No one gets into the hospitality business to fill out spreadsheets, but admin is a vital part of running any successful business. And, with staff in short supply and rising costs making every minute more precious than ever, finding ways to reduce time spent on admin has even more benefits.

Zonal technology can help automate admin tasks, which increases overall efficiency, reduces human error, and saves operators, and their teams, valuable time – and here are 10 ways how…

1. Export sales and revenue figures from your EPoS directly into your accounting system

Manually inputting sales figures from an EPoS into a separate accounting system is a laborious task. With Zonal’s smart, integrated EPoS solution, you can import this data directly into your accounting software, eliminating the need for a staff member to manually complete this task. Not only does this save valuable hours that could be better spent elsewhere, but it reduces the risk of human error too.

2. Keep track of employee start/finish times

Zonal’s technology can remove the headache of keeping on top of employee start and finish times by tracking exactly when your staff clock in and out directly in the POS. This means no more managing multiple timesheets and reconciling against rotas. Plus, staff hours can be easily accessed from one central location for easy reporting.

3. Manage stock ordering from one central platform

Maintaining stock counts and ordering new stock is a major time commitment for operators. However, having a digital stock management system provides tighter controls, as the entire ordering process can be managed end-to-end from one system and real-time reports mean operators can react quickly to low or surplus stock levels. This eliminates time spent checking discrepancies between systems, speeds up the whole ordering process with managed supplier lists and order templates, and results in less wastage and less cash tied up in stock.

4. Gain access to a comprehensive reporting suite to monitor business performance and metrics

Analysing your business’s performance is vital to maintaining a successful operation but collecting and collating all that data can be time-consuming. Operators that have a fully integrated suite of tech with powerful analytics and a digestible reporting solution can go a long way to making business evaluation a much simpler task. Zonal’s technology has the ability to generate reports on different areas of the business and automatically send these out to key members of staff. Not only can this be done quickly, but the real-time reporting means better and faster decision making, and seamless integration between our entire ecosystem of tech provides 100% data accuracy, meaning you’ll always be working with one version of the truth.

5. Auto-reconcile matching orders and invoices

A powerful stock ordering system like the one included as standard in Zonal’s EPoS, will automatically reconcile matching orders and invoices, helping to cut down time spent on manual checks each week, reducing mistakes and freeing up staff from what would previously have been a time-consuming task. This leaves everyone on the team with more time to focus on delivering great experiences for customers.

In addition, having the right tech in place can simplify managing approved suppliers. Being able to automatically reconcile matching orders and invoices or set up order templates can help to save a significant amount of time each week.

6. Get direct control over digital ordering channels to limit or increase your capacity

With a fully integrated tech stack, you have full control over which channels send orders through to the kitchen from one central location. Technology such as Zonal’s enables operators to turn off online ordering during busy periods to allow your staff to keep up with order fulfilment and focus on providing great customer service to those in-venue. This means less stress on the kitchen team and fewer customer complaints. What’s more, with full integration between our digital ordering channels and EPoS, product availability will automatically be updated as sales are made and stock is depleted, meaning your staff won’t need to spend time updating multiple channels if items go out of stock.

7. Remove the need for staff to re-key orders

Integrated hospitality technology like Zonal’s can help speed up service and save staff time. Integrating ordering and payment channels across the business with the main EPoS means staff don’t need to repeat the same task for each ordering channel. In addition, pushing live product availability from your stock management system to your tills and staff handheld ordering devices, means the team will have up-to-the-minute information on stock availability. This results in no wasted time going to the EPoS with orders only to then find out certain menu items are not available and fewer complaints from customers who tell us that one of their biggest bugbears in hospitality is ordering a dish, only to then find out it isn’t available.

8. Remove the headache of finance auditing (and save money) with clear and concise cash and finance workflows

Finance auditing can be time consuming and laborious, however our tech provides complete oversight of how cash is moving through your business. From being able to define by venue whether floats are being used, allowing you to allocate a value and track it through trade; to approval workflows, allowing senior staff to check all expenses are valid and approved, Zonal technology can provide you with the control and oversight you need to effectively manage your business’s finances.

9. Facilitate bookings easily with EPoS-integrated booking and deposit ledger management

Access all the information you need to manage reservations or orders from other channels in one central location, removing the need for staff to check multiple systems and reducing the potential for mistakes. When it comes to bookings, operators can better manage staff rotas with real-time oversight of reservations. A digital booking system also enables customers to edit, manage or cancel their bookings easily, removing the need for staff to update information manually and reducing the chances of no-shows. We know that no-shows are costly for the industry –  £17.59bn a year, in fact, with figures having doubled between September 2022 and September 2023.

10. Manage products and pricing from one central location

Keeping on top on products and pricing is a key factor for maintaining a successful business especially when margins are tight, but it’s a task that can be time-consuming, and costly if not done properly. Implementing Zonal’s integrated set of tech solutions allows operators to manage and update product and price information in one central location. What’s more, native integration between Zonal’s EPoS and wider suite of technology means all systems are updated in real-time, including across all consumer-facing channels, which saves operators and their teams time from having to replicate this task across multiple systems.

Technology should do the heavy lifting for staff and operators, freeing up their time to focus on delivering great customer experiences, and providing operators with the tools as well as the headspace to think strategically about how to further improve businesses.

Click here to take a quick 5-minute self-assessment to see how your current tech stacks up in the above areas!