Balance Till - End of day of close reports

Balance Till

We get a few calls from people wanting to understand the Balance Till better.  So, I thought I'd address some explanations for that report.  Please remember that there are a number of settings with the Balance Till so yours make look different.

Let's start with the columns across the top!

Ticket:  This is the ticket number for the order.  Remember that a great thing about SP-1 is that we always match to a ticket number.  There is no way to "skip" a ticket number in SP-1!

Amount:  This will show the pre-tax amount for the ticket.  If the ticket was voided, then it is indicated here as well.

Tax:  Total tax for the ticket.

Total:  The total on the ticket after tax.

Cash Tender:  This field is the actual dollar amount that was tendered.  So if you have a $10 ticket and the customer hands the employee a $20 bill, this will show $20.  There are some other messages that can appear here as well:

• On Hold:  This will show for any ticket that is not paid for yet.  The other time this shows up is if there is a credit card or gift card that is waiting for a tip.  
• Paid Out: If you created a paid out and took money from the drawer it is reflected here. 
• Original Deferred Order: If you have a future (or timed) order that has not gone through yet, it is mentioned here. 

Cash:  The cash transactions are here.  This column is sub-totaled and then any of the credit card and gift card tips are subtracted to show actual cash in drawer.  Paid outs are also subtracted from this total.

Check:  This shows any transactions paid by check.

Credit Card:  All credit card transactions are reported here.  This total includes the tip amount.  The Type column next to it shows the credit card type (Visa, MC etc).

Account:  This is the account charge or payment made on a ticket.

Gift Card:  All gift card transactions are reported here.  This includes the total tip amount as well.

Order Type:  This is what the order type was (Delivery, Dine In, Carry Out, Pickup).

WS:  If you have more than one POS terminal, then the workstation number is recorded here.

Emp:  The employee ID that took the order is recorded here.

Ropn:  This is the employee that re-opened a ticket and made changes to it.

At the bottom of the Balance Till are some other items -

On Hold Tickets:  This shows the total number of tickets On Hold and the total dollar amount.  Remember, On Hold means the ticket was either never cashed out or that a tip was never applied.

Original Deferred Orders:  This shows all the deferred orders that have not been made and collected yet.  The total number and dollar amount are reported here.  A deferred order is an order that has been set to be made for a specific date or time.

Credit Card Summary:  This shows you each credit card transaction so they can be matched against the credit card slip and totals.

Gift Card Summary:  This shows you the summary of each gift card transaction.

Coupon Summary:  A listing of each coupon used.  The time, ticket number and employee number are shown here as well.

Discount Summary:  A listing of each discount used.  The time, ticket number and employee number are shown here as well.

Because the Balance Till is so versatile, there are a number of configurations.  If you have questions regarding your specific setup just give us a call!

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! 

We hope that all of you have a great and wonderful holiday!  Remember that SelbySoft will have emergency technical assistance available on Thanksgiving and through the weekend.

We will have staff available for calls and assistance on the Friday after Thanksgiving as well!

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Delivery Driver Compensation

What about paying delivery drivers?

In our last post, we talked about different offerings for those of you that deliver and how to charge a customer an additional fee for that delivery.

So what about the driver?  Most of the locations we work with compensate their drivers in one way or another.  With SP-1 you can choose a number of different methods for accomplishing this.

Per Item:  With this selected, you can actually compensate your delivery drivers based on the number of items they deliver per ticket!

Per Ticket: By far the most common delivery payments.  The employee is compensated per run.

Percentage:  Compensate based on a percentage of the total ticket.  This is a great option as you can then compensate different drivers with different amounts.  You simply put a percentage that you will will compensate in the employee master file.

Milage:   Compensate for miles driven.  Another great way to compensate because it is based on distance and can have a different amount per driver.   You enter the milage in the employee master files.  Once this is activated, you can then have SP-1 record the total in and out milage for the employee as well!

None:  If you use a company vehicle for deliveries you may not compensate beyond the normal wage.

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Coupon and Discount Ideas

Coupons and Discounts

I thought I'd take some time and share some ideas on coupons and discounts.  Most of these are ideas that have been shared with us by our current customers over the years.

Reward Programs:

Our SP-1 software has a number of ways to handle reward systems for your store.  A couple of the ways are here.

Buy 10 get 1 free

Spend a $1.00 get a point  - This is great as it allows you to incorporate other items as well:

• 50 Points gets a free drink or 50% off food
• 100 points gets a free lunch (small size items only)
• 250 lunch for two

Gift Card Programs

We have heard many different promotions with gift cards - some of these are designed to help boost gift card sales as well as other products.  Note that the values vary from store to store!

Buy a $25 card for $20

Buy a $25 card and get a $5 card free

Buy a $25 card and get a drink / app free (immediate gratification)

Buy a $50 (or $100) and get $5 - $10 extra and a 10% discount for the next 3-6 months.

Load money and get a 10% discount for one month

Discounts

Owner discount - track how much YOU give away or comp!

Waste discount - track what is dropped etc

Mis-made discount - track what was made incorrectly

Re-make - a discount to show that you re-made an item to a customers specification

10% off for senior, police, fire, military etc

Bring a friend discount - If 2 people order, get 10% off

Coupons

Beat the clock special - Item is charged by the time. . . $5.00 at 5pm, $5.25 at 5:15, $5.50 at 5:30 etc

Buy X get X 1/2 off - This is a great way to introduce new product to your customers.

Buy Combo's are great for  providing quick ordering as well.

These are just a few of the different promotional ideas ran past us.  Hope they help!

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

New Mobile Dashboard

MobileDash

Want to see your sales numbers on a regular basis?  

MobileDash is your answer!

SelbySoft has a new service that will allow you to receive an email once an hour with your total sales, labor, cogs etc.  Additionally, we will send the Menu Group breakdown to that same email.

This is one of the most effective ways to stay on top of what's happening in your locations!

This service is only $60 per location or FREE for customers that have our Corporate Reporting Package.











Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Daylight Savings Time

Daylight Savings Time is Coming!

Are you ready for it?  Every time change comes with it's own set of challenges as people forget to change the time or are running on outdated operating systems that are not updating based on the new DST rules adapted by the US Government in 2005.

When it comes to the operating system (Windows), the DST rules are usually based on a couple criteria.  When the rules changed, older operating systems (Win 95, 98, 2000, XP, Vista) all had issues of some sort because of this.  Microsoft has a utility and fix to upload the new time changes at http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cp_dst.

Wikipedia has an article that clarifies a number of things about DST and even has a section explaining the issues on computers in more detail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time

Finally, it's a good idea to know how to manually change the time on your computer.  The easiest way is to make sure you are at the Windows Desktop and then click the clock in the bottom right hand corner.

Be sure to tackle this BEFORE doing any tickets for the day!



Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

New name screen!

Faster Name Search

One of the core differences between our delivery and non-delivery clients is how they track their customers. Most delivery clients track customers by their phone numbers.  This is great but a little bit  inconvenient for customers that don't do delivery.

Here at SelbySoft, we always advocate that using a gift card and having that assigned to a customer profile is the best way to track customers and speed up the transaction.  Customer walks or drives up, swipe the card, duplicate the order and done.  

But what if you want to pull them up by name?  SelbySoft has always had the ability to look up customers by name but we have recently revamped this to make it easier.

In System Setup | Operations:5 we have two new switches that change the operation of the customer file.  If you wish, you can now default the customer file to start in the name field instead of the phone number.  Additionally, if the name has an exact match, a ticket will automatically be generated.  This eliminates the need to press start ticket etc.

If the name has an exact match, it's even easier.  The ticket is automatically started right after pressing enter! 

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

See You In Seattle!

This week we are getting ready for the Seattle Coffee Fest Show!  See you there Friday, Saturday and Sunday!

Don't forget to stop by and check out our new features!



Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Customer Accounts

Customer Accounts

Do you work with any businesses or schools that order often and want to be billed?  If so SP-1 can help you!

Over the years we have run into a lot of stores that will run a "tab" for their business customers.  SP-1 has a complete accounts payment system built into the software.

SP-1 will allow you to setup a customized customer profile for each of these accounts.  Once that is setup, customers can "charge" their ticket to their account.  This can have a password applied to it as well so you don't have employees setting up accounts for friends.

Once your customer sends in a payment, you can make that with the account payment button on the Order Entry screen.  This will then pay off all or part of that account. 

SP-1 will also allow you to run custom billing reports and send account statements to these customers!  Our reporting can be setup to  This allows you to communicate with your customers and receive proper payment.

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Proper Quote Times in Restaurants

Order Processing 

How accurate are your quote times?  When a customer comes up and orders product do your employees quote a standard time or are they using an accurate number generated by your POS system?

SP-1 has a great feature called Order Processing that allows you to accurately quote a time to your customer right when they order and also allows you to track your make time efficiency.

With SP-1, you setup a station on the make or food line that shows every item being ordered.  Once an item is made, it is removed from the monitor by the person on the make line.  This allows you to see the total time it took from order entry to order completion.  SP-1 will then provide an accurate quote time on each station that the crew member can provide to the customer.

Another great benefit of this is that you can see how many orders were finished after the quote time!

Our customers that use this system find that they have a more streamlined operation.  So give us a call and see how we can help you take advantage of this.

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

New Birthday Notification!

New Birthday Notification!

Do you keep track of your customers birthdays?  One of our latest features is to notify you that a customer has had a birthday!

We start by setting up the notification in System Setup | Operations: 2

The Days Prior and Days After fields are setup to allow you to provide notification before and after the actual birth date that you have on file for the customer.

Once you have the switch setup, we need to make sure we have a birth date for the customer.  This is entered into the customer file.

When you use the customer at Order Entry and start a ticket you will see the following on their birthday!

Below is an example of the message if the birthday has passed but is still within the notification!

Don't forget that we can also provide you with the list of customers and their birth dates if you would like to do traditional mailings as well!

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Employee Passwords and System Security

Employee Security

It's true, the days of one and two letter employee passwords are gone.  Chances are you might be one of the people that created an employee code and then used 123 as your password.

In order to better safeguard our customers and to insure our customers are in compliance with PCI and PA-DSS regulations for credit card systems, we have moved to providing secure employee password systems in the SP-1 POS system.

In versions 7.60 and above, you are required to have passwords that meet industry standards for security.

Employee Password Specifications:

• Must be 7 characters or more.
• Must contain a combination of numbers and letters
• Must expire every 90 days.
• Will not allow for the same password to be used within last 4 times.
• SHA-512 Cryptographic Hash system for password security.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA_hash_functions
• Employee lock outs after multiple failed attempts

In addition to this, all the employees access is being tracked and logged as well!

The great news with all of this is to insure that your system is as secure as possible!  For those of you that are dreading typing long complex passwords. . . Implement the Card Swipe or Fingerprint ID - With those items you don't have to type the password every time!

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Comments in SP-1 POS

Comments In SP-1

Are you using the pre-programmed comment feature in SP-1?  For those of you that are not aware, you can setup a total of 13 pre-programmed (canned) comments in SP-1.

This feature is setup in System Setup | Ticket Comments. 

These can be used for those situations where you need to communicate with the kitchen or Barista but don't want to make a dedicated POS button for it.  You also have the ability to setup if you want those comments to print to the dedicated printer.  

Combining these pre-programmed comments with the Manual Input comment can make sure that you cover any situation that can come up.

If you do have a situation that requires a comment and you need to charge a customer (an extra cup for example), then combine this with the Misc. Charge Button.  That will allow you to add a dollar amount to the ticket to insure you are covered.

Finally, what good are comments if they can't be tracked?  SP-1 has the ability to provide complete reporting on even the comments that have been used.  This lets you determine if a comment is so popular that making a modifier button would make more sense.



Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

On The Fly Discounting!

Discounting!

You know what I think is petty cool?  The fact that you can use discounts and coupons on the fly in SP-1.  

While on vacation recently my family and I were pretty shocked to still into POS systems that can't do this. 

Multiple times we ran into systems that required the counter person to put the discount first or it would not calculate properly.  In one instance I was able to talk to the manager about it.  She had to come over and void our ticket and then have the counter person re-ring the order in.  She told me this was a pretty common problem because people don't always present the discount up front. 

I guess I always take for granted that allowing a discount or coupon to he applied at any time during the order is a simple thing.

Contact us at:

SelbySoft

Mike Spence

800-454-4434

Sales@SelbySoft.com

WWW.SelbySoft.com

8326 Woodland Ave. E

Puyallup Wa 98371

Free Passes for Coffee Fest in October

Going To Coffee Fest? 

SelbySoft will be up at Coffee Fest on the 29th, 30th and 31st of October!  Look for us at Booth 804 / 806!

If you need some free passes, please just shoot us an email or give us a call and we will get you some!

Deadline is 10/10/2010 for the free passes! 

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434

Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Customers, Pole Displays and Order Confirmation

Pole Display and Customers.

There is big  push in a lot of areas to implement pole displays for customer protection.  The thought is that customers will be safe from being ripped off by seeing the correct price.

After my trip to Disneyland,  I'm thinking more and more that we need to think about using pole displays or customer confirmation terminals  and receipt printers for protection against employer theft as well.

For example,  twice while in Disneyland, I bought product from a street vendor and had them ask if we would like a receipt.  When the answer  was no , they took cash and never used the register! Unfortunately, this is a pretty common scenario with locations where there is only one employee working during that shift.  

A good POS with a pole display and automatic receipt  printer helps stop that.  The employee knows that the customer is watching what is happening.    Add a cash drawer that will not allow the next transaction  to be rang up until the drawer and closed and you can be pretty sure you are doing everything possible to prevent theft.    

Add a low tech sign telling customers to expect a receipt to be offered and you are doing better. 

Contact us at:

SelbySoft

Mike Spence

800-454-4434

Sales@SelbySoft.com

 WWW.SelbySoft.com

8326 Woodland Ave. E

Puyallup Wa 98371

Holiday Customer Rewards

Holiday's and Customer Rewards!

Every year the holidays seem to get busier and busier!  Remember that your customers are short on time, patience and money during these times.

Now is the time of the year to start using the marketing database you have been building up with your delivery customers and with your gift card / reward programs.  This information allows you to get a leg up on the other advertising campaigns your competition by reminding your customers why they buy from you in the first place. 

So, where do we start? How about with the Top 100 List of customers?  Send them a reward for coming in so often and remind them why they are important to you.

Let's not forget the people that have started to drift away from your store.  These are the so-called "lazy" customers.  Target the ones that have not ordered in 30,60 or 90 days.

Changing your holiday hours?  Staying open later on weekends etc?  Great!  Let's tell people about it. . . Target your customers by time frame and send your early morning customers a coupon for coming in later.

Too busy in the dining area?  Let's use that same report to target people that use their cards in the dining room.  Target them with a carry out or delivery special, or just let them know they can pre-order!

Finally, try some blanket emails to target your whole customer base with holiday promotions. This can be targeted in a number of ways and can be tied in with  free marketing on Facebook and Twitter.

Last but not least - run the historical reports to see how well certain specials did last year

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
 WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Get ready for the holidays!

Are you preparing for the holidays? 

The holidays are coming! I know it might seem early to think about Thanksgiving, Christmas and the new year when it is not even Halloween yet but relatively speaking they are fast approaching!


So what does that have to do with anything? When you are thinking about your POS system, quite a bit.  This is the best time to start really looking at what happened last year around these holidays.  A lot of store owners that have not made a switch to POS base their expectations on memory - not always the greatest idea. 

Now is the time to start evaluating your menu to prep for the labor and menu changes that will be coming up.  Looking at the data SP-1 can give you will help you make educated and sound decisions to prepare for the coming holidays.

Start by using your Business Summary report to evaluate what menu items worked last year for the same time frame. We suggest the you pay close attention to the menu group and  the specialty portion of the Business Summary. Look at how well your past menu items, and especially your holiday specific items, did last year and adjust accordingly.  This will help you in labor planning, marketing of items and portion control.

Afterall, one of the reasons that you bought a pos was to help keep track of your sales right?




 
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

New daily detail on Dashboard

Just thought I'd share a new feature recently added to SP-1.  We have added a new tab on the Dashboard called Daily Detail.  

This latest report shows a breakdown by Menu Group Categories for today, last week, last month and last year.  This also can show you an on-the-fly breakdown by Order Type. 

New Daily Detail 

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

You have a spare don't you?

Have you looked into spare equipment for your POS system? 

This blog is for those of you that are running systems that have seen better days.  All of us try to push the envelope when it comes to equipment.  I rarely have a customer that calls us up after 3 years and says that they want to replace the computers pro-actively! 

If your stations are 3, 4, 5 or more years old, then you might want to think about a spare computer.  You have extra product on hand right?  A spare tire in the car?  A spare house key or car key?  It makes sense to have a spare computer for one of the most mission critical pieces of equipment in the store!

Recently, we had a customer running a two terminal system with eight year old computers .  .  . on a Wednesday, his main computer died.  Sure, he was still up on station two but it severely impacted the business while he waited to buy a new computer and have it arrive and configured.

If he had a spare, he would have been up and running immediately!   

So, if your computer looks like the one below - call us and ask about options for spare equipment! 

Contact us at:

SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Thoughts on why people don't buy POS

I talk to a lot of people about Point Of Sale systems each day.  All of these customers contacted us to ask about our product because they saw, at some point, value in a Point of Sale system. 

There are a lot of reasons why some people never progress past the information gathering stage to actually implementing a system. Most of them revolve around money and how tight it can be trying to run a business on a shoestring.  I understand completely and I'm the first person to say that we want them to focus on their business and then purchase a POS when it makes financial sense.  

However, there are also some reasons that are based completely on fear or misunderstanding.  So, I thought I'd share three of my favorites here in the hopes of educating people on why these are not always great reasons.

1) I'm too small for a Point Of Sale system:  This is a fairly popular one that I hear at trade shows and over the phone sometimes.  The reality is that it's a numbers decision - it comes down to what you do per month and what you think your ROI (return on investment) will be.  Virtually everyone I talk to agrees that POS systems will help increase the bottom line and even agree on the 3-5% ROI figure.

So  the formula is simple (using minimum amounts):  3% of monthly gross / cost of POS.

If you are doing as little as $13,000 a month (just $3,000 a week) that equates to a minimum of $390 a month added to the bottom line for ROI.  A system that is $5,000 will take a little over one year (1.07) to pay off.  

A $10,000 system (multiple stations) would take a little over 2 years (2.14) to pay off and that is still just calculating at $13,000 a month at 3% of gross.

Don't forget that after the system has paid for itself, you still keep making that ROI!

2) I heard that it's a nightmare if they breakdown:  This is one of the things that some people are scared of.  Usually the conversation goes something like this:  "I would really like a POS but my friend has one and when it broke down his store experienced a really bad time".  Can this happen, of course.  Is it a reason to not buy a POS?  Of course not.   When your car breaks down it the same situation - a nightmare.  I've yet to have anyone sell their car and decide to walk because of it however.  They key is to remember the other 99% of the time that the POS helped you out! 

It's all in how you plan for a potential problem.  Make sure your staff knows what their obligations are and how to continue to take care of customers until the problem has been solved. 

3) My staff won't let me put it in - they would revolt!  This is another reason that people bring up.  This one also confounds me as it means that your employees are running the store.  I hate to say it but typically when this type of store puts in a POS, they discover the employees did not want it because of employee theft, giving away drinks etc.   The employees that are not responsible for theft etc are actually really excited to have a POS in the store.

Are you one of the people above?  If so, it's ok - we understand and will be patient in talking with you and following up.

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Paid by the job?

Different Wages For Different Jobs?


Occasionally we run across stores that have a clear delineation between the job the employee is assigned to and the wage that employee will be paid.   SP-1 has a clear cut method of dealing with this.

Let's set the example up first. . .  Take a typical location that does delivery and dine in orders.  In this scenario you may have employees that work as delivery drivers and are paid a lower wage than a cook because they are being supplemented by the delivery tips (hopefully!).    Now, to further complicate things, on certain days of the week one of these drivers works as a cook at a higher than normal (for him) wage!

With SP-1 you can utilize our Job Class system to accommodate this easily.  The Job Classes are setup in System Setup.  In this section of the program, you assign the three letter id for the job and the more descriptive name on the right hand side.

Once you have setup the Job Class names and descriptions, they can be entered into the employee master file.  You can enter a custom wage and overtime wage for each Job Class you assign to each employee.

Now, when the employee clocks in, they are presented with a choice as to the Job Class they are working under and the wage will be reported correctly on the employee time keeping reports as well.

By the way, you can also run a report based on the total number of hours each class worked and how much that cost you.  This is a great way to distinguish how much you might be spending on cooks, delivery drivers, counter people etc.

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
http://www.selbysoft.com/
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Gift Card Questions and Information

How Are You Handling Gift Cards?

Recently I have had a couple conversations about gift card programs with potential clients.  These are primarily people that do not currently have a POS system.  What is interesting is how often customers are confused by their options when looking at electronic gift card programs.

Usually during these conversations we focus a lot on how stores are currently handling their gift and reward program and how they got there.  Since we have a free gift and reward program we don't have to worry about costs - just the functionality portion of this.

Usually a store does not have a POS system and is looking at adding the ability to sell and redeem electronic gift and reward cards.   Around this time, the credit card processor gets involved and will explain all the benefits of a gift and reward card system. That processor will then either supply a terminal or possibly use or upgrade an existing one for the store.  Some cards will be sold and then the store is off and running with a gift card system.

Sounds simple right?   The problem lies in the costs and, sometimes, in the implementation when using a credit card processor or 3rd party solution for this situation.

This is almost always incredibly expensive to the store owner and usually not the best way to go.  Here at SelbySoft we work hard to make sure store owners understand what kind of fees and troubles they may experience if they are not asking the right questions when talking about gift and reward programs.  

There are a couple of questions that you absolutely must ask when looking at any 3rd party gift card solution.

1. What are the monthly fees?  Most programs will add anywhere from $0 to $40 a month per location to process the gift cards.
2. Are there swipe fees? A swipe fee of $.10 to $.25 a swipe is pretty common with 3rd parties.  Additionally most stores are not aware of what constitutes a swipe.  With some of the systems out there there is a swipe for checking the balance, loading a card or using a card. 
3. How much are the cards and are can they be custom?    Cards are over $1.00 a card for a partially custom card with some processors.  Others won't do a custom card at all.  
4. Is there a contract for processing gift cards?   This is a big question.  Credit Card processors will sometimes leverage the gift card information and contract to keep you from swapping credit card processing.  Always make sure you know what you are getting into with the contract.
5. What happens if you decide to switch gift card processing?   In some ways this is a bigger question than all the others.  Make 100% certain that you retain rights to the gift card numbers and the balances.

This last question deserves some more explanation.  Let's say a store has implemented a gift card program through their credit card processor.  Now, a year or two pass and the store has sold about  2,000 cards in total.  The store now adds a POS or even just wants to switch credit card processors. What happens next is very important. 

If this store is locked into a contract with the 3rd party gift card provider they may be stuck.  The provider may tell this store that they have to fulfill the rest of the contract or even pay a cancellation fee to get access ot the gift card information.  If the provider does not allow access to the numbers and gift card balances, then the gift card data may be useless to other companies.  That means that customers have to be re-assigned cards or crew members have to look at a paper list to see what the value is. 

There are plenty of examples of this happening in our experience.  A few years ago we had a chain of stores that had over $40,000 in gift card balances at any given time between the locations.  When they added SP-1 as the POS provider, the credit card processor would not release the gift card numbers or balances because of the contract that had been signed.  They pushed the customer to either pay a whopping fee of $2,000 to get out of the contract or to continue to pay the combined fees of almost $200 a month until the end of the contract.  Six months went by before the store could swap over the gift card processing. 

I know this may sound a little negative but it's important to ask these questions before implementing a 3rd party gift and reward program.   Not all 3rd party, credit card or POS companies operate this way. Some, like Mercury Payment Systems, operate on a month by month contract and handle the gift card system free of charge as a value added solution.

Of course the best way is to buy the POS and implement the free gift card solution - sorry couldn't resist!!

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
 Puyallup Wa 98371

Tracking Your Training

After my last blog on Job Classes, I was thinking about the other use for them.  Tracking how much training you are doing!

As you (hopefully) remember, my last blog was on how Job Classes work.  As a recap: 

Each employee can be assigned up to five (5) Job Classes.  Each of these Job Classes has a description and a separate wage and (if you accomdate it) an overtime wage.   So, once these are assigned to the specific employee, they appear on clock-in.  Your employee then selects what Job Class they are working for that time period.

There is a great secondary use for this feature however - Training. 

We have a number of clients that take the training of their employees pretty seriously and want to make sure that employees are up to speed before they are being paid fully.  It's a pretty common idea in a lot of businesses.   For example, you may require that an employee work a certain number of hours as a barista trainee before getting a raise.  Or, you might require a certain number of hours on the clock after being hired before that employee is past their "probation" timeframe.

We do it here at SelbySoft and it helps us in making sure that the employee and the company are on the same page.  For anyone that is interested in how we do it, we have a three month evaluation and training period before any raises and before the rest of the guys stop referring to them as "that new guy" and actually use their name.

With SP-1 you can create a training Job Class that is used when that employee clocks in each shift.  That will allow you to effectively track how much time was spent on training in that job.  SP-1 will report that on the time keeping and also report the total training time your store utilizes over a set time frame.

This is a really great feature to help track and control your training programs in your location. 

Contact us at:
 SelbySoft Mike Spence
800-454-4434 Sales@SelbySoft.com
 http://www.selbysoft.com/
 8326 Woodland Ave.
 Puyallup Wa 98371

Cutting delivery insurance costs!

Recently, I had a conversation with a customer about his delivery drivers.  He explained to me how his insurance company bills him based on the payroll hours of his employees.

The insurance company bills insurance for employees at $2 per $100 in payroll for kitchen prep and servers and then $7 per $100 for delivery drivers.

The issue that he had (last year and this year) is that the $7 figure on drivers is based on the clock in and out time.  Realistically, the higher insurance rate should only be based on the time the drivers are actually on the road and not based on the rest of the time when they are working inside!

So, the question was posed . . .  How could we help?

It turns out, quite a bit!  Utilizing our XML Ticket export in SP-1, we were able to gather some important data for the insurance company as well as some statistics to help understand delivery.  Over the last year they have had:

A total of almost 7,000 deliveries

Total time on the road - 2,830 hours

Average time of 24 minutes per run

The most important figure was the 2830 hours on the road.  This allowed the customer to show the insurance company that the rest of the payroll for these employees was in house and not on the road.

This resulted in a savings of $5 for every $100 in driver payroll.   The grand total in savings?

$1,100! 

So, if you deliver and are curious about what you might be able to save, call us!


Contact us at:
SelbySoft , Inc
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Questions people ask before buying a POS

Last blog I tackled just a few of the questions that people ask once they have our SP-1 POS system.  Since I have been out doing trade shows over the last few months, I've tried to pay attention to what questions we are asked by people looking to buy a POS as well.

Outside of the obvious ones about ease of use, price and functionality, there are some questions that we get fairly commonly.

• Gift Cards:  Are they free?  Do they work as reward cards?  Yes.  Our gift card services are free and included in the software.  The cards work as a gift, prepaid, discount and reward card.  This is one of the best ways to gather marketing information as well.   I covered some of this in an earlier blog.
• Quickbooks:  Is there an interface?  How do I get the information out and to my accountant or bookkeeper?  Our Quickbooks interface exports the information out where it can be transferred via email or flash drive (usb device).  We do it this way because the majority of our customers have Quickbooks installed in a location other than their store.  
• Training?  This is a great question we are asked all the time at shows!  Yes we provide training.  We typically offer a full year of software support and training with every system we sell.  Our Customer Service Technicians can train remotely with GotoMeeting and Logmein Rescue tools.  That eliminates the need for a costly on-site visit.  If on-site is really required, we can supply that as well.
• Can I use remote printers or monitors?  More importantly can I control where the items go?  To us this is a simple thing and one we may sometimes neglect when talking about SP-1.  We do have the ability to use multiple printers or remote monitors.  These can be used for food or beverage service.  The great thing about SP-1 is that we can determine where the items go - sandwich to the sandwich printer, grill to the grill printer, coffee to a barista printers etc. 
• Does the system support multiple tax rates?  I'm not sure why this comes up often but we do it.  We support five tax rates per menu group as well as non-taxable sales.
• Can I add my own pictures?   We do have a way to show you how to add your own pictures to  SP-1. This is a pretty cool way to personalize your SP-1 system with logo'd items
• Is customer tracking available?  Completely - we can create customer profiles, track 10 phone numbers and email addresses, four physical addresses and more.  This also allows you to tie in marketing to your customers. 

There you go, a little over a half dozen popular questions!  

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
http://www.selbysoft.com/
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Two Trade Show Follow Up

In the last couple of weeks, I have attended two trade shows.  These were my last two until October and they are aways an eye opener.

Trade shows are a fun part of my life in a lot of ways as they remind me just how many people are committed to these industries.  It's always a great recharge for me as well because people get a chance to see our passion for our customers and the products that we sell.

To us, one of the really interesting things that come up is the questions people ask.  There are really two sets of questions. . . Ones that people ask before they buy a POS and ones that they ask after they already have SP-1. 

So, now that we are back in the office let's cover some of the questions that we were asked by people that have already bought SP-1:

Do you have to have all those reports on the Business Summary every day?

No - you can default the sub-reports that are run with the business summary.  Simply check them in Reports | Reports Setup 1

How do I easily see the credit card tips at the end of the shift or day?

SP-1 can automatically calculate how much cash is removed from the drawer because of Credit Card Tips - Check Reports | Reports Setup 2 | Convert CC Tip to Cash

Am I set for California Overtime calculations?

Yes, there is a specific switch for the overtime calculations in California.  That can be found in Reports | Reports Setup 2 | California Overtime Calculation.

Does SP-1 support retail?  

Yes - we have the capability to support barcode scanners and printers for barcoding in SP-1

Does SP-1 support inventory control?

Yes!  We have a full inventory control system!  Cost of good sold analysis, food and beverage portion control and variances are all tracked.

Can I have a non-taxable customer?

Create either a customer for each incident or a generic "non-tax" customer and then make sure the taxable button is not checked.  These sales are reported separately on the business summary.

Next time I'll cover some of the questions that we are asked before people make a purchase!
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
http://www.selbysoft.com/
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Thoughts on Tracking Sales

I have attended one trade show and am on my way to the next this week.

During these shows I normally give a presentation on how to use technology to track and increase sales.
It always amazes me how excited people get when they figure out how to use these tools to help enhance the service and training in the store as well as ultimately the full experience the customer receives.

What happens next is curious. A certain percentage of people forget the reasons that they originally were excited about the tools and stop really using them. I typically will talk about a number of methods to accomplish this:

Forced modifiers to help your employees introduce new options, increase order accuracy and even up sell.

Introducing remote monitors and printers to help aid with cutting down on theft, increase order accuracy, and finally just make things easier for your crew.

Tracking and implementing discounts and coupons and then using the online tools like twitter, facebook, and foursquare to promote your store.

Tracking menu categories and seeing what changes need to be made. Really looking at if you need to eliminate drinks etc.

Inventory control and cogs tracking.

Theft controls like audit, gross sales by employee, discounts by employees.

The above are just some of the highlights of my topics. All of these are relatively easy to accomplish with our POS.   So if you have not looked at these items in a while, take some time to revisit what you are doing.

Contact us at:
SelbySoft, inc.
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
http://www.selbysoft.com/
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Online Backups

Backups, Backups, Backups (You Can't Say It Enough)!

Be honest, you don't backup regularly do you?  We know it's tough to admit out loud but experience shows that most of you don't run your backups.  To those of you who do, kudos and a question - when is the last time you checked it??

Customer opens DVD-RW drive and in place of a backup disk - a music cd.
Customer goes to restore a backup and finds that the disk was full a year ago!
Tech asks customer about backup. Customer responds with - what does that mean?
When asked about backups, customer responds with "we do one every year"!

These are real world scenarios that our support department addresses every day.  These don't even include the people that have fires (yes it happens), hurricanes (sand and water do not help computers), employees that damage machines (employee quits and kicks the machine over), theft (people steal the whole computer), and so on.    And we all know that when you need the backup - you really need it!  It's much easier to convince your insurance company with copies of all your sales history readily accessible. 

Are you taking advantage of our Online Backup?  Do you even know it exists?  Did you know it is FREE while on a support plan?  

If not, you are missing out on a fantastic part of our support!  

A couple of years ago SelbySoft thought about this long and hard.  We came up with an online backup and now offer that to every single customer on a support plan free of charge!  

This service allows you to sign up and have your information transmitted from your physical store location to our secure server at SelbySoft.  The transfer happens automatically at 3am every night regardless of employee interaction.  This allows us to insure that in the event of a catastrophic failure (lightning, fire etc) we still have a copy of your information! 

Now, this does not mean that we want you stop doing any backups in the store!  Remember, your SP-1 system can (and usually is) setup to perform a backup on site in two ways.  First, we copy all of your information from the main computer to a second computer in the location and then we copy the information to your cd/dvd backup as well.  These are all great ways to insure you have a full system backup.

Remember - Backup, Backup, Backup! And if you have any questions. . . Call us.

Contact us at:

SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
http://www.selbysoft.com/
8326 Woodland Ave. E

Puyallup Wa 98371

Cash Drawers, Theft and Accountability

Cash Drawers, Theft and Employee Accountability

Every day here at SelbySoft, we receive calls asking about shortages in the cash drawer.  While a number of these are simple mistakes by the crew, theft is an issue as well.  If we can make our cash handling employees accountable for the mistakes and shortages, then we are on our way to eliminating them.  

So, the question is how can we help?   It all starts by deciding who has access to cash in drawers and how we can minimize that.  

Let's start by defining how you probably handle the drawer in your location:

• Do you allow anyone in the store to handle the cash? 
• Do you have a dedicated cashier that must ring up every order?
• Do you have a couple people that you trust? 

All of the above work but only if handled properly.  The basic problem in most stores is that there are just too many hands in the drawer.  Then, when the drawer is short - who do you look at?

Let's talk about how we can make it better and more secure with SP-1

First, we lock down the cash drawer.  In SP-1 you can assign a cash drawer to an employee.  This helps insure employee accountability because only that employee can access the cash.  

The inconvenience with this is that the cashier may not always be at the front counter when the customer is ready to order.  With SP-1 we can make this an easier situation in two ways:

• Set your system to allow anyone to start a ticket but only the approved employee code to close out a ticket.  This provides you with the flexibility of having every employee being able to start an order (and then place it on hold) but only having one employee cash that customer out.

• Use multiple cash drawers.  SP-1 allows up to five cash drawers per station!  With this, you are actually assigning 1-5 employees to their own drawers.  If employee one takes an order, drawer one opens, employee two takes an order and drawer two opens.

With either method, you will be on your way to eliminating the potential for shortages in your drawer and increasing employee accountability.

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
http://www.selbysoft.com/
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Order Processing

Order Processing

Talk about a little used but incredibly powerful part of SP-1.  This included feature does typically require an additional user license and computer to take advantage of it but the rewards can certainly outweigh the costs!

So, what is it?  Order Processing allows you more effectively control your make (food or drink) line and insure better customer service.  This is accomplished by effectively tracking the time it takes to prepare items. As a side, this system can also provide a reasonably accurate quote time printed on a customer receipt or displayed on a screen.

It's all accomplished by sending every order (or basing it simply on one menu item) to an Order Processing monitor that is located by the  make line.

These orders appear on that monitor as shown below:

So, once the crew has gone through and made the order (based on the printer/monitor) then they will mark the line off the Order Processing monitor.     The numbers on the far right show how long it has been since the order was placed.  Once the order is marked off, SP-1 can calculate a quote time based that! 

Think about it. . . you would then have an accurate time to quote your customers when they ask how long a wait is!

There are more benefits to this system however:  Order Processing gives you the ability to see how well your make line is doing.

This happens because as the items are made and ready to be handed to the customer or put in the oven, the employee will mark that the order is done.  This then let's us know what the average time it takes to make an order is. 

The above is a sample report from the Order Processing system.  We provide, by the menu group and by the hour, the average, low and high quote times for the day. 

We have customers that love this option as it allows them to focus on making the kitchen or barista line more responsible for getting orders out quickly and eliminating the bottlenecks in the order process. 

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371