Running a restaurant means having a lot of responsibilities. Making sure you have great servers, good food, and, fast service is important for keeping new and existing customers happy and coming back for more. However, keeping these aspects of your business running smoothly doesn’t mean that your cash management should be ignored or neglected. In order to boost your revenue, you should be using cash management strategies. Here are three cash management strategies you can and should implement in your restaurant today.
Use a Mobile POS System
A point-of-sale system accepts customer payments, records these transactions, and prints receipts. But your servers don’t need to be limited to a wired POS system. Using a mobile system is cost effective and much more convenient and versatile, which can improve the way you do business.
With a mobile POS system, you get a handheld, wireless device, which could be a smart phone or a tablet. With greater expediency, you can improve your customer service and transaction speed in order to keep your customers satisfied. Bringing a mobile device to a customer’s table can improve order accuracy, shorten the time between the order and transmitting that order to the kitchen, and make transaction processing more convenient for both the server and the customer. This improves overall customer satisfaction.
Additionally, you don’t have to pay steep fees for credit card transactions with mobile POS technology and you can even send receipts digitally, which can reduce your cost of ordering printers and receipt paper. Mobile POS system can be implemented at the fraction of the cost of traditional systems, which is especially beneficial for a small restaurant.
Cash Handling Procedures
Having proper procedures in place to balance your cash register and pay out tips can allow you to keep more money in your pocket. Restaurants often rely on cash payments, and all of the employees are handling this cash, which is why having internal controls is vital to better cash movement and accountability.
When assigning cash drawers to employees, restaurant owners should only permit one cash drawer to be used by one employee at all times to increase accountability. If issues arise, it will be much easier to trace them to the right employee.
The beginning cash amount should be counted at the start of a shift to ensure accuracy. During busy shifts, cash should be deposited into a safe for added security. These deposits should not be done at peak times, and should be approved and double-counted by a manager to reduce the risk of error or theft. At the end of the shift, the cash should be counted again in a safe area and balanced to make sure all totals are correct, and a second pair of eyes should be used.
An automated cash management solution can quickly and accurately dispense floats, count deposits and provide tips all the while tracking and making reconciliation simple and efficient.
Utilize Commercial Currency Machines
Counting cash can result in human error and, if you receive a lot of cash payments, it can be a time-consuming task that costs you more in labour. However, with the use of commercial currency machines, such as recyclers, coin and bill sorters and counters, and counterfeit detectors, you eliminate the need for manual counting and sorting, which leads to higher accuracy, increased security, reduced instances of theft, and lowered labour costs. The machines do the counting and sorting work for you, so you don’t leave this important task to chance.
Cash management strategies can save you a lot of money, streamline your process, and reduce errors. By using a mobile POS system, putting cash handling procedures in place, and using cash management equipment, you can optimize your restaurant for better customer service and smoother accounting procedures.
