Real time accounting software and other business applications can help run your business and make your life a whole lot easier. The overwhelming increase in industry specific add on applications which integrate with accounting software enables business owners to create their own customised accounting platform.
Here are some key apps to consider in order to streamline your entire hospitality operation;
Labour costs
Staff rostering can be a nightmare. Dealing with casual employees and ensuring permanent staff have enough hours can be time consuming. Cloud based payroll software that also deals with staff management allows rosters to be created quickly. Viewing your weekly roster in real time as well as dollars enables you to accurately forecast for the week ahead.
Many apps even allow you to view your labour cost at any point during the day from your smart device via timesheets. Having staff clock in and out ensures that you pay them for the hours they are actually working and allows managers to make judgement calls at any given time on whether there are too many or too little staff on the floor.
FlexiTime does all of the above. The ‘Shift’ functionality allows staff to clock in and out by taking a ‘selfie’ on a tablet. Not only does this create a fun collection of snaps but ensures staff are paid accurately. The timesheets then create the payruns which sync with the likes of Xero and MYOB – reducing time consuming and error- prone data entry. Reports can be viewed to show actual vs rostered labour costs as well as graphs to identify trends.
Reporting
Reporting add-ons can present your KPIs in a visual and easy to understand way.
metrics to help your business thrive. Financial data is automatically pulled into the app from accounting software allowing you to view your business financials in beautiful and easy to understand real time graphs and tables. Furtrli also allows you to create your own KPIs, benchmarks and forecasts. You can break down revenue streams, calculate food and beverage gross profit percentages, wages to sales ratios and average spend per head and more.
This kind of visibility can help you plan for the future and reduce risk in order to grow your business. Giving staff members access to certain reports can incentivise them in setting and achieving their targets both for themselves and the company.
POS
A Reliable point of sale (POS) system is vital for operations in the hospitality industry. You will want an easy to use system that ensures minimal downtime. A good system can do more than just process transactions. Being able to track sales, manage inventory, automate ordering, and get the pricing right are just some of the benefits of a good POS system. Again, integration with your accounting software is key so that you can identify where you are making a profit and where you may need to re-evaluate.
The Vend app provides powerful back-office tools that will provide you with new insights into every aspect of your business, allowing you to streamline your processes and align your staff and product supplies with demand. The front end is easy to use and works on any device and if your business needs to operate off site, you can process sales from a tablet offline which then automatically syncs this data when you are back online.
Data entry
Even though we live in a tech savvy world, there still seems to be an awful lot of paper. Bills can quicklypileup,whiledisgruntledsupplierswaitin the wings. A lot of business owners take care of this themselves, when in actual fact it is far more efficient and cost effective to pay someone else to take care of it. Being the face of your business will pay off far more than sitting in the back office mulling over accounts payable data.
An easy to way to get all your invoices processed quickly is by using the app Receipt Bank. Email, take a photo or scan in an invoice or receipt into the software and Receipt Bank does the rest. Its technology extracts all relevant data from the document and automatically enters the key components into your chosen accounting software along with the source document electronically attached.
All businesses today should be utilising the wide range of information systems business solutions available to them. The age old adage of ‘stick to what you know’ rings true in these situations. Apps such as FlexiTime, Futrli, Vend and Receipt Bank ensure that you work smarter, not harder in your business.
