Restaurant Management System Features: The 3 Most Crucial
Restaurant management software (RMS) can streamline operations by helping restaurants become more efficient and profitable. Sometimes, a Point of Sale system doubles as Restaurant Management System. A proper RMS offers more features than a standard POS system, managing all back-end needs such as online ordering , reporting, inventory, and more all in one place.
Every RMS is different. When choosing an RMS for your restaurant, there are a few must-have tools that will play a large role in your success.
Labor Management
Labor costs and management can be a heavy burden for restaurant owners and managers; an RMS with labor management features can help optimize restaurant workflow. Restaurant owners and managers spend a ton of time creating weekly schedules by looking at each employee’s availability and skillset. RMS labor functions can help with decision-making regarding how many employees to schedule per shift and which jobs they’ll be doing so that restaurant owners can focus their energy on more important tasks. Your RMS can even calculate the total cost of labor by shift, day, week, or month to ensure that labor costs are in check.
What’s more, the clock-in/out function can track attendance, hours worked, and paid or unpaid breaks by requiring employees to punch in and out with an ID card, fingerprint, or security code. This will eliminate employees clocking other employees in and ensure employee pay is accurate. Your Restaurant Management System can even include an integrated payroll module so managers can review and submit payroll directly to the processor at the end of a pay period.
Business Analytics
Another key to managing your restaurant efficiently and profitably is leveraging business analytics. Robust reporting functions are a must when choosing an RMS for your business. With business analytics features, your RMS can help you distill your restaurant data into actionable information to make better business decisions based on facts, not instinct. However, providing reports isn’t enough—you should choose an RMS that can generate reports that are detailed but also available in easy-to-read formats that allow you to focus on one day, week, month, or season.
Having access to sales, inventory, and labor data throughout specific timeframes can help restaurant owners identify growth opportunities and plan more effective promotions. It can also help with menu planning by revealing high margin vs. low margin items. This improves inventory accuracy and reduces waste from over-ordering.
Cloud Capabilities
Restaurant owners are busy people; they can’t always be at the restaurant at any given time. That’s why it’s crucial to choose an RMS that includes cloud capabilities. An RMS with cloud capabilities will allow restaurant owners to check sales reports, figures, and inventory from any internet-connected device. They can even manage multiple locations from one dashboard to see region filters, store averages, alerts, system status, and more. The cloud also keeps your data secure in the event of a power outage, theft, or accident, so nothing is at risk of being lost.
A restaurant management system can come in various forms, but taking a closer look at which features are included and how they can benefit your business will help you make the best decision for your restaurant. Labor management, business analytics, and cloud capabilities are essential functions of the RMS you choose and will enable your restaurant to operate more efficiently and profitably.
NCC understands the needs of the modern restaurant. That’s why we offer Reflection POS to increase productivity, improve efficiency, and deliver greater profits with the ultimate point of sale solution. To learn more about Reflection POS, contact our team of experts today.
