Last month, we hosted a comprehensive webinar series on Best-in-Class Solutions for Modern Restaurant Groups. Our panel of experts covered critical topics essential to restaurant groups, including the best-in-breed financial reporting practices, accounts payable automation, back-office solutions, lease accounting, and manufacturing and distribution processes.
We were honored to have Savory Fund COO Joshua Boshard talk to Tablespoon Founder + CEO Andrew Lester in our first session. They discussed laying the foundation with Sage Intacct.
About the Session:
Deciding how to position your ideal restaurant tech stack best can be challenging. With numerous options, from stand-alone products to all-in-one bundles to fully integrated suites of products, restaurant operators have options. Learn about the value of combining best-in-class solutions with Sage Intacct.
Below are some of our favorite highlights and a link to view the series on-demand.
As COO, you wear a lot of hats - are you involved in technology?
Savory Fund: Before we ever got into doing restaurants, I worked for Andrew Smith. He's now co-founder and Savory Fund's Managing Partner. After selling his tech company in 2008, he said, "Hey, let's go build something in the restaurant space because they lack technology. They lack integrations, and we can bring something to the table." So, we decided to jump into the space. And we said, hey, let's go. Let's build 10 locations as a franchisee. We did that, then we got to 50 locations, sold that, and then sold another business with 72 locations. And then we said, All right, let's change things up. Now, we have the ability to really manage the whole process as an owner instead of a franchisee.
What prompted you to make changes in technology?
Savory Fund: At Savory, we've looked at every single piece of technology, whether it's SaaS or built internally and proprietary. We said, "Okay, we need something that works for fast food, quick serve, drive through, we need something that works for fast casual, luxe casual, and into fine dining or brunch concept or pizza, which is very different than everything else." We started to see that an all-in-one system didn't make much sense for Savory. It didn't make sense for even a five-unit or 50-unit brand because of the specialty required within the systems.
So, one by one, we started looking at POS and HCM systems and onboarding. We started looking at everything across the board. We realized there isn't a one-bullet system. However, we began to see that there were enterprise value systems or mid-level, emerging concept systems that could fortify our foundation and still allow general managers to make great decisions and have the data.
Technology is different at 5, 10, and even 100 units.
Savory Fund: At Savory, we partner with founders and allow them to keep their technology stack. And then we slowly, over time, put in best-in-class systems that are built for them. So, we get a different view and see a lot of technology at various sizes and what works at different sizes. You start seeing some of the things that we need or some of the things that aren't going to allow them to scale. I think that's the biggest difference between someone who's been at five units or ten units; it's very hard to see what it looks like and what it takes to be at 50, 100, or bigger than that. We can help them understand what is needed to get them to the next level. We can easily do the A/B test because we see so much within the industry and across various brands.
You need a strategy for buying the right system and a strategy for implementation and follow-up. Everyone knows what it's like to buy a system and try to implement it, and it stays at that implementation stage for 2-3-5 years. That's detrimental to brand growth and strategy.
Integration matters - a key to the restaurant business.
Savory Fund: You can get an API working exactly how you want it for one system. But there might be five more systems you need to connect to be able to utilize and get the most out of that. And that's an important piece people are missing today in the restaurant business.
Tbsp: In many cases, companies are simply acquiring other technology, putting their label on it, and claiming that it is their solution for staffing, payroll, or other needs. In terms of your technology strategy, this can result in losing flexibility without gaining the benefits of an all-in-one solution, as it's really just separate systems with a prebuilt integration, not a true all-in-one solution.
Savory Fund: You nailed it. So, we decided to get best-in-class and make sure that the integrations actually work.
Laying the foundation at the back office.
Savory Fund: Laying the foundation really comes down to permissioning and customization, and you have to look at your CFO versus a VP of Finance versus a Controller versus AP. They all have very different jobs and need to play in this one system on the GL side of things. It gets very complex very quickly with multiple brands, regions, locations, franchises, etc.
Tbsp: You are still in your early days with Sage Intacct; how is that working for you?
Savory Fund: The biggest piece is allowing the team to succeed. And as we started down this road, for me, that's a very nervous place to be. We're putting in a system that we had never worked with before. We had done a lot of diligence, working with other brands that are currently using Sage Intacct with a Tablespoon overlay. As we started going down that road - - - we said, "Wow, that's pretty interesting that they're this happy about what's going on." And as we started putting it in place, and our VP of Finance and our Controllers are taking control, working with the team to establish this, hearing how excited they were for some of the features, and then actually the implementation of it, and then it working them being able to continue to pull reports, bring data in from our legacy system. That was game-changing for me because I could see that this was not only a great system that we had put in, but place, but they felt it was a good system.
Watch the full session:
Watch the on-demand recording to listen to the entire discussion and learn about utilizing Sage Intacct, reporting, and support for making improved decisions within their teams.
