POS profit-building tip #3: Reduce theft and shrinkage

Studies from the National Restaurant Association show that the average employee steals about $220 a year. Of course, not every employee steals... but the ones who do, get away with many times this amount.

Here are a few tips on how you can counter this:

- Don’t have excessive inventory on hand. That’s like leaving money lying around. Try stocking just what you need to get through the next four or five days. That way, your cash will be in the bank, items will be less likely to spoil, and you can spot thefts more easily.

- Print a food purchase order form and post it on a clipboard near the door where deliveries come in. When a delivery arrives, you should personally check it in, and record the details on the form.

- Enter every delivery into your perpetual inventory system. Generate a key item report at the end of every single shift, and keep it handy.

- Setup real-time alerts on food costs in relation to sales in your restaurant POS system. So if food costs exceed a certain threshold of sales at any given moment, you are alerted right away, so you can take appropriate measures before it’s too late.

- Make the kitchen staff accountable for recording any burned or discarded items on a waste report right in the kitchen, and enter those into your POS system.

- To avoid theft at the bar, monitor every bartender properly, and take one or two mid-shift cash counts at unpredictable intervals.

- Consider installing surveillance cameras: A camera that integrates with a restaurant POS system can overlay text on the image to show what’s being entered in the system by who at any point in time. Some systems enable you to search the video archives by transaction, which makes finding evidence of any wrong-doing quick and easy.

Check back next week for POS profit-builder #4: Manage Labor Costs