Point of Sale Systems: How you can control labor cost for your restaurant

Before the age of POS systems, controlling labor in a food-service establishment was mostly an instinctive process. Having an effective labor control meant by being able to manage your staff during a rush to keep an ongoing operation and by sending them home respectively as the rush slowly descend.

In order to make projections of future sales, restaurant manager keeps track of their business for the past weeks and converted those numbers into an staff schedule. The success or failure of those efforts was determined at at night when the restaurant closes, the manager sat down with a stack of time cards and calculated the day’s labor percentage.

Luckily today, manual tasks such as this is eliminated by using a restaurant point of sale (POS) system where managers no longer need to do things by hand.

Since the minimum wage sets to rise to .25 for a few years to come, business owners looks for tools they can use for controlling labor cost.

Jim Phillips general manager of a Pizza Inn restaurant, tracks down his daily labor record via the store’s Point of Sale System. He uses a restaurant point of sale system from Pixel Point.

Check out your labor cost every 45 minutes or at any time of the day you want! You’ll always get detailed and accurate reports anytime you want it. “I can pull it up on the terminal, hit labor cost and it tells me where my labor stands, or if I want to I can go into my hourly stats and look at those,” says Phillips.

Using a restaurant POS system, you can easily 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

Some POS reports show labor trends over time, and with this owners or district managers can track labor cost manager performance shift-to-shift, said the marketing manager of Speedline Solutions Jennifer Wiebe. This system also provide detailed reports on manual editing of time clock reports so you can easily spot potential abuse.

Time clock reports and schedules also can provide important documentation for labor board reviews of attendance-related employee terminations, she said.

And at the end of day, a POS system just like Phillips’ can generate, export and integrate file reports of your payroll and staff information, store accounting systems or third-party payroll services.

The POS also can assist managers with employee-shift assignments by forecasting sales and generating a schedule based on those sales.

Using sales forecasting and labor planning, operators can schedule efficiently to meet their labor targets. Pixel Point’s scheduling tool is linked with employee skills and availability that can speed up the scheduling process.”

Hours and breaks restriction can easily be done through schedule- and time-clock alerts. The schedule can also include a built-in time clock that requires a manager override for untimely clock-ins and clock-outs.

Many operators set their clock-in and clock-out times very close, within 5 minutes.

“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.”

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Are you struggling to maintain a viable business operation with an outdated cash register or POS software system?

Point of sale (POS) software is possibly one of the best investments you can make in your business success. Full featured POS software will virtually run your entire business operation from your desktop.

Point of sale software systems benefit your sales process by providing you with a range of reporting features, plus a number of other specialised services which streamline your inventory, ordering, staff, customer information, transaction and accounting processes.

The analysed data can be tailored to suit your business needs, so let’s look at some of the reporting features which will help improve your sales and overall performance figures, and therefore the bottom line of your business:

• A detailed report breaks down the number of products you have sold; statistics can include sales for today, last week or over the past month. By analysing which products are generating most sales, it’s easier to focus your attention on margins, sales trends, forecasting, revenue and inventory.
• The detailed reporting summaries can tell you at any time how much of a particular product you have on hand (and in what colours, sizes or varieties), how much you have in the cash drawer in sales plus float, and how much of that cash is profit.
• A POS software system effectively reduces shrinkage (items that are lost from the shelves due to theft, waste or being out of date) because the software enables you to keep track of every item.
• POS software helps you to see when a particular stock item is running low so you can promptly re-order.
• The POS sales interface integrates the entire sales process, including EFTPOS or cash, so only one transaction is required. The point of sale processing system will handle cash, cheque and credit card purchases quickly and easily as well as process lay-by transactions, special offers, discounted items and gift certificates.
• POS software operates with either keyboard or touch screen access and a bar code scanner, which reduces staff errors or incorrect pricing as product prices are already stored in the system.
• Not only does a POS system reduce human error, it dramatically improves transaction processing times and the overall customer experience. And faster transaction processing means you can service your customers more effectively.
• You can maintain data on your customers – including their email address – and their regular purchases. This information enables you to take a proactive, targeted approach in your sales and marketing campaigns.
• Point of sale software can manage and support one retail site or a number of sites from a centralised location.

This functionality enables management to oversee all their operations from a remote location. By integrating the features of a POS software system, business owners or managers can apply a common set of rules and procedure across a range of outlets.

The benefits of maintaining a centralised POS system for a number of outlets include increased overall productivity and ease of management as well as providing customers with the security and satisfaction of knowing they can expect the same high level of service and range of products they’ve come to expect from your business no matter which outlet or store they visit.

A brief tutorial on receiving inventory into QuickBooks Point of Sale brought to you by www.offtheshelfsystems.com
Video Rating: 5 / 5

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Ensuring your shop has eye catching retail displays with well branded point of sale display stands grabs a customer’s attention and draws their eye to new products or special offers. Point of sale displays direct people into your store with well branded A boards or other point of sale signs and enable you to tell your potential customers, passing on the street, about the specific offers you have on in-store such as a sale, discount or low prices.

The look and design of your point of sale display stands can really help drive sales. How a product is packaged is acknowledged to be an extremely key part of its appeal and also conveys the brand image of a product and how a product is displayed in store is no exception to this. Using branded point of sale display materials and can add impact to the product and stand out to the consumer. It is one of the most essential marketing tools and improves the look of the product you are trying to sell and can lead to higher sales and an increased perception of the product value.

In store, the point of sale displays can help sign post and direct customers to the special offers you have and help aid navigation around the store. Eye catching messages and clear branding convey a professional image, promote products and from the customer’s point of view, provide useful and detailed information about products and directional messages to help them navigate clearly around the shop.

Here at Tradewind Displays, we have an extensive range of point of sale display materials and acrylic stands but can also create bespoke point of sale solutions to ensure that you enhance the brand image of the products you have on offer and create the best opportunity to drive sales.

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The point of sale or checkout is the location where the transaction occurs. In its most basic form, the point of sale terminal is the electronic cash register that the cashier uses to ring up the customer and produce the receipt. However, many modern point of sale configurations are much more elaborate than a single electronic cash register. Here is an overview of many of the core components of today’s point of sale systems.

Computer Workstation

The computer workstation has taken the place of the electronic cash register, and this is the core component of most contemporary point of sale systems. It houses all of the software and functionality needed for a single point of sale terminal, it processes all the data needed to complete a transaction, and it powers all of the other devices and peripherals that the terminal employs.

Server

Today, even the smallest point of sale systems are networks, and at least one server is at the center of that network. In its simplest form, the server is a repository of all the information that the computer workstations much share, such as the inventory and current discounts.

Monitor

Electronic cash registers of the past had small, on-board displays. Since today’s point of sale terminals are computers, they make use of a monitor to display their information. The advantage to using a monitor is that the system can provide a great deal more information to the cashier, and there is enough screen real estate to make information visible to the client. Recently, businesses have begun incorporating touch screen technology into their point of sale configurations. This simplifies the process further by offering screen, keyboard and mouse function in an intuitive blend.

Bar Code Scanner

Today, nearly every product sold in a retail outlet has a universal product code (UPC) somewhere on its packaging. The bar code scanner equipment interprets that UPC label as the cashier swipes it over its sensors. The bar code scanner then converts the scanned information into data that the workstation and the server can use. The bar code scanner is a key component that has contributed to the speed and efficiency of the modern point of sale systems.

Credit Card Swipe

The credit/debit card swipe serves two purposes. The first is to read information off a credit/debit card that the customer or cashier swipes through or over its reading mechanism, very similar to how the bar code scanner works. The device then sends that information to the appropriate bank or credit card company for approval. Once the equipment receives the return of information, it then sends it on to the workstation.

Receipt Printer

Receipt printers print a record of the transaction for use by the client. Of all point of sale equipment, receipt printers have changed the least since the days of the electronic cash register. However, the one key difference is critical. Today’s equipment prints much more quickly therefore paying great dividends over a large number of clients.

Cash Drawer

The cash drawer is the box where the cashier collects the money and other valuable items such as checks and money orders. Like the receipt printer, today’s cash drawer is fundamentally the same as those used in years past. However, modern technology allows for a much more secure drawer.

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