With the introduction of the National Living Wage on 1st April, it is publicans that again have to be particularly smart to maintain a healthy profit within their businesses.
The Publicans Morning Advertiser was quick with their tips and suggestions on how to manage the bar better in light of wage increases for staff. While the majority agree in principle with the initiative, cash strapped pubs reliant on the casual and flexible labour available are very worried about how they will manage. In a recent survey, 56% of pub landlords said they would probably have to cut hours or staff numbers.
There are solutions however and as usual they come in the form of innovative technology. Here are our recommendations for just some of the innovations there to be more efficient behind the bar and make sure you get the most from staff time.
Flypay
Ingenious in its simplicity, the diner or bar patron can set up their bar or restaurant tab with the app on their mobile device and use it to order drinks using a validated payment method in advance; at the end of the night the tab is settled. Removing the need to keep customers cards behind the bar, waste time with terminal payments and forgotten card walk outs, time is better spent on other tasks.
According to Flypay founder Tom Weaver it can take more than ten minutes to go through the process of paying for a meal, from flagging down a serving assistant to waiting for the card terminal to be brought to the table and for groups over six, each person adds another minute and a half to the transaction time. Split bills can be handled easily by the app so each patron can either pay only for what they had by ticking their items on the interface or simply enter the number of people at the table and it’s divided equally. Waiting staff need never be involved in the drama of “who had what” again freeing them up for more important duties.
Beer Piper
Automatic beer line cleaner or automated beer line cleaner are phrases often used to describe the Beer Piper system however it is the intelligent handling of the process that carries the real benefit to bar owners. Allowing staff behind the bar to select the point at which point they run a line clean saves most of the beer usually wasted when performing the task by hand.
One of the main reasons Beer Piper customers are realising so many savings is that the bar doesn’t have to be closed to perform the task; Beer Piper lets you sell almost all the beer in the beer line, run the cleaning programme and then continue serving as before. Customers can still be served while Beer Piper does the work. The clever control panel conveniently situated behind the bar stops you from having to keep running up and down to the cellar too.
Contactless payments
Many bars up and down the country have saved hours every week through contactless payment cards. The secure transmission of data from the inbuilt antennae within the cards means there is no need for customers to key in their PIN. Staff productivity is increased by minimal transaction time and the average value of a transaction is also reportedly higher as customers don’t have to worry about the cash in their pocket.
Most banks now offer customers a contactless payment card and fewer consumers are carrying cash, a trend that will continue to rise. Pubs need to ensure they are “contactless friendly” to take advantage of the time saving.
EPOS apps
For those juggling with busy kitchens Electronic Point of Sale company pointOne offers arrange of solutions designed to take the headache out of stock control and kitchen management along with a variety of other helpful applications.
The Enterprise Stock Control suite has been designed to prevent under and over ordering product with intelligent order generation features and a raft of reports to help you keep track of your operation. Taking the guesswork out of recipe and cost management for everything from cocktails to cod and chips means that you can keep close tabs on your spend and revenue. The Kitchen Manager application delivers instructions to your kitchen team and gives real time feedback on progress while, particularly useful for those that have extensive outdoor dining, the opportunity to use android tablet apps for tableside ordering minimises the order taking process as well as enhancing customer experience.
Consumers will always drive the technological revolution and pub owners need to stay up to date with the changes as they happen to maximise profits.
Contact us now for a free no obligation trial to see how Beer Piper can help you master the wonders of the 21st century.
