Not to be rude, but I’m on my smart phone while we’re talking. What’s so fascinating? Well, with their permission, I’m reviewing one of our customer’s business operations. It’s a good night for them. Promotions are popular. Percentage of labor cost to revenue is below average. Everyone came to work on time. They’re not selling as much house red as usual, but the white is selling stronger (as is seafood which I bet explains it).

I’m not talking to anyone. I’m viewing business metrics through the newly released Maitre'D DataBoard mobile app, I’m viewing it on my iPhone, but it works on iPad and any Android phone or tablet.

With DataBoard, you get hold of critical operational information no matter where you are—without calling into the restaurant and without distracting staff and store managers from their work.

On the home screen I see summaries for sales, customers, staff, labor cost percentage, voids and promotions. I’ll drill down on Sales. There: every item the restaurant offers, showing the dollar amount sold, and the contribution to total revenue. One thing from the home screen attracted my attention: the Voids. I’ll touch and swipe my way to that section. Now I see how much each server is voiding; tonight one server is doing most of it. I know this restaurant well, and that number seems very high to me. Maybe it’s a new employee…

It’s very easy to get set up with DataBoard. For a small fee, you have a yearly subscription for an unlimited number of users, and the app itself is a free download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. All the set up can be done in 3 easy steps.

Hold on… I’m getting a notification. The customer has set DataBoard up to send an alert when Voids exceed $70.00 and they just did. I thought that might turn into an issue.

Actually, DataBoard lets you set up alerts for when anything important happens—positive or not. In this case, it was the number of Voids exceeding an upper threshold. It could be reaching a revenue point for a promotion, too few employees clocked in for the number of customers . . . basically, you can define an alert for any of the metrics that DataBoard reports on.

Check it out for yourself.

Visit https://databoard.maitredpos.com/databoard/home.aspx for more information, or to start a Free 30-day Trial. You can also contact your Maitre'D reseller to get full information.