bar POS software feature is liquor inventory control. It can track all the liquor, wine, and beer in stock as well as inform you if a resource is near empty. It even tracks how much liquor goes into each glass, so you could know how much money you can expect to make. It also helps keep staff honest – since supplies are closely monitored, they’ll be less likely to give their friends free drinks.

The bar POS software also offers other great features to help you streamline your operations and track overall sales performance (you may want to request for a free POS system quote where a bar Point of Sale professional can tailor the right POS solution to meet your needs):

• Secure log-in– Requires authorized staff each time the software is used.
• Liquor control devices (LCDs) – This helps reduce shrinkage by tracking the exact amount of alcohol employees pour on bottles and glasses.
• Recipe lookup – This provides bartenders a “cheat sheet” reference for looking up on indgredients when preparing mixed drinks.
• Data import and export – Downloads reports into your word processing or spreadsheet software for your personal bookkeeping efforts.
• Email list maintenance – Helps build your customer loyalty efforts by sending customers emails about limited offers, new product releases, and special events at your establishment.
• Gift card management – Supports your bar and restaurant with its gift card capabilities that can bring in repeat business.
• Schedule promotions – Automatically manages price changes for limited time promotions like “happy hour.”
• Barcode readers – Can quickly serve customers by easily scanning barcodes on beer and malt beverage bottles.
• Employee scheduling – Determines the right number of staff you need for certain shifts based on your sales history.
• Customer management tools – Help manage open bar tabs, check split requests, and gratuities.
• Food service integration – Processes food and drink orders on one screen.
• Menu management – Toggles between different liquors so you can accurately track the amount of liquor that goes into certain drinks.

Need more information or an online resource?

Go to POS-For-Restaurants.com

The author of this article is the Vice-President on Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types throughout the U.S.

Frustrated with unreadable grease-stained paper slips? Would you like to know for certainty how much of any product to order in the coming week - instead of just going by a “best guess”? Then you have made the first decision to help your business.

A point of sale (POS) system can give you a new level of control over your restaurant operations, helping you increase efficiency, boost profits, and fine-tune inventory management. When upgrading from a cash register and hand-written orders to a restaurant computer system can be hard, but the return on investment can really make it worth your time and effort.

Restaurant Point of Sale - Buying Tips
•Always prepare for the worst. As with any computer system, backups are important. Talk to your vendor about automated backup schedules.
•Clean all. Preventative maintenance is important to ensure that you will get maximum usefulness of your equipment.
•If you don’t like the heat… When choosing printers, remember that the heat in the kitchen can be enough to ruin thermal paper. Impact technology is a better option.
•Use the Internet to locate sites that specialize in POS and offer to send your requests to multiple dealers We recommend POS-For-Restaurants.com. Restaurants have very specific POS needs. POS-For-Restaurants is here to help you find an the BEST and most qualified point of sale supplier serving your geographical area and knowledgeable with your specific type of restaurant.
What is a restaurant POS system?
To review in-depth service offerings from multiple restaurant POS providers, use BuyerZone’s free vendor comparison tool.

A basic POS system is a glorified cash register, but with additional tools and features that help you run your restaurant in the most efficient manner. The typical restaurant POS station consists of a computer and cash drawer, a receipt printer, and a touch-screen monitor. Most restaurants have several such stations, with additional components depending on the type of restaurant.

For retail-style restaurants like sub shops, POS systems often include printers in the food preparation area, eliminating the errors that can happen when hastily-scrawled orders are passed back to the kitchen. For quick-service restaurants, POS systems are practically a requirement for living up to their name: orders taken on terminals in the front are displayed on monitors in the kitchen, ready to be quickly assembled and delivered to the customer.

POS systems are NOT all the same, subtle but important differences exist depending on the type of restaurant. POS systems need to be set up with your seating plan and menu plan so they can communicate customer requests to the kitchen and bar, track reservations and seating, and handle properly transactions.

Fine dining POS systems typically include more stations: multiple server stations, a bar station, a hostess station, and printers in the kitchen than more basic POS systems. They also have more flexibility - including creating and storing open checks, let servers send priority orders to the kitchen to start the next course, as well as track which server is serving which customers.

Restaurant point of sale benefits
POS systems can greatly reduce the amount of time your staff spends in the kitchen and speed up the order process. The efficiency gain is always well worth the effort. If a restaurant with 20 tables and an average check of $45 can increase turnover by one party per table, that is an extra $900 on a busy night. Just consider the additional savings that come from an even smaller shrinkage:employees can’t provide food at no or reduced charge to friends.

In addition to the direct cost savings, restaurant POS systems offer detailed reports that can help you make more informed business decisions. Sales reports help you better predict volume and schedule employees appropriately. Inventory reports can help you to order the right product week after week, adding profit to your bottom line. And comprehensive reports let you immeditately identify which items are sellers, the items that generate the greatest profit margin, and which items you should eliminate