When a restaurateur purchased his newest location, Yocono's (Akron, OH), he called upon VAR Business Data Systems, Inc. (BDS) (Tallmadge, OH) for help. With 40 employees and 200 systems sold a year, the restaurant owner knew he could count on BDS to automate the business successfully. From the POS (point of sale) to back office reporting, the pizza and Italian foods eatery currently had no automated practices. The new owner of Yocono's had worked with BDS on past POS installations at several of its other restaurants. And now, the owner wanted to implement an automated system at this newest location, along with surveillance capabilities.

Manual System Creates Legal Issues
The previous owner of Yocono's was operating the restaurant manually (handwritten guest checks, time clock, etc.). This was not only inconvenient but it caused legality problems related to proper tip reporting. "The previous owner was using a basic time clock to track employee hours. At the end of the business day, servers would write down their total sales on the back of their time clock sheet. The owner would take 8% of the total for tip reporting," says James Coffelt, president of BDS, Inc. Clearly this was not the most effective way to properly report on tips.

If the new owner of Yocono's had kept using the manual system, other problems would have greatly affected the business. For instance, there was no way to guarantee customers were paying for orders because there was no record except for a handwritten check. Also, about 12% of coffee, tea, and soft drinks were not getting on the guest check, simply because servers would forget to include them. These situations resulted in lost revenue for the restaurant.

One-Day Sale Brings In $22,000
After one day of negotiations, BDS began installing six POS terminals at the restaurant for a price tag of $22,000. The components included six Legend minicomputers designed specifically for this application, six Elo TouchSystems 15" CRT touch screens, two Star Micronics SP200 printers for the kitchen, and six Star Micronics TSP 6000 thermal receipt printers at the POS terminals. BDS also installed System3 POS (Windsor, Ontario) software. The total installation took one week, and after two days of training, the restaurant staff was capable of using all of the system's functionality.

With this system, the restaurant was able to improve business in ways that would not have been possible with a manual system. The software provided reporting capabilities so the owner could monitor restaurant practices. The software comes with several hundred pre-designed reports, but customized reports can also be created. Labor issues were resolved using the software's labor scheduler feature. This component clocks employees in and out automatically (even for breaks) according to their predetermined schedule. With no single point of failure on System3's software, BDS can guarantee the restaurant will not have to go back to manual receipts if a terminal goes down. "If one terminal goes down, the five left stay up to run the business. When the downed terminal comes back up, the other terminals update its data automatically," says Coffelt.

Using caller ID and mapping capabilities, staff members can bring up a customer's usual order, directions to their address, and recent complaints filed. DSL credit card processing, allows the restaurant to process credit card transactions in 3 seconds. By taking advantage of the gift card management functionality, the restaurant has eliminated paper certificates. Before, employees would make adjustments to paper certificates, leaving room for error. Now gift cards are swiped, and the balance is recorded and recorded electronically.

Integrate Surveillance System For A Total Solution
One of the biggest improvements for the restaurant was a surveillance system that interfaces with its POS software. To reduce lost sales from servers neglecting to ring up nonalcoholic beverages, the restaurant chose to install a surveillance system. BDS does not sell the systems so the restaurant was responsible for purchasing one. However, BDS did take the initiative to install the system and interface it with the software. "We buy a text inserter that converts information on the POS system to a text format that the surveillance system can recognize. Basically it's just a plug and play component," explains Coffelt.

The system consists of a camera in the server lane (where non-alcoholic drinks are found) and a TV and VCR in the back office. The rule is a server must ring up an item before removing it from the server alley - this system enforces that rule. For instance, if a server rings up a coffee, the word coffee appears on the surveillance system. What the server rings up must match what is carried out of the kitchen.

Moving from a manual to an automated system has not only improved restaurant efficiencies, it has also improved the restaurant's financial performance. Sales have increased by 3%, labor costs have been reduced by 2%, and nonalcoholic beverage sales have increased by 6%.