Restaurant systems derive their value from from the work they perform, there is no inherent reason to own a system. It must perform work, and that work must be an economic enhancement to the restaurant, in order to offset the cost of the system and make a profit.

Restaurant systems do this four ways:
1) They provide a set of controls which must be enforced in the restaurant.
2) They provide meaningful information
3) They have tools which build sales
4) They eliminate much mundane work

Controls

Requisition printers

The most basic control is the new rule made possible by having requisition printers in the bar and kitchen; the rule is: nothing comes from the kitchen or bar unless it prints on the printer in that area. This control insures every item is rung up, especially drinks. Sales increase around 2% in every restaurant.

Automated pricing

A second important feature is automated pricing. The system enforces proper pricing on every item. Most wait staff charge properly for menu items, however, they often do not charge for blue cheese dressing on a salad, for bacon on a burger, rocks in a drink, and so on.

Happy hour, different carryout pricing,and entertainment pricing produce a different challenge. The system is programmed with the specific pricing for every day and time. At a certain time all prices move upward or downward automatically. A restaurant owner does not want to rely on a tipped employees to charge more for a drink at 7pm precisely. The system removes pricing decisions and pricing temptations from all staff.

Beverage controls

Over ten percent of nonalcoholic beverages served in restaurants are not charged for. Often a server is not choosing to steal a cup of coffee, but rather, she gets the coffee herself, it requires a trip to the computer to enter it, she forgets. The effect on the restaurant is the same as if it was stolen. The system enforces some beverage on every check. No longer can beverages simply be forgotten. If a guest drinks water, then water must be entered on the computer. When beverages on every check is required, nonalcoholic beverage sales rise 5%.

Alcoholic beverages present a different problem. Most systems have a database of some 300 alcoholic drinks. Bartenders can not remember all of the pricing, brands, and price adjustments. The system makes this challenge simple by classifying drinks alphabetically, rather than by type of alcohol, most popular to least, or some other method of classification. If a bartender sells a screwdriver they simply press "s" button to bring up all alcoholic beverages which begin with "s", and choose the screwdriver. They did not need to know that a screwdriver is Vodka at happy hour pricing with orange juice added for $.25. If a guest ordered an Absolute screwdriver, a bartender need only press "a" and choose Absolute screwdriver. The system charges $.50 more because Absolute is a premium alcohol. A system reduces the level of knowledge required by wait staff to perform well.

Incidentally, if the bartender does not know how to make a drink, recipe's can be looked up on the restaurant system terminal.

Surveillance system interface

An innovation unique to Business Data Systems is an interface between the restaurant system and your Surveillance system. A restaurant systems controls items rung up, it has no controls over items served but not rung up, i.e. the bartender giving away a beer. A Surveillance system views and records what is served but has no idea what was rung up.

The interface overlays text from the restaurant system on top of the images coming from the bar. Imagine having the ability to watch a bartender serve three Molson's, and the watch him ring up three Molsons and the word "Molson" appears three times on the surveillance system screen. In addition, this transaction is recorded for later viewing and could be watched from home. Sales move slightly upward every time this is installed, costs move downward, every time.

The Surveillance system interface is used to better capture items servers prepare themselves. This is accomplished by placing a camera in the server alley, the restaurant owner then enforces a new rule that no items are to be removed from the server alley without first being rung up. The word "cherry pie" and "coffee" appear on the Surveillance system screen, and then you watch as the server walks into the picture to get the cherry pie and coffee. Cherry pie and coffee sales go up/along with every other item severs get themselves.

The Surveillance system is also often interfaced to a cashier terminal. This is popular with restaurants that provide senior discounts, police discounts, and take various coupons. A restaurant owner is able to watch what is rung up while looking at the customer; if a senior discount is rung, there should be an older looking customer standing at the register. A risk related to coupons is a cashier bringing coupons into the restaurant and exchanging them for cash, so, a coupon must be handed to the cashier by the customer, not come out of the cashiers pocket.

Discount and Void Controls

There are two ways to increase sales, sell more, and reduce activities which reduce sales. Discounts and voids reduce sales. There are two areas to manage in the discount and void areas.

First is to control discounts and voids at the point of sale. This is done by restricting who is able to perform a voids and discounts, reviewing void and discount activity in the context of their occurrence. Voids and discounts are restricted to specific, accountable, people through the use of passwords, manager cards, or fingerprint devices.

When voids occur, there are a small number of specific reasons they occur. The product may have been prepared poorly, service may be lacking, the product from the purveyor may be substandard, and so on.

When a void occurs the system requires a reason, i.e. a "product problem". The system then asks, "what was the problem". A manager then types in, "wings were too skinny". As servers check out, every void that occurred on their checks are listed on their server reports. At the end of the day, every void is listed with the reason why, the server I.D., the manager who approved it, the time, and the response to any point of sale questions.

This information is then linked to void and discount reports which are printed for any time period. A restaurant may print a report, for example, which lists every void performed because of product problems for the month. This is a useful report for meetings with purveyors. A report might be run which lists every service problem for a month, sorted by server. If Susie had four service issues which resulted in voids or comps, she may need more training or a new position.

Bench marking is made possible through the use of report the void and discount report writers. Determine how much in discounts the average check at dinner has for the restaurant, and then determine how much in discounts the average check has, "by server". Identify the best and worst performers, thank and encourage the best, retrain and replace the worst.

Sales Building Abilities:

Frequent Diner/Carryout Database

The system has built in, the ability to gather information on customers who dine in, or order for carryout. Information on frequency of visits, dollar volume, items ordered, birthdays, anniversaries, home address, and so on, are tracked by the system. Imagine having the ability to develop in house promotions, i.e. when a customer spends $300 a gift certificate automatically prints at the point of sale, or when a customer frequents the restaurant ten times the restaurant rewards them with a free appetizer, or two weeks before a customers birthday they receive a certificate for a dessert celebrating their birthday. The system can process up to 99 frequent diner plans simultaneously, it even prints mailing labels.

Benchmarking

Benchmarking is a management process made possible by any system with well developed report writers. It is a process whereby measurements are taken on some twenty areas of the restaurant, and then those same measurements are taken by person or shift. The purpose is to make a restaurateur aware of the direction of the restaurant in critical areas, and to identify the people performing well and performing poorly.

For example, the average check at dinner has on it $.40 in desserts. This is up from $.38 from last month. Now imagine knowing how much in desserts, per check, at dinner, every server has for the month. Three of ten servers are outstanding on every issue and three of ten are a problem on every issue. Thank the performers, encourage the nonperformers. If the nonperformers do not improve, schedule them less, replace them at the first opportunity. Take these measurements for desserts at lunch, wine at dinner and lunch, appetizers at dinner and lunch etc. Also, take measurements on negative issues i.e. the average check has $.03 in service related voids for the month/and three servers have over $.10. The average check has $.10 worth of senior discounts/when a certain cashier works senior discounts average $.15, and so on.

It is important to have the ability to benchmark larger time periods; no one has time to do this daily. Weekly, monthly, or quarterly is best.

Order Profiling

Order profiling is the ability to define a perfect order within the system, and then have the system prompt wait staff for any part of the ideal order which may be missing. For example, a perfect order might consist of an appetizer, an entrée, a dessert, and a glass of wine. If a server omitted any category of the ideal order, she will be prompted for that item. If she has forgotten, now she is reminded, and is less likely to forget that category on her next order. In short, if the system asks her, she is more likely to ask the guest.

Eliminating Mundane Work

Eliminate Guest Checks

Restaurants which operate without a system must buy guest checks, assign them to individuals, account for any missing checks, hope no one brought their own book of checks to the restaurant, check for math errors, and so on. All of this mundane work is eliminated with the purchase of a restaurant system.

Time Clock/Sales and Tip Reporting

When each employee reports to work, they clock in, as they leave, they clock out and claim any tips. Time cards are added for all employees for the pay period, labor analysis is performed, and sales and tip information is calculated. As a restaurant completes its pay period, it knows the hours and overtime for each employee, the sales, charge sales, cash tips, charge tips, what 8% of the servers sales are and how much the server is short of 8% in claimed tips. All overtime is calculated, and labor costs are analyzed for lunches, dinners, Mondays, or any time period. This time and attendance feature eliminates tremendous manual work, and eliminates a restaurants need for a separate time clock and separate time clock vendor.

Reports

Each day the system generates reports, based on the National Restaurant Association's recommendations on what information should be generated. These reports include basic information on gross sales, net sales, cover counts, sales in each category, all voids, discounts, server sales, tips, and so on. Every report can be run for any time period permitting weekly or monthly entries into accounting systems instead of daily entries.