As a café or restaurant owner, we know you wear a lot of hats. One minute it’s stock management, the next it’s menu creation, kitchen prep, front-of-house… and we can’t forget cleaning duties!
With so many plates to spin, finding the time to delve into your business data and insights can feel like a pipe dream, possible only on the odd late Sunday evening when you'd rather be resting up for the week ahead. Sound familiar?
Fortunately, there is one key way to gain quick and in-depth insights into your business data and analytics – and it might just be easier than you think.
It all comes down to consolidating your technology.
Diving into your business data becomes infinitely more complex when you’re attempting to collate information from a variety of platforms. It’s true that there are a lot of brilliant technologies out there to manage stock, monitor payments and summarise sales figures, but bringing them all together will make your life 10x easier when it comes to accessing quick insights at a glance.
A great example of this is the Elavon EPOS system. A point-of-sale system first and foremost, the terminal allows you to accept payments smoothly and let your customers pay the way they want. But – and this is a key ‘but’ – it also leverages a whole range of other features to help you gain greater insights on your business, in just a few taps.
Let’s break this down.
See what’s selling
By processing orders and payments in a single system, you can track what’s selling in real time – by sales, team member or discount.
Is James smashing sales of your guest bean or selling more croissant-coffee combos than anyone else? Time for a mini training session so he can let the rest of the team in on his secret. Equally, if you see a product isn’t proving quite as popular, you can quickly introduce an offer to uptick sales.
Link orders to inventory
No one likes to let down a customer by letting them know their meal is out of stock after they’ve ordered and paid. By linking orders to inventory, you can see what’s running low and adjust your menu in good time.
With insights into inventory, you can even make stock taking and restocking easier with helpful automations. These could range from prompts to order key ingredients when they hit a certain threshold, or bulk-uploading new stock to your inventory once it’s been delivered.
Connect front and back-of-house
It can be difficult to keep track of every table on a busy Saturday or during the lunchtime rush. By tracking table bookings, Elavon EPOS can send prompts when it’s time for a table to move on or a new table to be set.
With your servers and kitchen staff using a single system, it’s also easy to blend and prioritise orders, make changes in real time, merge tables and split bills. And, you guessed it, you can easily tap into all of these insights so you can better prepare for days with bigger orders and special requests.
Bring online ordering into your business
Whether you’re a small independent business or a larger chain, embracing online ordering can be a big step. The last thing you want is to manage your online sales via a separate platform. Instead, bring online ordering into the centre of your business so you can learn more about purchase trends and compare with your sit-in sales.
Better manage your team
Of course, in-depth insights into your business don’t stop at your products. If you’re managing a team, you’ll have rotas, timesheets, tips and wages to consider, which become ever more complex if you’re operating a chain of sites.
Elavon EPOS streamlines all of your management tasks in a single system, making it easier to communicate with your team, stay abreast of rota changes (we know there’s a lot of them!) and ultimately save time to explore the range of business insights at your fingertips and focus on growing your business.
Gaining greater insights on your business doesn’t need to be difficult. Elavon’s out-of-the-box EPOS solution starts at £62 per month, with 24/7 technical support and money in your account the next day.
Find out everything you need to know about Elavon EPOS here.
Elavon Financial Services DAC, trading as Elavon Merchant Services, is a credit institution authorised and regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority. Subject to regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority and limited regulation by the Prudential Regulation Authority. Details about the extent of our regulation by the Prudential Regulation Authority are available from us on request.
