When’s the last time you pulled into a gas station to buy a paper map to find that shortcut to the beach?
Or went to the video store to get your VHS stack for the weekend?
Or stood out in the blazing sun pumping quarters in a pay phone to tell your boss you’ll be late?
Yeah. Times have changed.
Kontabilitetit. Uhasibu. Redovisning. Comptabilite. Apskaita.
As hard as these words are to understand, the concept they all translate to can be even harder to grasp…
We’re talking about accounting.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to run a restaurant.
But sometimes it can feel that way.
There are so many processes and tasks to keep track of… scheduling shifts, ordering food, prepping for service, signing off on invoices, training staff… the list seems never-ending.
Recipe costing… it’s a little like a Tinder date.
Sure, she looks great in the photo. But when she shows up to the restaurant… well, let’s just say she’s not what you expected.
How does getting catfished by your online date relate to recipe costing?
You think calculating the price of each dish is going to get you a big, beautiful profits statement that will be the magic formula for running your restaurant.
But what you get is the opposite…
If someone came into your restaurant and took cash out of the drawer, would you take action?
Of course. That’s your money!
Well, if you’re still using restaurant inventory spreadsheets instead of food costing software, you’re actually stealing from yourself.
“What’s the problem with spreadsheets?” you ask.
How do you know your restaurant’s doing well?
You’ve got a waitlist every night…
People leave GOOD reviews on Yelp…
Your staff seems happy…
Yes, these are all reasons why you may think you’re running a healthy business. The problem is… they don’t necessarily mean profits are up.
Did you know that 46% of all small businesses fail because of bookkeeping errors?
Would you believe that cash flow problems wipe out another 82%?
And that overall, restaurant industry sales are down 1.9%?
These stats are no joke.
Inventory. It’s kind of a big deal.
16% of your food ends up in the trash.
75% of your employees steal from you, representing a staggering 7% of your revenue.
And restaurants who take regular inventory can increase profits by up to 24% a year. Those are 3 pretty convincing reasons to make sure you take inventory… and do it right.
With that in mind, we’ve put together The 2017 Complete Guide to Restaurant Inventory to give you the “what”, “how” and “who” of inventory.
Hacking inventory is a little like baseball’s OPS… stay with me and I’ll explain.
Any avid baseball fan will tell you how important the trendy new hitting statistic OPS (a combination of slugging and on-base percentages) is to gauge a player’s offensive success.
In the restaurant industry, there’s a similar combined statistic that gives you an immediate sense of the success of a restaurant… Prime Cost. The components of this powerful metric are Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) and Total Labor cost.
Restaurant apps play a crucial role in business life nowadays. From running your restaurant’s Instagram to helping customers ordering a pizza on a lazy off day, they’re always just a swipe away.
In fact, Apple reports there are 2 million apps now available on the App Store to download. These apps represent the acceleration of a way of life that barely existed 5 years ago.
The reality that we’re so attached to our apps isn’t really that surprising, though…