With managing and reducing costs front-of-mind for every hospitality operator right now, it’s important to understand the role technology can play, however finding the right tech and knowing what functionality to look out for amongst a sea of different suppliers and solutions can feel like a daunting task.

To help you navigate the world of hospitality tech and identify which solutions you should consider implementing in your business, we sat down with Joel Wilson, Technical Sales Manager at Zonal, to explore how technology can help businesses more effectively manage costs through greater control of their purchasing, improved stock accuracy and greater stock visibility.

1. How can technology reduce wastage and costs?

Tech’s main role in this area is to help provide visibility. By providing visibility we can help increase accuracy, and having those two things in place will naturally start to reduce waste and costs.

With products in particular, having a procurement or purchase-to-pay platform in-place can really help, by giving full visibility of your cost prices, all the way from the point of ordering to the point of receipt of the goods, to the point of invoicing. Sometimes the cost price we see when we order something and the cost price we’re invoiced for can be two different things, so having the visibility and auditability of that is really important. What’s more, if there’s a difference between the cost price that you’ve ordered and the cost price that you’ve been invoiced for, having a system that flags these so you only need to look at particular invoices, means you can spend less time on the auditing process and more time on the credit resolution stage.

Another area it can help is with digital count sheets, so if we think about the stock audit process, the really annoying and time consuming bit once you’ve done the count is then having to add all of that up, add your count up and then manually enter it in. If you have digital count sheets that let you just automate that process, and import all of those figures in, you then get to spend more time on the important bit which is the analysis side of things – pinpointing where those variances are and why those variances might’ve happened.

2. How can tech help operators more accurately manage their stock?

An integrated stock system needs to be able to provide real-time visibility of stock holding and then have the ability to manage, maintain and communicate that. One of the key ways of being able to do this is through line checks. They provide a granular view of your stock, and of your stock variances, so you can start to be able to pinpoint where these are occurring and be able to respond immediately to any issues – you’re not having to wait until the end of the week or the end of the month to find out what your stock result is, you can get a real-time view there-and-then and respond.

Having that data in real-time doesn’t restrict your operations either, so you can build it naturally into your working day. If you’re having to wait for data to process overnight you might then only have a set window to do these analysis tasks, but the fact you can do this as and when you need to is really important.

3. Are there other tech solutions that operators should look at if they’re trying to cut wastage and costs?

Other solutions operators could look at include recipe modelling, or menu management tools – systems that help you to model your menu items and dishes and provide full visibility over your GPs and your margins, with a full cost-breakdown , including each individual ingredient. So sometimes we know what the overall GP of a dish is, but we don’t necessarily know the makeup of that – but once you know the impact of each ingredient to a dish, you could tweak those  to see if there are any potential savings that can be made.

Another key benefit of these tools is the standardisation of your operations. We can spend a lot of time modelling our costs and our dishes, and from a theoretical point of view we know what to expect GP-wise, but sometimes that isn’t delivered at a site level. Building in things such as specification cards, methodology statements and dish photos, gives us the knowledge that when this is passed on to the sites – they not only know what to buy and where from, but they also know how to produce the dishes and ensure things are being executed properly and consistently.

Development menus and temporary stock items can also be built in these tools so, when faced with supply chain issues, you know that if you’re having issues with a current supplier or particular product line, you can start to do the work in the background to help mitigate the impact on your business. Then, once a switch is needed, you can make the ingredients in your dishes live so the switch is seamless.

If you’d like to find out more about how Zonal’s solutions can help you better manage costs and minimise wastage in your business, get in touch today for a technology consultation and one of our experts will be happy to talk you through what’s possible!

Being able to effectively manage suppliers, product availability and menus down to an ingredient level will ensure operators are able to tackle rising costs and remain profitable – all while maintaining the same standard of service guests expect.

Implementing smart back-of-house tech solutions which update in real-time and that are fully connected to other tech in the venue, such as the EPoS, will enable operators to make vital cost-cutting decisions based on accurate data from across the entire business. Technology can also streamline and speed up mundane, labour intensive or time-consuming tasks involved with managing inventory and ordering, as well as reduce waste.

For many operators, manually managing inventories and stock is a particularly time-consuming task, and one that can cause a huge admin headache if not done accurately. But it can also be costly to operators in terms of their bottom line and wastage, so utilising robust, feature-rich technology to aid the process will undoubtedly prove to be beneficial.

With this in mind, here are five ways that digital stock and order systems can help operators transform their inventory management:

1. Make real-time decisions by integrating your EPoS and stock solutions

We all know that having accurate and up to date stock information is a critical part of the business decision making process. As hospitality businesses have increased in operational complexity, so too has the process of calculating the stock. There is a real danger that in modern operations decisions are being made based on inaccurate information generated by conflicting stock management processes.

First and foremost, EPoS integration would be beneficial. At Zonal, our EPoS comes as standard with a complete stock management solution, which provides accurate, real-time data that allows businesses to ensure appropriate amount of stock for each product is being held, enabling operators to set limits on product usage, mark them as ‘unavailable’, as well as run regular line and spot checks and same day stock takes. The system also enables operators to review stock position down to an individual ingredient. This enables operators to avoid the potential for unnecessary overordering and reduces the amount of cash tied up in stock. The real-time data provided by the system also enables operators to keep on top of where and for what reasons they are losing money, whether that be due to drinks being poured in error or staff giving away too many free drinks.

Ensuring sales data is being captured from the till and other ordering channels – and that all this insight is feeding into the stock management system – will enable operators to keep tabs on stock, purchasing and costs, all in real-time, meaning they can be quick and agile in making important cost-cutting decisions. Not only this but having the right solutions in place allows operators to reduce admin time and ensure accuracy of purchase items and recipes by removing the need to re-key the information.

2. Use order templates to improve the purchasing process and minimise errors

Preparing a stock order is often viewed as a necessary evil. Even with a flawlessly organised stock room, team members can find themselves spending a large amount of time trying to obtain an accurate account of stock needed. Not only that, but this runs the risk of missing key products, or juggling new product lines during a menu change. The outcome of this is inaccurate product levels and availability.

Having feature-rich purchasing and stock control systems that allow staff to create order templates for items that are ordered regularly can be particularly useful to operators. This enables them to re-order popular products quickly, reduces errors being made with the ordering of stock, as well as minimises the risk of over-ordering. Templates can be set up either by an individual operator on-site or at head office level, and pushed out across a whole estate, helping to streamline the ordering process regardless of the size of the operation.

With a few simple clicks of a button, staff can create templates directly in the system – either from scratch or based on previous orders that need to be replicated regularly. What’s more, the list of products to order within the template can be ordered based on the layout of the back bar or storeroom, making it easier to cross-check physical stock in-venue against the ‘regular order’ template, helping to speed up the process and further reduce the potential for unnecessary over-ordering. These templates can then be re-ordered however regularly they need to be, so you can ensure the right amount of stock is always available.

What’s more, with the right system, value-based approvals can be set up as part of the ordering process if needed by a business. This is particularly useful for pubs, bars and restaurants with multiple sites, as orders that exceed a configurable threshold cannot be made until approved by a manager, helping to eliminate unnecessary costs caused by purchasing errors before they occur.

3. Use suggested ordering functionality to save time and manage stock levels more effectively

We know that operators are continuously looking to reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks, whilst also maintaining a high degree of accuracy. Whilst having tools to help build a stock order are helpful and do save time, it often remains a laborious task and can certainly be a challenge for inexperienced team members. Suggested ordering is one way to drive a reduction in admin time and to increase stock order accuracy – keeping stock holding values down whilst also ensuring all items remain available. An effective suggested order facility will consider real-time stock holding levels (driven by EPoS integration), minimum stock and par levels and anticipated usage taken from historical usage.

This kind of facility ensures businesses are not needlessly ordering too much stock, driving high stock holding, increased wastage and added burden to operations. It also provides a safety net to prevent underordering which impacts product availability and ultimately revenue.

4. Manage suppliers and costs effectively, to help boost profits and protect margins

Having stock in place at the right levels and at the right time is certainly a key element for keeping costs down. But so too is having the right stock from the right source and at the right price. Keeping track of suppliers, catalogues and prices is important to ensuring cost of sales is where it needs to be, however this is becoming an increasingly challenging task to manage.

Back-of-house tech can play a crucial part in this process. It offers operators tools to digitally store large product lists, segment products into manageable catalogues and importantly import prices changes as they happen. These digital processes make managing suppliers simple and ensure teams are always ordering the right products to hit those all-important margins. And with supply chains facing ever increasing challenges, the reduction in admin overhead is a welcome relief for those responsible.

Having a fully digital supplier and ordering process also allows operators to drastically reduce the time and effort needed in processing both invoices and credit notes. The use of ‘invoice matching’ technology eliminates the need to manually reconcile delivery notes and invoices where they both match – leaving only those that have discrepancies. And where discrepancies occur, having a fully digital credit request and acceptance process allows for tighter control and reduces the risk of losing money.

Not only does all this save staff admin time, but it enables operators to also protect and even boost margins.

5. Use data and reporting to drive business decisions and cut costs

Technology doesn’t only provide direct operational improvements to your inventory management – it also provides access to a whole host of reporting you can use to make smarter decisions to cut costs, such as helping you quickly identify any potential issues when it comes to stock.

Being able to see a report – in a few clicks of a button – that estimates how may days’ stock you have on hand based on live data makes managing stock levels easier and reduces the risk of waste and overordering too. Zonal’s end-to-end purchasing system, Acquire, also displays discrepancy reports which can help operators or staff easily identify where errors are occurring throughout the ordering process, such as incorrect invoices. This empowers operators to better manage their supplier relationships and cut down on time spent dealing with these issues.

The thing that makes this all possible however, is having an EPoS that is integrated with all the back-of-house and stock-taking tech. Having integrated systems which use the EPoS as the central data hub allows for seamless data sharing and reporting, providing you with one version of the truth for accurate, insightful reporting. This enables operators to be able to very quickly identify where processes across the business can be improved and made more efficient, such as identifying the need for more training for staff or recipes that may need refining to maximise margins, helping to save businesses time as well as money.

Using the right technology to manage both suppliers and stock can help operators manage the level of waste they produce which in turn can save them valuable money, and allowing technology to do the heavy lifting will let you know where those all-important pennies can be saved across the business.

Discover how you could reduce costs in your business with Zonal’s integrated technology

If you’d like to find out more about how our hospitality EPoS and inventory & ordering systems could help you to more effectively manage costs in your business, get in touch today and our team of hospitality technology experts would be happy to show you what’s possible!

If you’re a current user of Zonal’s Events and iOrder solutions and need to build a pre-order set menu for a special day such as Mother’s Day, this Quick Guide is for you! Simply follow these 3 steps.

When building two course or three course set menus with a set cost, they can require a bit of extra configuration to ensure promotions are applied correctly. We’ve put together our recommended steps as used by other customers using the system, to help simplify the process.

To complete these steps, you will need access to Aztec, Events and iOrder – The three core platforms which provide you with pre-order.

STEP 1: Starting in Aztec

1. Initially you need to ensure you have configured your products in Aztec product modelling (don’t forget to add the products onto the panel and price products)
2. In the promotion wizard, create a Multi Buy promotion and define rules. Follow the wizard through, ensuring that:
   1. Areas are added
   2. Groups are defined (Quantity of 1 each group).
   3. Define each product for each group. Don’t forget to add correct portion (applies mainly to wet division)
   4. Define the times for all day and everyday
   5. Choose single reward price for when each item is selected (e.g. 1 starter 1 main 1 dessert = £40)
3. Clone the created promotion. This will need to be done twice. One promotion with a starter and main and one with main and dessert. Use priorities to look at the 3-course promotion first and the two, 2-course promotions following it.

STEP 2: Building in iOrder

1. In Menu Manager, create a new menu ensuring “pre-order” is ticked in the platforms section of the details page
2. Assign the applicable availability profile
3. In the ‘Build your menu’ section, create your groups as each set menu course (starters, mains etc)
4. Under edit in each course/group, set the maximum number of selections to 1
5. Search each product under the ‘Product’ tab, configuring them as you go and adding them to the relevant group. (Remember to also configure any related choices within that product)

STEP 3: Finishing touches in Events Admin

1. Under menus, create a *new menu using the add new menu button.
   *Useful tip: Using the same menu name in iOrder and Events can help troubleshooting in the future.
2. When creating your menu, ensure that:
3. The correct site(s) are selected in the site list
4. The relevant channels are selected from the channel list (do you want this visible in the booking widget/API or just visible to the host so it can be booked internally?)
5. The menu schedule is correct. Think of the schedule start and end date as a 24-hour period. The example schedule shown here has been set up for the Valentine’s menu to run on Valentine’s Day 12pm-9pm, as well as the Friday and Saturday of that week only.​​​​​​​
6. ​​​​​​​​​​Select the applicable pre-order menu from the list, then using the > button, move it into the selected pre-order menus box.
   *Useful tip: It is recommended that the schedule here is left blank.
7. Under ‘Booking Rules’, click the ‘Add new booking rule’ button, ensuring that:
   1. ​​​​​​​The booking rule is given a name (visible internally only)
   2. Under conditions choose the conditions required to trigger the pre-order requirement (This can be a cover range, occasion, or menu)
   3. Under actions select requires pre-order
   4. Choose the number of days the pre-order is due before the booking’s arrival date. In the guest portal customer will see a timer ticking down to the pre-orders due date and time.
   5. Click the enabled box to enable the new booking rule​​​​​​​.

Once you have built this, we recommend running some tests to be sure it works for the end user.

For further information on any of the above, check out the Product Portal.

​​​​​If you’re not currently using Zonal’s Events or iOrder solutions and would like to find out more, contact your Account Manager today who will be happy to give you a demo.

With the madness of Christmas and New Year a distant memory, industry-wide attention is now laser-focused on minimising the sobering impact of the cost-of-living crisis. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be sharing a plethora of useful tips, checklists and more, to help you get the most out of your Zonal systems – showing you exactly how and where you can save money, save time and increase profits, starting with this handy Stocks checklist to help tackle issues around poor stock GPs.

In a recent visit to one of our customers, we helped them to carry out these ten things. Once actioned, GPs started increasing almost immediately – improving the bottom line and making a huge difference to their financial reporting.

By having full visibility of your inventory, you can maximise profit margins, which in turn will help you to make better decisions around purchasing, sales and marketing, enabling you to sell more products and reduce the need to mark down old, unsold stock.

So why not take the opportunity in a quiet moment during the January/February lull, to focus on getting your stocks in order by completing this checklist:

1. Ensure all delivery notes are accepted in your Purchasing solution
2. Discontinue any redundant products in Aztec Product Modelling
3. Ensure Default suppliers are checked behind Products in Aztec Product Modelling
4. Re-visit all recipes in Aztec Product Modelling
5. Double check that all Promotions and Discounts were set up correctly for the Christmas Period
6. Ensure that you’re using the Loss and Gain (Value/Cost) Report, Stock Holding Report, and Profitability Report before accepting stocks
7. Ensure stock taking is being completed regularly and all counting is being done accurately
8. You may benefit from additional stock training to ensure that members of staff at your organization are following the correct Aztec procedure – contact your Account Manager directly who will be happy to arrange it for you

If using Zonal’s Stock & Order solution, Acquire:

9. Ensure all deliveries have been reconciled and accepted in Acquire
10. Check all Products and prices are correct in Acquire

For more assistance with stocks, training, or information on Acquire, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with your Account Manager.

With the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, soaring inflation and eye-watering energy bills hitting the retail sector hard, garden centres that are looking to plug the finance gap will need to dig deep in order to unearth new revenue streams and cost savings. With the significant increase in importance of F&B as a revenue driver, it’s important, now more than ever, for F&B managers to control costs.

Technology that has been designed specifically for food and beverage operations will provide a simple and effective way to achieve this.

Waste not, want not

One of the easiest ways to save money is by reducing the amount of stock that goes to waste, of course – and yet it’s so much easier said than done. A digital stock management tool can help, however. Specialist hospitality technology can track stock levels down to every single ingredient and in real time. This becomes particularly important when it comes to keeping costs down but also removes a customer frustration before it has even occurred – our research shows that customers choosing an item from the menu only to be told it is no longer available, is one of the biggest causes of customer frustration.

For venues that use an online purchasing management solution for example, the guesswork is taken out of stock control by providing real-time availability. If implemented into garden centre cafés and restaurants, managers will be able to more easily ensure they are maximising the profitability of each product they stock, giving garden centre café and restaurant managers tighter control over their purchasing. This minimises waste and avoids a situation where cash is tied up in stock.

What’s more, the data collected from a digital inventory assists operators in making smarter decisions for their business, with many operators using this insight to improve profit margins. Such digital solutions also alleviate the use of printed count sheets and manual count entries, saving time and reducing the risk of human error. Consolidating and joining these systems will also highlight where inefficiencies lie, improve reporting at all levels and increase profitability as a result.

Make your profits bloom

As well as helping businesses save money, tech can also help garden centre F&B operations drive revenue. For example, apps have been proven to help hospitality businesses drive sales and research has shown that customers tend to spend more when eating and drinking out when using them. In fact, total monthly spend on apps averages £99.35, against an all-consumer average of £76.47. If customers are pleased with the speed of service on an app, they are more likely to use it again and again. What’s more, if this technology is integrated with an EPoS, waiting staff, where table service is offered, will no longer be required to take orders from one system and input them into the fixed POS terminal, enabling staff to process orders more orders more quickly as well as efficiently.

Linking an EPoS system to a digital loyalty scheme is another easy way to drive revenue in the F&B arm of a garden centre business. While printed stamp cards or physical loyalty cards have worked for some time, tech can help garden centre F&B managers maximise the opportunities offered through digital loyalty schemes – apart from anything else digital loyalty schemes don’t get lost or relegated to a forgotten pocket.

Our research has shown that 49% of consumers in Britain think loyalty schemes are important to them when choosing which hospitality venue to visit —and that rises to nearly two thirds (63%) of 18- to 24-year-olds[1]. Digital loyalty schemes allow customers to store their digital card, offers and more on their phone, meaning they are more likely to come in and make the most of the promotions and deals offered to them. What’s more, if a business can offer bespoke deals and promotions based on a customer’s preferences and previous spend habits, they may be more inclined to use the scheme repeatedly.

Sales data that goes through the EPoS can then be used to create bespoke offers and promotions on products relevant to an individual customer on. The system also enables operators to plan ahead and set up future promotions with scheduled go-live dates to make the most of key trading times and occasions. Garden centre F&B operations can use this as a golden opportunity to gain a competitive edge by learning more about their customers so they can engage, surprise and delight them time and time again.

There are also ways that technology can help garden centre F&B managers upsell. Online booking systems, for example, help to reduce customer frustration when forced to queue for a table, but they also provide garden centre restaurants and cafés with a fantastic opportunity to upsell and offer customers extra products when they are about to confirm their booking. F&B managers can add in the option for customers to pre-book their orders, offer deals on certain products and lots more, encouraging customers to increase basket spend.

No one will argue that times are tough – and about to get tougher – but garden centre F&B operations that harness the power of specialist hospitality tech will be those who don’t just survive but thrive.

[1] Zonal and CGA’s GO Technology survey, January 2021

About Zonal

Zonal’s experience in garden centres, combined with our roots in hospitality, enable us to work in partnership with retail operators to grow F&B profits, streamline restaurant operations and provide a first-class customer service.

If you would like to find out more, check out Zonal’s dedicated Garden Centre page, where you’ll find a variety of resources including top tips, insight and advice from industry experts, the benefits technology can have for your business and how operators just like you are using technology in their F&B operations.