Manual systems vs. restaurant POS systems
Still relying on that old-fashioned cash registers and hand-written ledgers handed down to you by your father and his father before him? You do no longer need those manual business systems, because today is a different world! New technologies have been develop for Point of Sale Systems to help your business grow bigger. So say goodbye to your tiring, time-consuming manual business system and say hello to the new POS systems that will surely boost your profit and make your customers happier than before.
As any restaurant owner would do, ensuring the safety of your profit is a vital task. Money can easily float down the drain if you do not watch carefully! Just by a simple customer’s change mistake, you loose money, especially when a staff of yours abuses their power and help themselves take a few extra bucks from the cash register or give away huge discounts to their friends and families.
If the above issues have already happened to you, well don’t let it happen again! I suggest now would be the right time to have a point of sale to replace your old one. With the features a POS can offer your business, you can prevent these issues from happening and may even be able to completely eliminate them:
- Long lines which prevent you from working with as many customers as possible
- Frequent customer complaints
- Limited staff
- Overstocking of poor performing items
- Shrinkage (lost or stolen inventory that eats into your profit margins)
- Spending too much time going over the books
- Financial inaccuracies (overbilling, underbilling, thin profit margins)
- Poor data organization
Since money is involved here, you might as well invest on quality POS systems that will take care of the job smoothly and improve your business’ efficiencies. Buying cheap, low quality POS systems may cause your busines to loose money because of its poor features and easy-to-break components.
Any reliable POS vendor can tailor the appropriate POS solution for your needs, which will allow you to enhance your business’ performance and satisfying more customers. So requesting for a free POS system quote is always a great idea, because expert POS vendors will provide you exactly what your business needs, complete with the features that will help your business boost its sales, at an affordable cost.
Questions to consider
When requesting for a free POS system quote, below are some of the pointers you might want to consider asking to a POS vendor. The main key to this service is that when you submit your details, it will be matched to the most qualified POS suppliers serving your area. And only they will be able to acquire your details which in return tailor the proper POS solution that will meet your business needs and then send you their offers. The below information are some of the questions you might consider asking:
- Is the software user-friendly? Will I be able to make changes on my own?
- Is POS software compatible with my current business management applications?
- Can I have a try out of the POS system before buying it?
- Do I need extra POS terminals? What about cash registers?
- Will I be able to use my POS system for different marketing ideas such as gift card systems?
- How robust are the reporting features?
- Will I be able to point out where my profit losses are coming from?
- Can I get set up immediately?
- How much training will I need for my staff?
- About customer support, at what level can I expect?
- Is there a lender available if my equipment repairs can’t be made on-site?
- Are there POS all-in-one solutions available or do I have to buy everything according to its package?
More information and an online resource
Go to POS-For-Restaurants.com
The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at POS-For-estaurants.com with its 20 years and more of restaurant POS systems experience serving the automation needs of restaurants of all types throughout the U.S.
Looking For A Better Computer System For Your Restaurant POS?
Looking to buy a new computer system? Regardless of whether you are looking at a system for your office or restaurant, there are a couple of things you must keep in mind when installing systems that will help run your operations and store all of your critical data.
1. Network cabling. The majority of systems are computer-based, designed to run on MS Windows technology. This means that the workstations and peripherals will communicate over standard Ethernet networking. Although wireless communications have been the talk of the town these days, I would still prefer to “hardwire” your computer stations. Some vendors include this service in their bid; others specify that cabling must be arranged with a third-party vendor.
Inspite of who does the cabling, all must be properly plugged and tested before installing any equipment. Each equipment needs to have a cable drop. A cable drop is the cable that connects a device to a network, like your computer or remote printer connecting to a networking source.
For a restaurant POS system, the restaurant should be wired with CAT 5 or 6 network cabling that runs from every conceivable POS workstation, remote printer or KDS, office computer, hostess station, delivery order desks, cashier stations and network server to a “home run” area such as a central patch panel, preferably located in your telephone or electrical room or closet. Cabling routes need to ensure that cables are at least 24 inches from fluorescent fixtures, neon transformers and electrical motors, because these devices can interfere with communication.
2. Electrical. Installing a dedicated and isolated circuits for your POS equipments such as your POS computers, network devices such as hubs and routers, and phone systems that can share. There should be no other electrical equipment on this circuitry. I would prefer getting your network, phone, and electrical service to be near to each other. An isolated circuit means that its ground is separated from the main electrical service. This helps to prevent spikes and surges that can case damage motherboards and hard drives. Note, however, you may still want to use surge protectors at each workstation.
3. Properly designed workspace. When it comes to designing your workstation area, be sure to leave ample space to comfortably fit the equipment needed there. A flat roomy space for server stations should be large enough to place a computer monitor, guest check printer, and possibly a credit card terminal if you plan to use separate credit card equipment. There should be enough space below the tabletop to hold the computer, surge protector, power strip and UPS.
If you’re planning to place your workstations on mill-manufactured top such as granite or woodwork, you may want to have your contractor pre-drill holes where to run cables or power cords beneath the surface. A 2-inch hole should be enough space for cords and cables on most POS systems.
For cashier and bartender stations, tabletop space should also be large enough to perfectly fit a cash drawer and an order confirmation customer display. Most cash drawers have a footprint (space requirement) of 15- to 17-inch depth; 16- to 20-inch width; and 3.5-inch to 4-inch height. Be sure to get the drawer specifications from your supplier in advance if you are building a custom countertop so that the drawer is recessed into or underneath the counter.
4. Service Plans. Many vendors will offer different types of service plans as part of your original purchase. The fact is, business grade systems are composed of hardware that will not last forever especially in retail establishments like a restaurant. POS printers will eventually break, fans will fail, and hard drives will crash. How often is dependent upon the conditions under which they operate. Dirt, dust, heat and moisture are not friendly allies to office and restaruant POS equipment.
There are those people who rarely experience problems wih their computers while others continue to suffer the same problems. The best thing a restaurant owner can do is to invest in good equipment and maintain it to prevent future damages. Many restaurant POS solutions provider will offer ongoing service contracts that are basically extended warranties. The annual cost for these services usually ranges from 10% to 20% of the original purchase price.
Computer systems represent a sizable investment. But if you set a time to make sure that the above steps are included in your checklist, then you are more apt to be rewarded a return on your investment by getting the most from your system in cost reduction, labor savings, and ensuring that you can account for all cash.
The Author of this article is the Vice President of Customer Relations at POS-for-Restaurants.com — With over 20 years of restaurant experience helping businesses like yours to use your technology more efficient and make your business more profitable .
What Spammers Don’t Want You To Know About The Spam Emails They Send You
They’re not just annoying but also time consuming! And they are also becoming more dangerous to individuals and businesses’ privacy.So better think twice when you’re about to open e-mails from unknown senders, especially if you’re using a computer from the office where all your important business files are instored. Millions of computer users and restaurant owners are getting infected, spoofed, and tricked by spam e-mails every month, forcing them to pay heavy fees for cleaning and restoring their computer POS systems back to normal.
There are the 3 most common dangers that all computer users must be aware of:
1. An increase in hijacked and spoofed e-mail addresses. Spammers have acquired a new technology that effortlessly allows them to fool you by making it appear as though their spam e-mails are coming from YOUR own computer. This could result in having your Internet connection terminated or put on hold by your Service Provider – all without your knowledge. That is why good spam blocking software will not only block inbound spam from your inbox, but also unauthorized outbound spam from your serves.
2. Spam e-mails that carries viruses. Accidentally opening a spam e-mail with nasty viruses attached to it can cause your computer a lot of problems. You can end up with a crashed system, identity theft problem, lost data and much more. You think that your computer has just slow down, but it could also mean that your personal information is being uploaded without your permission and sent to a third party, either to sell, trade or use it to comit crime.
3. Phishing spam – spam e-mails that contains a link to a phishing web site. Also called phishing scam. The attempt to collect personal information of an individual either to steal money from their bacnk accounts or use the money to spend it online shops without the owners knowledge. A phishing spam e-mail sends some kind of fake notification or warning to an individual asking for his or her online bank account, social security numbers, passwords, and credit card information. To be able to make someone believe that their spam e-mail is from a trusted website, phishing sites copies the exact same look of the authentic website..
Here are some few simple tips you can do to prevent this:
Above all, you must have a reliable spam blocking software installed.
Many retail business owner over look into this, so their restaruant POS system is the one who suffers the most.
Next, you want to make sure you don’t get on a spammers list in the first place. The moment your e-mail gets listed on a spammer’s list, it’s impossible to get off; and changing your e-mail address is a major inconvenience especially if you rely on it to keep in touch with your business contacts.
Here’s a few of ways you can do to reduce the chances of your e-mail address getting on a spammer’s list:
1. Using a disposable e-mail account.
Using a free e-mail address like with Yahoo or Gmail can reduce the chance of ending up on a spammer’s list. Use this when subscribing or shopping online to avoid your main e-mail address from ending up on their broadcast list.
2. Never forget to double-check those check boxes that are automatically filled in.
Better make sure you don’t check on the box that says “Yes! I want to receive third party special offers.” when you’re shopping online. Chances are, your e-mail address will not only be sent to other online advertisers but also to spammers.
3. Don’t post your private e-mail address in public places like your website or blog.
Spammers uses a special program that can collect e-mail addresses from web sites without your permission. If you want to publicly post your e-mail address on your web site or business blog, then you better use “info@” and have all replies will be forwarder to a folder in your in-box that won’t interfere with your main address.
4. Don’t open, reply to or try to opt-out of obvious spam e-mails.
Opening, replying to, or even clicking a bogus opt-out link in an obvious spam e-mail signals that your e-mail address is active, and they’ll send you more spam e-mails.
The only time it is safe to click on the opt-out link or reply to the e-mail is when it is sent by a company you know or do business with (for example, a company that you purchase from or a newsletter you subscribed to).
For more information or to have a local POS professional serving the restaurant industry and your location see more information at POS-For-Restaurants.com.
Learn how to find the right Restaurant POS software
A few simple tips for selecting Restaurant POS Software
There are more and more restaurant and hospitality sector that are increasingly turning towards business management softwares to aid them with their needs, as well as to increase their efficiency.
It is with extreme importance that every restaurant must select the restaurant point of sale (POS) software suite that’s flexible enough to meet their needs and be able to grown alongside their business.
And because not all restaurant owners can be comfortable usinf POS systems, it can be a huge value and vital to any hotel or restaurant wanting to trade immediately after installation, thus bringing in customers immediately. A good restaurant point of sale software will save you money on training time, stock control, payroll and ultimately wages.
is very competative and streamlining your business operations can mean the difference between failure or success. In the world of hospitality If you can’t level with your competitors you could see yourself loosing your customer base through promotions and cheaper offers by smoothly run establishments operating management and restaurant software.
Restaurants are certainly no exception from this and having a good hospitality software suite for your restaurant or hotel is vital in being successful.
While there may be times when external factors can make a difference to your success, using the right hospitality software can significantly increase your chances of success and give you the edge over your competitors.
And if you are still searching for that right software suit for your business, make sure you look for a restaurant software suite that is robust, upgradeable, a great value for the price you payed for, and most of all easy to use.
Your hospitality software also needs to be adaptable so it can meet your needs. If the software is is inflexible and incapable of adapting to meet your needs, it can cause a lot problems in the long run.
A retail POS business software should be easy to install and use, intuitive and does not require days of training; it should be fully modular, as well as flexible and upgradeable so it can grow with your business. Additionally, you need to look for restaurant software that will run on your computer systems.
If you’re planning to operate with multiple tills you need a good backup system for safety, a system that will replicate your master data file to another machine making sure you don’t loose data in the event of a system crash. It is also important to make sure that the restaurant POS you’re going to use allows multiple hardware configuration, as well as payroll integration and data export to sage or quick-books. Most users will have at one time or another use Windows operating system to run their computer, because many of the professional scalable POS and hospitality software solutions were programmed specifically [with windows in mind.
A final consideration is the requirement that the software will fast and user-friendly.
Most good restaurants are extremely busy during peak times and need a restaurant POS system that will work quickly and not freeze or crash during constant use. A good old POS software may come expensive, but it can certainly help your business run smoothly which gives you more time to concentrate on other areas of your business.
One of the main priorities of any business establishment is support, so you have to make sure you have the option of telephone support or virtual network connection support similar to yahoo and msn messenger this will be an optional extra with any good POS software provider and worth its weight in gold if your systems go down and you are unable to trade.
Remember that software developers know far more about the system than anyone. This one of the major errors that many restaurant owners overlook, you need to make sure that to whom ever you purchase your POS has after-hours support and purchasing from a company in the same time zone is a very useful commodity.
With over 20 years working in the restaurant POS industry, the author of this article is the Vice President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants.com, an online information service that helps restaurants through out US by giving competitive bids for hardware, software or a complete restaurant point of sale system.
Visit them at POS-For-Restaurants.com
Take Control Of Your Business And Grow Your Profits!
Few purchases can have as dramatic an effect on your retail or hospitality business as a point of sale (POS) system. Let our POS specialists teach you how you can take control of your business, be more efficient and increase your profits without having to suffer from costly mistakes.
Taking Control of Your Business
A right POS system can lift you up to a new level of control over your operations, increasing profits, efficiency as well as fine-tuning your business model. The wrong choice of system, however, can cause you a great amount of frustration and waste of money.
In a sense, your POS system is a glorified cash register! The most basic POS system that consists of a computer, a cash drawer, receipt printer, a monitor, and an input device such as a keyboard or scanner. In addition to being more efficient than cash registers, POS systems creates detailed reports which gives you all the information you will need to study your growth and make future plans for your business’ success.
A POS system can save you a great amount of money, increase your profits, and cut down the amount of time you spend on one business plan to the next.
Saving more money, have more control over your business, and being more productive; sounds like a great combination, right? Here are some of the ways a modern point of sale system can help your business.
Eliminate shrinkage
A computerized POS system can drastically cut down on shrinkage, the inventory missing from your store or restaurant due to theft, waste and employee misuse. Because employees will know that you’re carefully tracking inventory, internal shrinkage will diminish.
Improved accuracy
Whether you use barcode scanning or not, POS systems ensure that every item in your store or on your menu is sold for the right price. Your staff will never have to guess prices again, and you can change prices with just one tweak in the computer.
Get better margins
You can get better magins by having a detailed sales report, focusing on higher-margin items would be cinch. By moving items within a retail location, or promoting poor-performing dishes in a restaurant, you can help boost sales of well performing items.
Knowing your stats
You can easily know which of your products have been sold today, yesterday, last week or months ago, with the help of a POS systems. It can even tell how much money is in the cash drawer and how much of that money is profit.
Manage inventory better
Detailed sales reports make it much easier for you to keep the right stock on hand. Track your remaining inventory, spot sales trends, and use historical data to better forecast your needs. A POS software can be set to alert you when when stocks run low so you can reorder for them. Many store owners who think they know exactly what trends affect them find a couple of surprises once they have this data.
Build a customer list
Collecting names and address of your best customers may come in handy in the long run. You may use this list for targeted advertising or for announcing incentive programs.
Reduce paperwork
POS systems can dramatically reduce the time you have to spend doing inventory, sales figures, and other repetitive but important paperwork. The savings here: time and peace of mind.
More efficient transactions
For retail, you can make checkouts faster by using a barcode scanner and other POS features. Restaurants will find their order process greatly streamlined as orders are relayed automatically to the kitchen from the dining room. Either with these two, you’ll be delivereing a faster and more accurate service to your customers.
Keep in mind that realizing these benefits requires you to commit using your POS systems’ capabilities to their fullest. Without proper training and analysis, any sophisticated POS system will just be another regular cash register.
Retail needs vs. Hospitality needs
Since there are two segments when it comes to the POS market, they require different needs: retail operations and hospitality businesses like restaurants, bars, and hotels.
Retail
Of the two above, retails are the ones who uses simpler POS. They process transaction all at once and often use less variation in the items they sell. Some POS features retailers may specifically want include the ability to support kits (e.g. 3 for deals), support for digital scales and returns/exchanges. If you run a business that sells items in a variety of styles, a POS system that supports matrixes would satisfy your needs. As an example, matrixes gives you the ability to create one inventory and price entry for a particular sweater, but can still track sales according to size and color of the sweater.
Hospitality
Restaurants and other hospitality businesses differ in requirements.
Efficiency is the main focus for casual restaurants. For sub shops and other retail-style restaurants, POS systems that relay inputted orders cut down on time-per-transaction and reduce the errors that can happen when hastily-scrawled orders are passed back to the kitchen. For quick-service restaurants, POS systems are practically a requirement for living up to their name: orders entered on terminals in the front are automatically displayed on monitors of the kitchen, ready to be quickly assembled and delivered to the customer.
For fine dining restaurants, point of sale requires a bit different. They need a POS system that gives them the ability to create and store open checks, as parties order more over time, as well as track which server is handling which table. With better management, comes better gains from improved efficiency. If your restaurant has 20 tables and has an average check of , it can increase turnover by one party per table, that would be an extra 0 on one busy night.
Return of Investment (ROI)
Switching from a traditional cash register to a POS system can be difficult. There are many factors to consider and some pitfalls to avoid. However, the return of investment (ROI) can really make it worth your time and effort.
Need more information or an online resource?
Go to POS-For-Restaurants.com
The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types throughout the U.S.
How Can I Face The Challenging Part In PCI Compliance
Point-of-Sale Equipment: Securing Your POS
While TV credit card commercials have been showing how merrily shoppers can go around buying stuff using their credit cards and delight on how convenient the life on a cashless society, they do not care to discuss the risk of identify theft when using credit cards.
Solidcore’s director for embedded solutions, Monica Chauhan, a leading provider of real-time change control software, cites Gartner Group statistics showing that 4 out of five data breaches occur at Point of Sale (POS) systems.
Lock It Down
Chauhan says that if the POS systems are not properly locked down, they can be vulnerable to exploitation. In the past decades, these embedded devices consisted of specialized hardware running proprietary software, but in recent times, where Unified Point of Sale (UPoS) has shifted the standards in the retail industry.
“Standardization has enabled devices to become increasingly interconnected and has allowed for the use of off-the-shelf software on commoditized hardware running commercial or open operating systems, such as Windows XP Embedded, WEPOS (Windows Embedded for Point of Service), and Linux,” Chauhan observes.
According to Chauhan, greater system flexibility and quicker development time has created security risks for POS equipment owners.
Vulnerable Systems
The CEO of Trustwave (www.trustwave.com), Robert J. McCullen, a security firm focusing on the security of information and compliance management solutions, agreed to Chauhan that many but not all POS systems are vulnerable to exploitation.
According to McCullen, a little dial-up swipe machine is low on risks, but computer-based and/or have Internet access (the peril lies in those two prime factors) devices are more prone to attacks.
One other thing, McCullen said that if a POS system stores credit card track data, exploitation can occur, and the swipe terminals can easily be exploited by tampering.
In general, as McCullen explained, only low risk exploits can experienced with hardware swipe terminals, rather a higher risk of tampering, and thus the tampering will allow hackers to read the cards, whether through a Bluetooth device used later to get the card data or other efforts in retrieving the data they need.
Chauhan points out other vulnerabilities. She claims that because today’s POS systems are similar to networked PCs, they require constant patching. Chauhan says embedded systems have also become susceptible to attack through changes that are unauthorized and inappropriate as they are handed off to others in the distribution channel. With these, it often results to malfunctions and can cause the equipment to no longer meet PCI DSS (PCI Data Security Standard) requirements.
The Challenges With PCI DSS
Both Chauhan and McCullen agreed that POS equipment is faced with unique challenges with its PCI DSS compliance.
“Requirement 5 states that you must use and regularly update antivirus software,” Chauhan says. The ativirus software can be a very high overhead expense on a low-footprint POS system, she notes; however, change control software can eliminate the need for antivirus software.
As an example, the NEC Infrontia installed a change control software on its POS offerings whein it prevented unauthorized code from breaking unpatched systems. With this software, NEC Infrontia was able to remove the antivirus software that was impacting the performance of their devices, according to Chauhan.
PCI DSS Requirement 6, “Develop and maintain secure systems and applications,” presents unique challenges, Chauhan notes.
It will be difficult for POS equipment providers in ensuring that their systems will supply the PCI compliance after the equipments are shipped through the dealer network and put into production.
One of the large suppliers of technology and POS systems for independent grocers and small retail stores, StoreNext (www.storenext.com), have solved their patching difficulties with PCI DSS Requirement 6 by embedding Solidcore change control in its systems.
In addition, the amount of time spent was reduced by StoreNext on monthly test and patch distribution cycles by reducing its patch frequency to quarterly. The PCI auditing requirement can be met through change control software, claimed Chauhan.
Other thorny areas, as McCullen states, included data encryption and user-based access controls.
Do You Have Any Questions?
For more information and advice on this topic you can quickly contact a Restaurant Point of Sale professional serving your area.
The author of this article is the Vice President of Customer Relations at www.POS-For-Restaurants.com with over 20 years experience in the restaurant point of sale industry.
Restaurant POS System: Labor Cost Control
In the not-too-distant past, controlling labor in a food-service establishment was mostly an instinctive process. Having an effective labor control meant by being able to manage employees during a rush to keep the operation up and running, and by sending them home respectively when the rush slowly shrinks.
To effectively make projections of future sales, restaurant manager keeps track of their business for the past few weeks and converted those numbers into an employee schedule. The success or failure of those efforts was determined at at night when the store closes, the manager sat down on his desk with a stack of time cards and calculated the day’s labor percentage.
It’s a good thing that those days are no longer with us and a restaurant’s point-of-sale system has taken over many of the functions a restaurant manager used to do manually.
With the minimum wage set to rise to .25 over the next few years, operators are looking for every tool they can find to keep labor costs under control.
Jim Phillips general manager of a Pizza Inn restaurant, tracks labor throughout the day via the store’s Point of Sale System. Phillips uses a POS from Pixel Point.
“I check my labor cost every 45 minutes when I’m in the restaurant,” said Phillips. “I can pull it up on the terminal, hit labor cost and it tells me where my labor stands, or if I want to I can go into my hourly stats and look at those,” says Phillips.
With a restaurant POS system, you can view forecasted sales, actual sales and a variance between the two. It can even show scheduled hours versus actual hours for added convenience.
“The system tells me everything I need to know,” Phillips said. “I can look at the POS and see the number of pickups for any given hour; the number of dine-ins and the number of buffets. It gives me my supervisor hours, my kitchen hours and my 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 the marketing manager of Speedline Solutions Jennifer Wiebe. The system can also produce reports when someone manually edited time clock reports to help spot potential abuse.
The time clock reports provides important documentation which can also be used as a basis for labor board reviews of attendance-related employee terminations.
And at the end of day, a system such as Phillips’ can generate payroll- and employee-information export files to integrate with above-store accounting systems or third-party payroll services.
It can also assist managers when assigning staff shifts by forecasting sales and generating a schedule based on those sales.
Using sales forecasting and labor planning, restaurant managers can schedule efficiently to meet their labor targets. Pixel Point’s scheduling tool is linked with employee skills and availability speeding the scheduling process.”
Hours and breaks restriction is easily done with schedule- and time-clock alerts. The schedule can also include a built-in time clock that requires a manager override for 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.”
The author of this article is a Customer Relations VP at POS-FOR-Restaurants.com – a national organization of retail and restaurant POS systems dealers.
For more information see their website at POS-For-Restaurants.com
Keeping Your Computer POS Systems In Tip Top Shape With A “New Year Computer Checklist”!
Start out the year right for your restaurant POS systems. Let’s tackle some of the most common and crucial mistakes that restaurant owners make in regard to some very basic configuration aspects of the computer system. Mistakes can severely damage a restaurant or any other retail business, not to mention the waste of time and money on repairs. Worse than that… it can frustrate your customers and staff.
Whether you already have a computer system or you’re going to configure a new one yourself — you better make sure that everything is done accordingly for your own sake.
Please don’t let me be guilty of giving you the wrong message. I don’t always recommend configuring your own computer system! I recommend letting a computer professional do it for you. But I know some of you will do it yourself no matter what I say. So this is for those of you that insist on doing your own computer installations and for everyone else to double check and make sure everything was done properly. This can help avoid major problems, be aware on the proper installations and save hours of your precious time.
So here’s your retail POS system configuration checklist for a Windows network:
1) Install a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
The number one cause of electronic component failure is from fluctuations in electricity (up and down). A good UPS can solve this problem by regulating the power. I recommend that you at least put a good UPS on your server. And it’s a good idea to use them on all your workstations too.
2) Plugging All Cables Into the UPS
Make sure all cables that power your computer and network are plugged into your UPS. It’s also important to make sure cables that can carry electrical charges are plugged into a surge protector or UPS. For example, the phone line for your modem can fry your computer if it’s not plugged into a surge protector. So you better make sure that all cables are plugged properly. Your modem line, network cables, and power cords can cause severe damage if not plugged properly.
3) Tightening Up Security
It is advisable that you lock your server with a hard-to-decode password on all Windows accounts so that no one will be able to access it especially hackers who love to mess up servers damage your server].
4) Install Anti-virus and Anti-Spyware Software and Configure For Automatic Updates
Make sure that all your secirity tools are configured to automatically update every day, so you don’t forget.
5) Limiting Employee Internet Access
Employees will surft on anything they can on the internet. Anti-virus and anti-spyware software does help but if an employee unintentionally downloads the wrong program or accepts the wrong message, it can damage your system down. You may limit them by disabling internet browsing on their computer stations. Or another option is to password protect internet access.
For a restaurant, this is very important! In order to protect secured files from evil hands, limiting employee internet access is a must. A retail business owner has to enforce rules to protect his business as well as his profit. Otherwise, what good will a restaurant POS system do if it’s run by a misbahaved or ignorant personnel.
6) Configure Your Back Up To Run Every Night
In many situations, it’s still best to configure your back up to run automatically after work hours. Don’t forget you still need to remember to change your back up device (like tapes) every day.
7) Test Your Backup By Restoring Files Once A Month
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked with restaurant owners that have hard drive failure and think they have a good back up plan to restore. But when they try to restore they find it hasn’t been working for months or years. That’s why you need to do a “real” test restore once a month to make sure it’s working. By the way, you should restore to an alternate file location so your existing software won’t be affected.
So please, start checking your computer systems now and do the neccessary updates, configurations and back ups.
With over 20 years of restaruant experience, the author and Vice President of Customer Relations at POS-for-Restaurants.com, helps you use your technology to be more efficient and more profitable.
How Can I Increase My Bottom Line Profits?
One of the keys to running a profitable restaurant is managing the controllable costs, such as food, labor and equipment. Of those, probably the most difficult cost to control is food.
To manage food costs effectively, an operator needs to simultaneously monitor portion sizes, prevent theft, watch waste and order efficiently.
An inventory software will help you identify exactly when your food costs are out of line. Using inventory control software will typically save you 1 to 2 percent of sales, and might save you much more. And it is savings that goes straight to your bottom line as profit.
Using a POS-based inventory control system, operators could easily spot and solve food cost problems obvious by just simply focusing on portion control. When your staff knows that the system is keeping track, it discourages both waste and theft.
When experiencing food cost problems, a restaurateur will mostly learn this lesson after a week of using inventory control software.
Inside his restaurant, he can be portion controlling, yield testing and making physical inventory, but it wasn’t until he uses an inventory software where he realizes his inventory was out by exactly 20 pounds of potatoes each week; coincidentally, it’s precisely the same weight as a box. Upon knowing, it was relatively that easy to determine where the problem originated: a prep cook was stashing a box of goodies every every Monday morning.
Your bottom line
In a typical restaurant point of sale inventory control program, the operator sets up the software by first entering their recipes and product costs. The system then can track ideal usage based on those recipes and the restaurant’s actual sales.
The inventory control software can aslo track product usage in situations where some orders is not in line with the standard recipe. The operator can then do a physical inventory and generate reports compare it with the calculated ideal usage to check their differences. The operator can even set the software to track any number of item he wants.
For most restaurants, their top 10 items 80 percent of their food cost problem. And you can schedule nightly counts of key items and weekly or even monthly counts of some other items.
Even an ounce of over-portioning 1 item per order can cause a restaurant hundreds of dollars. By eliminating over-portioning on 100 orders per day for 30 days on a .67 per pound of a single item, possibly will add up to more than 0.00 in savings or 00.00 in twelve months!
Better tracking and controls also can help an operator reduce the amount of stock they keep on hand, reducing waste and freeing up cash for other things. Losses due to carrying too much large quantities of inventory can add up to a loss of between 2 percent and 5 percent on an average operator’s profit-and-loss statement.
We’ve assisted a client before who’s menu is fairly extensive and had lots of work for setting up, but after helping them program their system properly, we were able to drop their food cost by 2 to 4 percent – it’s a big plus for their bottom line profits.
So if you have a restaurant POS system or are considering a purchase make sure you know how to and understand the additional profits that you can reap by learning and properly using the inventory module of the system.
The author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-Fof-Restaurants.com with over 20 years experience in restaurant point of sale (POS) helping restaurants nationwide increase their efficiency and bottom-line profits.
Visit POS-Fof-Restaurants.com for more information on how our national network of restaurant point of sale specialists can help your business achieve greater success in these difficult economic times.
POS Systems: An Overview on Restaurant Point of Sale (POS) Software
POS Software Overview
Find out about the best restaurant point of sale systems that will help your business grow! Compare and learn everything about online restaurant management softwares.
Restaurant owners would do perfectly well a good restaurant POS system, but between the confusion of your restaurant software, hardware and peripherals, that old cash register sure is a relief.
Take note of this; that breath of fresh air can be costing a restaurant owner thousands more than the price of a POS system evey month. It sure is nice to have that POS system that tracks staff schedules and kitchen inventory, keeps track of orders and wait times, maintains reservations systems and can even accept orders from your website, all in one convenient central computer system!
Restaurant POS software and hardware
A POS software, either an Aldelo, Aloha, FuturePOS or Micros, it is the program that you use to run your system and not the external devices such as your hand held PDA s nor the touch-screen monitor, keyboard and mouse. As with any other high end purchase, never say “yes” on the spot. there are many vendors who offers really low prices on their POS software, yet they neglect to tell you that it will only work with their super expensive computers.
If a company that works really hard to provide a high quality program doesn’t necessarily need to make a business of selling computer components. Or worse, lease them at a very high rate. When closing a deal, figure out exactly what each component will be costing. Sure, that computer may only cost a month but after a year, it’s likely paid off at $600, even worse is that the client will still continue to pay for the lease the following year, and while technology evolves they are still paying for their outdated equipments as if they were new.
Managing Your Restaurant Online
If you can remotely access your system from another computer, wouldn’t that be a nice feature? Just imaging, sun bathing on a beautiful beach resort with your laptop sitting next to you, watching your restaurant via a security camera. With a few keystrokes you can check your labor percentage, pop off an email to the bar manager to remind him about the celebration party tonight.
You might want to do a few check ups to see if your server is still online, check your employees performance for today and how much the sales was last night. This feature is such a relief, so now get back to relaxing.
Programming a Restaurant POS System
Some point of sales systems are designed to be programmed by the end user, which can be intimidating. Check to see if their company has a list of consultants or other help for programming to help you out. Many POS Software companies tries to work out with the restaurant owner just to make sure that their needs is met by the program.
It would be a great decision to look specifically for companies who are willing to provide these services for free while getting started. Charging for a refresher course after a year later really isn’t out of line but charging for initial training isn’t a requirement for every company.
Finding The Best Point of Sale System for your Restaurant
Every restaurant has different needs. A drive through ice cream shop will be needing less options compared to a family style restaurants. A restaurant bar and grill requires different features than of a sandwich shop. Every restaurant has unique needs and requirements. It’s best to ask away for every information packet. Is there a warranty or guarantee? How about a trial period? Will the POS system work with your current credit card processor, or it or it needs a different one? Can you export sales data to your Quickbooks or other accounting software?
making sure you weigh all of the hardware and software options before making a decision can save a restaurant owner from the stress and headache of ending up with a restaurant POS system that doesn’t fit the bill. You can listen to a salesman’s 15 minute speech and review them carefully. Finally, consider the perspectives of other restaurateurs before deciding which one to go with.
For more info about point of sale systems, visit: www.POS-For-Restaurants.com