Using Restaurant Point of Sale System To Control Labor Cost

Aug. 26, 2009 - PRLog -- Using Restaurant Point of Sale System To Control Labor Cost

Not so long ago, controlling labor cost for food-service establishments was done by just going with the flow. Effective labor control meant having just enough people on hand during a rush to keep the operation running smoothly, and by sending people home as quickly as possible as the rush descends.

Restaurant managers kept track of business from previous weeks in order to make projections of future sales, and then laboriously converted those numbers into an employee schedule. And at night when the restaurant closes, the manager sits down on his desk calculating time cards for the day's labor percentage where success or failure of those efforts is determined.

Luckily today, these manual tasks are eliminated by using a restaurant point of sale system where managers no longer need to do things by hand.

With the minimum wage set to rise to $7.25 over the next few years, operators are looking for every tool they can find to keep labor costs under control.

At a Pizza Inn restaurant, their general manager Jim Phillips uses his restaurant point of sale system from Pixel Point to track labor throughout the day.

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 need it. Just by simply clicking on a POS terminal, you can easily see where your labor stands or check on your hourly stats.

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.

Since the system can tell you everything you needed; the number of dine-ins and buffets, you can have more time making future plans. It can even give your supervisor, kitchen staff and assistant's hours all in a breakdown.

An extra pair of eyes

Some POS reports show labor trends over time, with this owners or district managers can track labor cost manager performance shift-to-shift, said Speedline Solutions marketing manager 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 employee data, store accounting systems or third-party payroll services.

The POS also can assist managers properly assign employee-shift by the forcasted sales report and by generating a schedule from them.

With sales forecasting and labor plans, 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 be done with schedule- and time-clock alerts. The schedule also has a built-in time clock that requires a manager's access to override late clock-ins or early clock-outs.

Mostly, operators will 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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The author of this article is the VP for Customer Relations at http://pos-for-restaurants.com - a national organization of retail and restaurant POS systems dealers.

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