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Use your POS to
track sales history, plan upcoming business That old saw that “History repeats itself,” couldn’t be truer in business — especially when you let your point-of-sale system do the tracking. Most modern POS systems record every day’s sales activities not only to the penny, but to the second they were made. That data becomes highly valuable in planning upcoming business. In the restaurant industry, where labor and production forecasting is crucial to managing costs, using the past to plan the future is exceptionally valuable. “Having that kind of history available and the planning tools to use it gives our managers a lot of information to make good decisions,” said David Henderson, vice president of field technologies for Capital Pizza, a 97-unit Pizza Hut franchisee in Wichita, Kan. “I can see what business was like on this same day last year, and it’ll let me look at all the days and weeks around this same day.” Henderson’s POS system supplies sales data and labor hours expended in every position, the numbers of items sold and any preset production pars. That gives his managers the ability to judge how well those pars met the demands of business in the past and a baseline from which to plan for upcoming dates. The system also encourages managers to add daily notes that explain why business was good or bad. If sales were exceptionally strong on a day in the past, the operator can see if there was a big game on TV or in town, or perhaps even a snowstorm, when customers rely heavily on food delivery. Should any of those events recur, managers will know ahead of time. Many POS systems also can take that information and project labor and production needs, cost-saving measures that drop dollars and cents to the bottom line. “At lunch I can even forecast how much of my traffic is going to be dine-in, carryout and delivery,” Henderson said. “That really helps when it comes to scheduling my labor. … (And) when you can shave just one point off food cost, it’s huge in most businesses.” |
