You’re Probably Using the Wrong KPIs

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of work implementing KPIs for restaurants and bars.  For those of you who may not know, KPIs are Key Performance Indicators.  Statistics, or metrics, about your business, that you can track to monitor your performance toward key objectives, such as profitability and growth.

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How to Compare Your Restaurant

It is almost impossible to compare a restaurant’s operations with industry averages.  Organizations like the CRFA aggregate the smallest mom-and-pop with the largest chains to get their averages.  Not many restaurants are “average”, anyway.  Just about all industry statistics are based on surveys, not actual operating results.  Even though such surveys are anonymous, who wants to put down that their cost of sales is 40% or more?  So, the results are often skewed.

There is another way of compiling restaurant operating results.

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POS for Thought

I’ve purchased several POS systems for my restaurants over the years.  As an accountant and restaurant owner, I think I can give you a bit of practical advice when it comes to implementing a POS system in your restaurant.  I visited a few web sites to see whether this topic had been adequately covered and found that there are still a few useful things to say.  This article fills in a few of the missing details you should know about.

Most advice is written by people associated with a particular POS developer or a firm that implements such systems.  Do you think they might be biased?  I do.  Based on my experience and research, all of the leading POS systems have very similar capabilities.  Many provide the usual management capabilities in the standard package.  Others provide functions commonly employed in a basic bistro style operation, and require you to purchase additional modules, if needed, such as inventory control (ingredients), menu engineering (recipes and costing), labour scheduling and time control, reservations, delivery, pool table rentals, etc…

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