Trading continues to be tough this year, as anyone in hospitality can tell you – so it’s just as well technology has been evolving fast to give restaurants, pubs and bars the support they need to succeed.
Smart establishments have turned to restaurant management systems to slash costs and reduce waste. They also use it to grow revenue and control their stock, labour and even allergen risk effectively.
Aloha by NFS, our well-regarded EPOS, recently teamed up with Kitchen CUT – a scalable SaaS technology that delivers control over food and beverage operations. Together, the technologies provide valuable control over areas that go all the way from cost reduction to ingredient selection and allergen warnings.
This means chefs can design menus while keeping within budget, and reveals potential allergens in ingredients, so dishes are controlled to individual ingredient level. The live information is drawn through to each sub-recipe and dish where the ingredient is used, so allergens are completely traceable.
In addition, serving staff taking orders at tableside using dedicated handheld devices, tablets or smartphones with Aloha EPOS have access to all the allergen information on Kitchen CUT’s spec sheets and menus.
They send orders direct from handsets straight to the kitchen, for speedy delivery – and they can also take payment at tableside. Transactions: A reliable restaurant EPOS allows you to ensure all transactions are recorded swiftly and accurately in an easy-to-view format.
Stock control: Having an automated self-depleting stock and inventory management system ensures you have full transparency of stock levels at all times. You can see at a glance if there are variances so you can take action – stock loss is all too common in some hospitality businesses. Ordering: By having a fully-integrated purchasing system you can save time and reduce ordering inaccuracies. Capturing every invoice and credit note electronically creates better cost control.
Waste management: An area many businesses do not take seriously enough. Technology helps track wastage, spot trends and locate areas where changes need to be made.
Understanding why wastage is happening allows you to take control, make changes and cut waste, whether your aim is financial, ethical or both. Allergens: Customers want to know about allergens these days, so having an automated system that takes allergen and nutrition data directly from suppliers reduces the risk of an adverse customer reaction.
Automation is important, avoiding human error that could leave your business and customers exposed. Using technology such as Kitchen CUT to manage allergens makes sure you comply with current legislation. Costing: Technology is the only way to make sure profit is being accurately controlled and maintained.
For example, you get accurately costed recipes and menus, live pricing links, alerts when menu items are not hitting targeted margins. Product prices are set to continue rising, so full control with live costed recipes and menus is one way to help manage the impact. Customer satisfaction and loyalty: Competition is getting increasingly fierce in the hospitality business. Restaurant EPOS makes your customers’ experience effortless, from online reservations and ordering to rapid delivery of their orders and easy payment methods.
This satisfying experience encourages busy and time-strapped customers to come back again. Your system’s data capture means you can design targeted email offers and promotions that will encourage this valuable behaviour. Reporting: Hospitality businesses are complicated and hard to track, but thankfully EPOS provides comprehensive real-time online reports that provide an end-to-end view so you can plan and make good decisions. The restaurant of the future knows one size no longer fits all when it comes to that important and very personal connection. Diners demand an unprecedentedly individual service that caters just for them – and today’s super-evolved EPOS is a platform-of-sale that connect guests easily to your restaurant.
* See how restaurant director Andy solves three big issues with technology – watch the video.
* Find out more – www.nfs-hospitality.com
