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Change is on everyone’s mind in the restaurant industry. There’s never been such an intense time of pivoting and adapting done by so many. While some businesses are shifting with ease, others are finding the road to profitability a little more difficult. Many restaurants are adapting to the changes with creative ideas and entirely new business models, but they aren’t...

Food costs represent a huge percentage of a restaurant’s overall costs, about 25% to 30% for profitable operations. To determine the true cost of steak, pasta, or other foodstuffs, you need to perform a cost analysis on a per-item basis—an impossible task with manual accounts payable. Your food costs are likely to be skewed, and you’ll lose on opportunities to save....

A financial management solution is a huge investment in the success of your restaurant business. You want to make sure that your technology dollars are well-spent, that you get the greatest possible value. That’s why it’s so important to choose a technology partner—also called value-added reseller (VAR)—that understands the restaurant industry as well as you do. In his white paper, How to Fit...

Let’s admit it, for busy restaurant business owners and operators, the concept of an all-in-one application suite to manage your back office has a certain appeal. Inventory management, scheduling, accounting, and reporting—all from one place. What could be easier and more efficient? Before investing in a snazzy new all-in-one solution, however, you want to look under the hood and kick the tires....

With labor costs rising throughout the US, restaurant operators can use some time-tested strategies to manage costs without impacting service. Here’s a look at four ways you can track payroll and tip wages better, optimize schedules, manage labor hours and ensure you can support tip tax credits. You can streamline operations and benefit from IRS compliance at the same time. FICA Tip...

If you’re still using paper-based processes and spreadsheets for inventory, you’re leaving money on the table. Using the right tools can help you understand your food and beverage costs by viewing pricing trends and identifying waste. Plus, this insight properly integrated with your Point of Sale (POS) system can create a powerful tool to transform your business. Here’s a look...

S&L Companies is the largest franchisee for Culver’s, and is growing rapidly, having opened 23 stores over the past five years. With such significant growth, S&L’s central finance team became strapped and found that their previous server-based accounting system was unable to produce the GAAP compliant, audit-ready financial statements required by lenders. S&L Companies recognized that it was critical to move...

Many restaurant companies run their financials using QuickBooks, relying on Microsoft Excel for tasks such as budgeting and reporting. While the QuickBooks-and-Excel combination may have served you well in the beginning, there are inevitable drawbacks that can limit growth. You start to miss out on the benefits of a financial management system that offers strategic, collaborative budgeting and fast, accurate reporting....

When you first started in the business, chances are you were satisfied with using Intuit QuickBooks to handle your financials. It’s well-known, easy to use, and offers the basic functionality nearly any business needs to get off the ground. A few years later, you’ve grown—instead of a small shop, you’re a full-fledged restaurant company with multiple locations. Your business has...

In the search for a financial management solution, restaurant companies face a well-established dilemma: application suite or best-of-breed software. It’s a legitimate question—would you be most successful in choosing a suite of products from a single vendor, or using a combination of best-in-class products from several industry leaders? When you look at the diverse and fast-changing needs of your business,...

Remember the romaine lettuce scare in 2018? That led to a 45% drop in sales and a 60% price drop for romaine lettuce. Food safety scares can be catastrophic. A single food-borne illness outbreak can cost a restaurant up to $2.6 million, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Food safety is no small risk, with...

Delivery is the hottest trend in restaurants, and third-party services like UberEats and GrubHub are helping multi-unit operators grab their share. But as with so many facets of restaurant operations, operators should proceed with caution. That was made abundantly clear in the findings of Chicago-based Technomic Inc.’s On Demand Delivery: Disrupting the Future of Foodservice study, which confirms that for restaurants with...

To succeed, restaurants must stay on top of the trends that are transforming the ways people interact with their favorite dining options. Operators have to think of themselves as technology companies as much as they are food and beverage purveyors. The new environment requires maintaining the personal touch even as most consumers shy away from human interactions. Here’s a look...

For most restaurants, labor costs are the first or second highest cost of operations. Anticipated changes in state and federal wage and overtime rules

In Part 1, we looked at the first five reasons that relying on inadequate financial software is holding back your company’s growth potential. To recap, here are the first five reasons that you should look for an alternative to QuickBooks: Not Restaurant SpecificManual ManipulationMultiple Entity SupportFood & Beverage Costing & AnalysisAccounts Payable Inefficiency Let’s look at the next five reasons:...

When buying accounting software, restaurant groups have plenty of options to consider. In addition to

Small to mid-size multi-location restaurant operators face some specialized challenges. Food truck and single location stores can get by with a basic POS and payment processing system. And large chains have enterprise IT support to manage their systems. It’s been tough for multi-unit operators to manage sophisticated POS systems that deliver the reporting and management tools they need at a...