| A good way to make more profits and run your | | | | and the restaurant’s actual sales. |
| restaurant to success is by managing the controllable | | | | The inventory control software can aslo track product |
| costs, such as food, labor and supplies. Of those, | | | | usage in situations where some orders is not in line |
| plausibly the toughest cost to control is food. | | | | with the standard recipe. The operator then can do a |
| Simultaneously monitor portion sizes, prevent theft, | | | | physical inventory and generate reports comparing |
| watch waste and order efficiently must be done in | | | | that inventory with the calculated ideal usage in order |
| order to manage food costs effectively. | | | | to site variances. The operator can also set the |
| An inventory software will help you identify specifically | | | | software to track any quantity of items he wants. |
| when your food costs are out of line. With an | | | | In a majority of restaurants, their top 10 items 80% of |
| inventory software, you'll typically save 1% - 2% of | | | | their food cost problem. And you can schedule nightly |
| sales, and can save even more. And it is savings that | | | | counts of key items and weekly or even monthly |
| drops straight to your bottom line as profit. | | | | counts of some other items. |
| A POS-based inventory control system, operators | | | | With a single item alone, over-portioning by 1 ounce per |
| may well easily spot and solve food cost problems | | | | order can cost a restaurant hundreds of dollars a |
| visible by just simply focusing on portion control. When | | | | month. If an item is running $1.67 per pound, eliminating |
| employees know that the system is keeping track, it | | | | over-portioning on 100 orders per day for 30 days |
| discourages both waste and theft. | | | | could add up to more than $300.00 in savings or |
| When experiencing food cost problems, a restaurant | | | | $3600.00 per year! |
| owner will mostly learn this lesson after a week of | | | | Better tracking and controls also can help an operator |
| using inventory control software. | | | | reduce the amount of stock they keep on hand, |
| Inside his restaurant, he would be portion controlling, | | | | reducing waste and freeing up cash for other things. If |
| yield testing and doing a physical inventory, but it | | | | the operator carries too much inventory could cause a |
| wasn’t until he began using inventory software that | | | | loss of between 2% and 5 % on an operator's |
| he began to realize his inventory was out by exactly 2 | | | | average profit-and-loss statement. |
| pounds of blue marlin every week; coincidentally, the | | | | According to one of our clients it was a lot of effort to |
| exact weight of a box. Knowing that, it was relatively | | | | set up because they have a fairly extensive menu, but |
| easy to identify the source of the problem: a prep | | | | once we helped them program properly, we were |
| cook was stashing a box of goodies every every | | | | able to drop their food cost by 2 to 4 percent – all |
| Saturday evening. | | | | of which went to their bottom-line profits. |
| Your bottom line | | | | So if you already have a restaurant POS system or |
| In a typical restaurant point of sale inventory control | | | | are planning a purchase make sure you know how to |
| program, the operator sets up the software by first | | | | and understand the additional profits that you can |
| entering their recipes and product costs. The system | | | | acquire by learning and properly using the inventory |
| then tracks the ideal usage based on those recipes | | | | module of the system. |