Picture this: All your life you’ve dreamed of opening a restaurant, and one day that dream becomes reality. You spend months and months deciding on a name, finding a location, perfecting a menu, purchasing supplies and building a team. Just six months after opening, the dream becomes a nightmare – you’re regularly booked with reservations, occupied to the brim on the weekends and getting rave reviews, but you can’t pay your rent, employees or vendors. You dig into your inventory, sales, profit margins and promotions and you realize that several of your employees are stealing from you. You wonder if you could have done something to prevent this – well, thanks to Avero, the answer is a resounding “Yes”!
This happens time and time again as restaurants continue to fail at alarming rates, especially within their first year of operation. Operators simply must prepare for restaurant fraud, which now accounts for 4% of industry sales according to the National Restaurant Association. Here are three key ways to prevent restaurant fraud and protect your assets:
- Integrate POS fraud software. Fraud can be hard to identify without the right defenses in place, so software that alerts you to suspicious POS behavior is key. Keep tabs on all employees and areas of your restaurant by identifying whether promos and voids and transferred checks are legitimate transactions. POS fraud software can stay on top of all transactions whereas managers can’t, so no money ever runs out the door that shouldn’t. You can let everyone know up front that you have fraud software in hopes that no one will try to steal, or you can tell no one except the one evaluating the information. Check out Avero’s POS fraud software solution.
- Implement an inventory system. Every operator should have tremendous accountability with restaurant inventory control and pinpointing profit margins in order to prevent theft and reduce unnecessary costs. Bars lose 25% of sales each month due to theft, spilled drinks, free drinks and other expenses, adding up to $5,000-$15,000 out the door without anyone knowing. Keep account of items your staff can freely get their hands on without a ticket – soups, salads, desserts – and either consume themselves or give to tables for free in hopes of getting better tips. Even kitchens make mistakes, drop food and improperly prep, so keep your back of house team aligned by creating ingredients lists for inventory items so you always have the most accurate amounts required to prepare dishes. Check out Avero’s prep solution.
- Install video surveillance. Having the ability to regularly check in on your location while you’re not there will help you feel more at ease and provide insight into what’s happening. Cameras can track bartenders giving free drinks, employees stealing food and even help with checkouts when money starts disappearing. Cameras will help you identify repetitive actions by employees so even when they think they’re getting away with theft, you’ve learned their patterns to catch them in the act. See how else you can hold your staff accountable when you’re not there.
Learn more and get started with Avero today!
