Every business has a slow season, and it can be especially rough for restaurants and bars. To help make it through the off-season, we’re going to go over some of the best ways to retain as much profit you can when business is slow.
In the restaurant industry, labor costs are an unavoidable operational expense; however, this expense is an adaptable source of savings if managed effectively. POS software plays a significant role when it comes to altering your labor costs, because it provides the controls necessary to monitor time, attendance and scheduling.
A handy little app created by Restaurant Manager called the RM Monitor gives you 5 minute real time updates of all your venues. The app goes into detail of how much you’re making at any specific location. The tracking built into RM Monitor allows you to see labor costs, and the profit you’re turning over for that hour. This feature lets you know when labor hits over 30% of what’s sold.
If you don’t catch that 30% line, you can quickly start losing money. Having a tool that lets you track your costs on your phone, and lets you know to send someone home will save your business from losing profits.
One of the awesome features of Restaurant Manager is the ability to track your payroll. Your employees punch in and out using the system. Not only does this make the process of running payroll much more efficient, you will also reduce the “extra 10 minutes” you give away to employees on a daily basis.
Let’s say you have 5 employees, each paid at $10/hour. Each employee gets to work at 8:05 am and leaves at 4:50pm, but writes 8:00am to 5:00pm on their time card. You just gave away 15 minutes to each employee. How much does that cost you?
15 minutes X 5 employees = 75 minutes per day.
75 minutes per day X 5 days per week = 375 minutes per week/60 minutes per hour = 6.25 hours per week
6.25 hours per week X $10.00 per hour = $62.50 per week x 52 weeks per year = $3,250.00 per year
That’s $3,250.00 per year you are spending on time you are not getting from your employees. Each employee is getting a $650.00 bonus every year, just for fudging the time sheet 15 minutes every day.
Eliminating this scenario reduces labor costs up to 8.80% per year.
Saving on labor and watching for time skimming can all be achieved if you have the right tools. Owning a point-of-sale system that does all of this is one of the best ways restaurants can save money during the slow seasons.
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