How To Improve Restaurant Back-Office Operations?

People typically enter the restaurant business because they love providing spaces for people to gather over delicious meals or because they want to share their cuisine with the world. Nonetheless, maintaining a firm depends on managing inventory and other back-office duties like accounting and invoicing. Sometimes they forget about How To Improve Restaurant Back-Office Operations, but this can lead to a disaster. 

How To Improve Restaurant Back-Office Operations: Tips for Success

Adopting these technological solutions will reduce errors, save personnel costs, and allow you to concentrate more on making your guests happy. Let’s examine how each phase can transform your back-office processes and support a successful restaurant enterprise.

Determine Which Tasks Take Up Most Time

Examine the way things are now done and identify any repetitive, labor-intensive, or frequently incorrect tasks. These are the ideal chores to automate.

• Common tasks to concentrate on include accepting orders, managing payroll, creating work schedules, counting inventory, and monitoring finances.
• Find out what your team members are most annoyed by on a daily basis by conducting surveys or interviews with them. 
• Calculate the amount of time and money lost on things that could be automated, such as paying for overtime. Consider the amount of money you could save by automating tasks.

Examine Metrics and Reports

Examine previous reports and data that demonstrate the restaurant’s performance in terms of labour, expenses, and revenue.

Look for any trends or oddities that could indicate the location of issues.

Important considerations are as follows:

• How much time it takes to complete an order
• Variations in stock numbers
• Labor costs
• Earnings per hour of labor
• Reimbursement for overtime

Choose your improvement goals and the numbers you want to target.

How To Improve Restaurant Back-Office Operations by Switching to an Integrated Point-of-Sale System

Your restaurant’s ability to manage table reservations, track orders, and accept payments can all be significantly impacted by the point-of-sale (POS) system you choose. Finding a point-of-sale system that integrates effectively with other technologies you use is crucial.

Important Considerations

When choosing a point-of-sale system, keep the following points in mind:

• User-Friendliness:

  Ensure that your staff can easily use it. Errors may result from a system that is difficult to comprehend.

• Offline Mode:

  Invest in a system that can continue to function even in the event of an internet outage.

• Order Management Tools:

  Seek out tools that facilitate better order management, such as scheduling orders in advance, sending orders directly to the kitchen, and setting times for orders.

• Analytics:

  It should give you real-time information on sales, inventory, and other aspects of your restaurant’s performance.

• Hardware compatibility:

  Verify that it is compatible with devices such as scanners, cash drawers, and printers.

Features for Ordering at the Table

Consider utilizing devices at tables for ordering or mobile point-of-sale systems. This enables patrons to peruse menus, place orders, and make payments all while remaining seated. Why it’s a good concept is as follows:

• Customers find it more convenient, and it meets their expectations for a contemporary dining experience. 
• Instead of only receiving orders, your employees may spend more time ensuring that consumers are satisfied.
• Food preparation may be sped up since orders are sent straight to the kitchen.
• It can facilitate quicker table clearance and client service.

Your restaurant can operate more efficiently by selecting a cutting-edge point-of-sale system that integrates nicely with other systems. Having the appropriate tools enables your staff to serve consumers more effectively.

Streamline Inventory Control

Keeping an eye on your inventory is crucial to improving the back-end operations of your restaurant. You can reduce waste, streamline the ordering process, and guarantee that you always have the correct quantity of ingredients by utilizing automated systems to monitor inventory and place fresh orders as necessary. 

Configure Adaptive Reorder Levels

• Establish a minimum quantity for each item you must maintain in stock using your inventory system. The system has the ability to automatically request additional from your suppliers when the quantity of an item falls to this point.
• Depending on how rapidly you use them up, have varying minimum levels for each item. Meat and vegetables may require more frequent restocking than other goods.
• Don’t forget to factor in the time it takes for your suppliers to deliver supplies. By doing this, the system can place more orders before you run out entirely, preventing last-minute scrambles or the need to alter your menu. 
• Based on how much you’re actually using, shifts in what’s popular, or menu upgrades, review and adjust these minimal levels as necessary. As your restaurant expands, so should your system.

Connect to the POS system

Connecting your POS system and inventory management is very beneficial:

• Monitor stock levels in real-time. The inventory system instantly updates when products are sold and noted by the POS.
• Order additional supplies automatically based on sales. Instead of merely speculating based on historical data, this takes advantage of current information.
• Determine which menu items are the most profitable or best-selling. You can use this to determine what you should produce more of.

You can manage your stock more intelligently when your POS and inventory systems are integrated. In order to maintain things functioning properly without requiring a lot of additional labor, this calls for less guessing and more action.

How To Improve Restaurant Back-Office Operations by Offering a Choice of Pick-Up and Delivery

It’s more easy for consumers to choose whether they want to eat in, pick up their order, or have it delivered at the time they choose. Here are some pointers:

• Allow clients to select a delivery or pick-up time that works for them.
• Provide precise times for when the food will be prepared and delivered.
• Utilize delivery tracking so that clients may view the status of their orders.
• Use notifications or text messages to provide order updates.
• Provide designated parking spaces or places for prompt servicing for orders that are picked up.

Customers are more likely to return if you give them options and clear information about their online orders.

Put Scheduling Software in Place

Planning who works when is made much easier with smart scheduling software. It determines the optimal work schedules using specialized software, ensuring that everyone is treated fairly.

Estimate the Need for Staffing

Tools for scheduling Examine your restaurant’s data to estimate the number of employees you’ll need:

• Sales data:

  To estimate how busy you’ll be, the software looks at your previous sales volume. In order to determine when you will require more workers, it looks at total sales and also breaks it down by day, time, season, and events.

• Labor metrics:

  They examine how much you pay employees and how much you earn for each hour they work. This aids in determining the ideal workforce size to manage the workload without incurring excessive labor costs.

• Seasonal factors:

  It takes into account local events, peak seasons, and other periods when you can see an increase in business. When it’s extremely busy, this helps ensure that you have adequate workers.

The software uses this information to create a work schedule that adapts to your restaurant’s peak hours. In this manner, you can have enough employees working when needed without having to pay for unnecessary excess labor.

Conclusion

Although it’s not the most attractive aspect of running a restaurant, operations management is essential to the survival of your enterprise. You’ll be able to worry less about daily activities and concentrate more on long-term results. This is when you enforce and uphold consistency, use technology and data, create targets, and put every person through a rigorous training procedure.

Although there are some initial costs associated with implementing these technological solutions, there are significant long-term benefits. Additionally, any business may implement these modifications thanks to the user-friendly alternatives available today. Choose Cherry Berry RMS today to learn How To Improve Restaurant Back-Office Operations.