Running a restaurant is no easy task. It’s a highly-regulated business that tempers the creativity and customer experience with an equal measure of paperwork, legal requirements, and other behind-the-scenes admin work that keeps the business afloat. It’s not all glamour and serving fancy meals, after all.
However, in this day and age, it’s possible to optimize the mundane work that goes into running a restaurant. Here are five of the top restaurant admin works that are likely to be taking up your time – and a few tips on how to optimize them.
Inventory takes up a large chunk of a restaurant’s admin resources, but many restaurants still struggle with inefficient inventory processes. Whether it’s manual data entry and tracking, paper-based systems, or out-of-date technology, most restaurants suffer from poor inventory management.
For optimal inventory management, invest in a modern digital system. There are a range of software solutions such as the Food Market Hub on the market, that can help you streamline your stocktaking processes and maintain accurate records of your inventory in real-time. This will save you time, and money and reduce wastage significantly.
Food Market Hub is designed to automate inventory calculation and management. This eliminates human errors and minimizes the time it takes to manage stock in and out. It also provides real-time reporting for management, so they can track the progress of inventory at any given time. This can help you save money by ensuring you always know what you have in stock and are not over or under-ordering.
Food Market Hub allows you to digitalize all operational processes in one platform for easy access. This saves time and money as you don’t have to worry about paperwork or data entry errors. Additionally, all data is stored safely and securely in the system, so it is always easily accessible.
The system is designed to be user-friendly, so all levels of staff can use it effectively regardless of their technical capabilities. It also has transparent activity logs to help avoid loss of goods, and dishonesty and further minimize human errors. This helps cut costs associated with manual processes and improves efficiency in the workplace.
Food Market Hub also helps improve customer experiences. It allows customers to view the availability, pricing and purchase online directly from their system. It helps provide customers with loyalty systems and different payment options so they can make purchases more easily. This gives customers convenient access to your products and helps increase sales.
Manually entering invoices can be incredibly time-consuming, especially when it comes to entering large orders. The process can easily spiral out of control if businesses don’t keep up with their invoicing obligations, leading to serious cash-flow problems.
Look for an all-in-one solution that covers both invoicing and payments. Investing in an automated billing system can help you save time on entering invoices and make sure all payments are sent out promptly. Automated software solutions also enable you to track payments and manage accounts receivable more effectively, reducing the risk of late or non-payment.
Payroll can be one of the biggest administrative tasks for restaurant owners – but it doesn’t have to be! Keeping on top of payroll can quickly become difficult due to changing staff hours or last minute requests from employees. This is often a time consuming process for restaurants – especially when you need to approve paychecks for dozens of people every week!
To simplify payroll, switch to a cloud-based payroll system. Cloud-based systems allow you to manage payroll remotely, so you don't have to be physically present at the restaurant each week to approve paychecks. Having everything online also makes it easier to track payments and ensure compliance with relevant legislation.
Restaurant owners need to keep up with all the latest regulations when it comes to health & safety in the workplace – but this can be tricky if you don’t have an effective system in place for tracking employee certifications or training courses. This is an administrative drain that quickly adds up over time!
Create a single repository for all your employee certification records and training sessions that can be accessed online. This will help you track who has which qualifications without spending hours manually searching through paperwork or emails. It will also make sure that everyone has the right qualifications – which is essential when it comes to complying with health & safety regulations.
Finally, managing customer relations is an integral component of any successful restaurant– but it can also be hugely time-consuming! As the old saying goes, ‘the customer is always right’ – so when customers are unhappy or need assistance with their orders, restaurant owners need to respond quickly and effectively.
Invest in customer relationship management (CRM) software that enables you to track customer interactions more efficiently. Add an easy-to-use feedback system so customers can rate their experiences quickly so that you can respond quickly if there are any issues – and reward customers who give positive feedback too! You could even introduce automated messages to keep customers informed about upcoming events or special deals at your restaurant – this will save you time whilst keeping your customers happy!
Running a successful restaurant is no small feat! In addition to providing quality food and customer service, businesses need an efficient system for managing all the admin-related tasks behind the scenes too. The five restaurant admin works we’ve discussed here are often overlooked but are essential for running a successful business – optimizing these areas will help free up your time and resources so you can focus on what matters most: providing top-notch food & service!