In the Beginning
All restaurants, big or small, depend on a Point of Sale (POS) system to keep track of their business financials. A POS system can generate reports based on sales and customer information and trends that allow the restaurant operators to examine sales data along different thresholds and create promotions based on popular items or slower day parts. POS systems provide useful information to executives as their restaurant business develops.
However, as a restaurant company grows, the need arises to bring in additional systems that deal with back of house issues, marketing initiatives, etc. Things like inventory, labor, guest loyalty programs, drive-thru timer, accounting and general ledger are an integral part of a restaurant business. At this point, taking a deeper dive into the greater details becomes more difficult as none of these systems are able to integrate with each other. As a result, many restaurant executives study this information by combining the data from all transactional systems into Excel spreadsheets. The analysis then becomes more time consuming and cumbersome and many key details are often overlooked.
As Things Evolve
As a restaurant company thrives, in addition to sales data, operators want to know more. But they don’t know what they can’t see. Things like fraud detection and overtime prevention are a real concern. We know for a fact that they exist.
- How do we get ahead of things so that we can avoid fires instead of constantly putting them out?
- How do we know if that last promotion was a financial gain?
- How can we assure our staffing ratios provide good customer service but do not exceed allocated labor dollars?
These are all the kinds of information that operators find themselves analyzing in order to improve productivity and the bottom line.
The Next Logical Step
At a certain level, restaurant operators begin to consider bringing in smarter restaurant software solutions to get to the next level of understanding their business. Of course, they want to know how well things are going. But they have little time to look at ALL possible information. They begin to understand that it's better that the anomalies stand out so they can address them in a speedier fashion. They want to utilize above store reporting solutions that provide robust analytics with flexible reporting that can integrate data from all systems used across all segments of the business.
Above Store Reporting is the practice of collecting data from point of sale and back office systems for examination and performance comparison. Sales, discounts, voids, check and guest averages, labor, customer, and inventory data are all consolidated to one central location. When all the information is merged and processed, then reports, charts, and dashboards are circulated to various departments enabling corporate executives and store/regional managers to benefit from the data-rich information and intelligence the reports provide. They are able to gain greater insight and make better decisions.
To Summarize
Contrary to what some believe, above store reporting and POS reporting are not the same. The reports that you get out of your point of sale system are limited. You need to be able to see all the integrated information across your enterprise to find the problematic issues that need a speedy resolution.
As you continue to grow your restaurant business, consider the right enterprise level solution for analytics that will benefit your business. The key is to find a solution that gives you information from every aspect to automate reports, save time, and allow all executives the ability to make better decisions.
What Are Your Thoughts?
Are you currently using POS reporting? If so, could you share your thoughts on it's effectiveness?
About Mirus:
Mirus is a multi-unit restaurant reporting software used by operations, finance, IT, and marketing.
For more information, please visit: www.mirus.com
Watch Mirus reporting demonstrations and client insight on our YouTube Channel
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