TimeForge v2.4.5

Lubbock, TX – May 28, 2008 – Making a great work schedule week after week is often a painful managerial chore for businesses of all sizes. However, the increased store profits, lower turnover, and improved employee morale make employee scheduling software a worthwhile investment. Many operators in the restaurant, retail, and hospitality industries create labor schedules by hand using pen-and-paper methods that can consume up to seven hours a week in managerial time – an expense of more than $12,000 per year in manager time building and managing the labor schedule! Operators using spreadsheets still spend at least two hours a week scheduling labor.

Well-chosen software solutions can help operators control labor and increase profits, without incurring great expense. For example, TimeForge, a web-based labor scheduling product tightly controls employee labor costs and reduces turnover by providing a simple-to-use solution for scheduling employees. The TimeForge software program, available at http://www.TimeForge.com, ensures that managers spend more time “on the floor” and less time in the back office scheduling employees.

The most recent version, released on May 27, 2008 includes a number of improvements to the software and continues to build on TimeForge's success as a quick, simple, and affordable scheduling solution for businesses of all sizes. According to Michael, the proprietor of Tiara Cafe in California, “The TimeForge scheduling system has not only increased our efficiency tremendously; decreased the errors in what is normally an error prone environment; it has also saved us ten times what it costs us each month.”

TimeForge turns employee scheduling into an automated task that can be performed in a few minutes every week – improving store profits by thousands of dollars every year for the store. Some advantages of the new TimeForge include:

• TimeForge now includes the ability to track employee tips, which can be entered when an employee clocks out, or later by management!
• Schedules and templates can be organized into departments (similar to folders) to easily differentiate between “Front of House” and “Back of House” schedules.
• New attendance reports are available for supervisors and managers.
• Managers can easily see why an employee cannot be scheduled – regardless if the employee is already scheduled at another location or in a conflicting shift, or if the employee is unavailable.
• Locations / stores / units can be organized into a Corporate Hierarchy so that managers can monitor scheduling practices for groups of locations.
• Many other improvements!
  

Independent and chain operators alike can benefit from the many time saving and profit improving features of labor scheduling systems such as TimeForge. Get back on the floor today!

About TimeForge
TimeForge is the premier employee scheduling software, designed to provide fast ROI benefits to the business, and to meet the growing demands of the work force. TimeForge.com is affordable software that works with both independent and chain operations in retail, hospitality, and many other industries. For more information about TimeForge, and to sign up for a free trial, visit the website at http://www.TimeForge.com

Our Happy Customers....

We recently received a customer testimonial from Michael Freeman, a TimeForge user since early February. Michael is the proprietor of Tiara Cafe, located in California. He had these kind words to say about the use of TimeForge as a labor management tool in his restaurant:

"Scheduling for our restaurant with three shifts 7 days a week is a daunting managerial task. The Timeforge scheduling system has not only increased our efficiency tremendously; decreased the errors in what is normally an error prone environment; it has also saved us ten times what it costs us each month. However, the most important aspect of Timeforge is their flexible and accommodating programing staff. Any business that needs to have a flexible scheduling system shouldn't go another month without Timeforge."

- Michael, Tiara Cafe

Wonderfully kind words from Michael! Thanks so much!

How long does it take to make a labor schedule for your workforce? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your motel, bank, school, restaurant, bar, club, or retail business.

Schedule Training .... Labor Cost Training .... And .... Free TimeForge Training!

Would you like help getting TimeForge up and running at your business? Does TimeForge seem too intimidating? Would you like to know what new features and improvements the TimeForge team is working on?

Sign up for one of the upcoming TimeForge training sessions and discover how simple employee scheduling can be! These free training sessions demonstrate how easily TimeForge can be to used to schedule employees while keeping employees happy and getting managers back on the floor.

The next two upcoming training sessions are:

• April 24th, 2008 from 1pm to 2pm Central Standard Time
• 12pm – 1pm MST
• 11m – 12pm PST
• April 30th, 2008 from 11am to 12pm Central Standard Time
• 10am – 11am MST
• 9am – 10am PST
  

These free training sessions will be held over the phone using standard “web training” tools, as well as a traditional conference call. Accessing the “web training” tools is as easy as going to a web site .... anyone with an Internet connection can participate in training!

The sessions emphasize individual customer question-and-answer style help, similar to an in-office training session: 20 minutes will be devoted to demonstrating the software, and the last 40 minutes will be devoted to answering individual / specific questions about the software.

To sign up, please send an email to info@timeforge.com with the date and time that you would like to attend, and please let us know how many users will be attending from your location and/or company.

Also: Coming soon ... the TimeForge User Manual and Employee Manual! A comprehensive guide to using TimeForge at your company.


How long does it take to make a labor schedule for your workforce? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that labor costs could be as much as 30% of your expenses? TimeForge can help streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your hotel, restaurant, bank, car wash, or other retail business.

Employee Pay Rates are Easier to Enter - Improved in TimeForge

TimeForge developers recently improved the way that employee pay rates are entered.

Previously, to enter a pay rate for an employee, you needed to check a box (telling the software that the employee could work as that employee), then choose whether or not the employee used the base pay rate, and then enter the correct pay rate for that employee at that job code / position. Our recently updated TimeForge 1.9.6 removes the need to use the drop-down box, and provides a handy reference for the position's base pay-rate.

Please let us know what you think about this improved data entry!

How long does it take to make your employee labor schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your retail business, restaurant, bar, club, or hotel?

Approve or Deny Employee Requests in Bulk - New in TimeForge

Managers and supervisors can approve or deny employee requests for time off, or changes to availability, in bulk from the “Today” screen in TimeForge. To approve or deny these availability requests, users can easily click the “Approve” or “Deny” for each request, and then click on the “Process” button at the bottom of the list of requests.

All employees will receive email notifications of the Approval or Denial, and employees can always check the status of their availability requests by logging into their own account on TimeForge.com

How long does it take to make your employee labor schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your retail business, restaurant, bar, club, or hotel?

International Restaurant Show

Some of the TimeForge staff will be at the upcoming International Restaurant Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. This hospitality trade show is co-located with three other large events, including:

• The Nightclub & Bar Convention and Trade Show
• International Coffee & Tea Expo
• HotelWorld Expo & Conference
  

The trade show starts February 24, 2008 and wraps up on February 27, 2008 with more than 300 exhibiting companies in attendance. Companies serving the hospitality and food-service industries will be in attendance.

So who should attend? Independent and chain managers, owners, and operators of restaurants, hotels, casinos, resorts, and nightclubs.

Where will we be? Our team will be walking the trade show floor, looking for innovative products and outstanding partners. We intend to meet with a number of vendors at the show, but will also be sitting in several of the educational programs that are being held.

Some of the seminars you might find us in include:

• Hiring, Training, Motivating and Keeping High-Performance Employees by Terry Morey at RestaurantMarketingGroup.org
• Choosing a Restaurant Franchise: Follow Your Heart, But Don't Lose Your Head by Ken Reimer at Baker Bros
• Ask The Expert by Chris Weinberg at The BarFly Group
• Online Ordering: Pitfalls, Obstacles & Benefits by G.R. Homa at BigHoller
  

If you are a vendor who will be at the show, a consultant, or an operator who would like to talk with us about our solutions to employee and labor scheduling. temperature monitoring (and HACCP systems), or our patented table management solution .... please contact us!

How long does it take to make your employee labor schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your retail business, restaurant, bar, club, or hotel?

Charting is Upgraded - Improved in TimeForge

The TimeForge charting and graphing system received a minor upgrade, and now works reliably in many different web browsers. Several other minor bugs surrounding the graphing system have been updated and fixed.

View labor schedules graphically from almost anywhere!

How long does it take to make your employee labor schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your retail business, restaurant, bar, club, or hotel?

Min and Max Shifts per Week - New in TimeForge

There are many techniques for scheduling employees, and we realize that each organization schedules labor differently. Within TimeForge, managers are able to restrict employee schedules based on minimum and maximum weekly hours (such as: “Alex should be scheduled for more than 20 hours but less than 30 hours a week”) and minimum and maximum daily shifts (such as: “Sarah should not be scheduled for doubles”).

The TimeForge AutoScheduler™ system will do its very best to make sure your needs are met, and if you schedule employees manually, it will warn you when your employees exceed or drop-below your specified values.

However, users of TimeForge can now limit employees to a minimum and/or maximum number of shifts per week (such as: “Joe should receive between 3 and 4 shifts a week”).

Just one more way we are making labor scheduling easier!

How long does it take to make your employee labor schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your retail business, restaurant, bar, club, or hotel?

Congratulations TimeForge!

It's been one day since the release of TimeForge Version 1.9, which introduced a number of new features such as easy-to-use calendar availability, improved multi-location (multiple unit) scheduling, and many other improvements. And we're excited to announce that more than 800 businesses have signed up for the most simple and powerful labor scheduling tool on the market: www.TimeForge.com

Although we are obviously excited by the number of TimeForge users, we are more excited about the time savings and cost savings that have been provided to our users. For example:

• On average, managers spend more than 2.64 hours making the schedule, every week with a spreadsheet program such as Excel, by hand, or with an inefficient scheduling system (like most Point of Sale systems).

• On average, managers spend 15 minutes making the schedule, every week using TimeForge.

• On average, managers in retail and hospitality businesses receive an annual salary and benefits package equivalent to more than $62,500. That's more than $31 per hour.

• TimeForge is directly saving our users more than $59,272 every month! That's more than $710,000 a year.

Of course, there are dozens of other benefits like reporting, employee notification, reduced employee turnover, less time fragmentation (employees calling your business), etc... which are more difficult to calculate in a direct dollar-to-dollar return on investment (ROI).

Is your business getting the most out of TimeForge?

How long does it take to make your labor schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your retail business, restaurant, bar, club, or hotel?

Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2)

We are pleased to announce TimeForge version 1.9 – the easy-to-use employee scheduling program for food-service (restaurant, bar, club), hospitality (hotel, motel), and retail companies.

Thank you to our users who provide priceless feedback about the software can make their lives easier!

This version provides significant enhancements to all TimeForge users, and includes several dozen new and improved features. Some of our time-saving improvements include:

• Many areas of the scheduling system, including the creating schedules from templates, publishing a new schedule, and deleting schedules are significantly faster.

• A new field is available for employees, which allows managers to enter an identifier for tracking the employee (such as an internal employee number).

• Internationalization! TimeForge now works in Canada, the United Kingdom (England), Australia, Ireland, France, Spain, Scottland, and many other countries. The best labor scheduling system from the US is now available to anyone, anywhere. In fact, if you are a multi-location (or multiple unit) operator, with stores in different countries or locales, TimeForge will appropriately manage notifications for the whole team.

• Do you schedule more than one location from within your TimeForge account? The improved scheduling system in version 1.9 will automatically disable employees that are already scheduled to work at other locations. TimeForge already disables employees that are scheduled to work on other conflicting schedules.

• Day parts have been renamed “Work Periods”, which is ... simple. More improvements with "Work Periods" and "Day Parts" are coming in Version 2.

• A number of minor bug fixes, improvements to Internet Explorer 6, and other changes.
  

Of course, we look forward to your ongoing comments about changes to the TimeForge scheduling system.

How long does it take to make your employee schedules? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your retail business, bar, club, or restaurant.

Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1)

We are pleased to announce TimeForge version 1.9 – the easy-to-use employee scheduling program for food-service (restaurant, bar, club), hospitality (hotel, motel), and retail companies.

Thank you to our users who provide priceless feedback about the software can make their lives easier!

This version provides significant enhancements to all TimeForge users, and includes several dozen new and improved features. Some of our time-saving improvements include:

• Availability and requests both received drastic improvements for both managers and employees. You can now view weekly availability on a continual basis on a calendar. Availability is color-coded based on when employees “want to work”, are “available to work”, “do not want to work”, and are “unavailable to work”. Requests awaiting manager approval are also displayed for employees. This is what the improved requests look like:

• In addition to the calendar view of requests, TimeForge users can quickly make new requests, or change availability by using “drag and drop” techniques. Each day of the week is split into hourly segments, and you can now click and drag to create schedules in a single click. Of course, our flexible scheduling system still allows users to build both simple and complex requests:
  
  

Of course, we look forward to your ongoing comments about changes to the TimeForge scheduling system.

How long does it take to make your employee schedules? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your retail business, bar, club, or restaurant.

Restaurant Business Article on Workforce Problems

The Nation Restaurant Association is forecasting a shortage in workers over the next several years, as the growth of the hospitality sector surpasses the available labor force. Instead of hiring new laborers, many growing operators will need to maximize their existing workforce – and supplementing trained workers with advanced technology solutions is a wise decision. Shorter training times, tighter staffing, faster service times, improved accuracy, and more consistent product quality are just a few of the benefits of blending technology and employees.

Restaurant Business, one of the nations leading restaurant and food-service publications, recently featured an article on the topic of “High Tech Takes on Big Labor”, focusing on many relevant technology advancements including:

• Pay-at-the-table technology (Faster table turnover which means more sales with fewer employees)
• Wireless order taking (Directly enter orders into the POS system, servers can focus on guest satisfaction)
• Web-based employee scheduling (Build schedules faster and notify employees of upcoming work, reduces overhead drastically)
• Online ordering (labor is not needed to field phone calls, enter orders, or pay customers)
  

A number of technology vendors were highlighted in the article, including TimeForge.com

Some of the scheduling related vendors mentioned in the article include:

• ASI's Restaurant Manager Labor Scheduling Module that generates staffing rosters and then can be printed, posted to the website, emailed, or sent as text messages.
  

• CrunchTime!'s Labor and Workforce Management tool which is a web-based solution that interfaces with various POS and HR systems.

• HotSchedules web-based product which offers enhanced reports, rule-based auto-scheduling and POS integration.

• Deterministic's Labor System is a web-based labor forecasting and management program.

• MacromatiX's Scheduling and Labor Management product is a web-based QSR and fast-casual scheduling program which alerts managers when labor is “over” or “under”.

• MICROS Systems has a new mylabor product (part of the mymicros.net suite), offering a web-based labor management tool.

• TimeForge.com is a web-based scheduling system designed to keep management on the floor, and reduce turnover by keeping employees “in-the-loop”. The software builds a complete schedule in just a few seconds, and can be manually adjusted to meet specific needs of the business. Employees receive daily reminders about schedule changes, through the website, email, and text messages – and workers can trade shifts online, read messages from management, and request time off (or change their availability).

Standard Disclaimer: Why do we showcase other companies and products that perform similar functionality to TimeForge.com? Because we believe TimeForge.com is a superior scheduling product. Check them out yourself! Go review their products, ask for their free schedule entry services and free trials.

Come back when you're ready to make scheduling simple!

How long does it take to make your employee schedules? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, or restaurant.

How Email Can Go Wrong ....

Yesterday, some of our users were sent a email describing how well TimeForge.com can assist with labor scheduling at multi-unit or multiple store concepts.

For instance, TimeForge users can manage an unlimited number of locations from their account, and each store can have different employees. Employees can work at more than one store and TimeForge automatically detects when employees are scheduled at other locations so that no staff members are double-scheduled. TimeForge has other multi-store labor scheduling capabilities as well – and we are always adding new features to the software.

However, the email program that sends out short reminders and email tips malfunctioned, sending many of our users multiple copies of the same email. We are truly sorry for "spamming" your mailbox, and can assure you that we have taken the necessary precautions to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

Thank you for your understanding. If you have any further questions, please send an email to our support group.

It should take less than 5 minutes to make the labor schedule for your business! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your retail business, bar, club, or restaurant?

Updated Labor Scheduling ... TimeForge version 1.9

As our users know, we continually add new features to our software to make scheduling simple – and we thrive on feedback from our users! Our software updates are released every few weeks (other vendors can take years to release new products), and there is no cost to upgrade to the latest version of TimeForge.

We intended to release our newest version of TimeForge, version 1.9, over the weekend complete with a brand new calendar-style view of requests, much faster editing of schedules, international capabilities, user-interface improvements, and much more.

However, the testing of the new features is taking slightly longer than anticipated, so we have pushed back the release date until later this week. Check back here for updates, and information on what's coming in version 2.0!

How long does it take to make an employee schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that labor costs could be as much as 30% of your expenses? TimeForge can help streamline and minimize labor costs through effective labor scheduling at your restaurant, bar, or club.

Labor Scheduling is Easy for Employees Too

Don't forget to setup your employees to be able to login to TimeForge.com!

Employee access to TimeForge.com is included with the TimeForge service, for no additional charge. On the website, your employees can:

• Review upcoming schedules
• Swap shifts with other employees with management approval
• Change availability with management approval
• Request time off, or request to work a shift with management approval
• Review messages from management
• Lookup contact information for co-workers
  
• Setup daily text message (cell phone), and email schedule alerts
  

In addition to keeping employees "in-the-loop" and reducing turnover, empowered employees will call your business less often - because they already know the answers to their schedule questions on TimeForge.com You will have more time to do other tasks!

It should take less than 5 minutes to make the employee labor schedule for your business! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, or restaurant?

Improper Labor Staffing

Nation's Restaurant News recently posted a blog worth at least $20 in immediate lost sales, and perhaps several hundred in lost future sales. The picture is reposted here for reference:

We have no idea what occurred to keep the employee away from their customers for 30 minutes. However, based on our experience one of two things happened – and both scenarios can be prevented with a good labor management system such as TimeForge.com

Possible Scenario One: Managers were too busy with other details of the operation and could not oversee the staff and customer interactions. Management could be mopping the floor, paying bills, training new staff, making the schedule, or any number of other tasks. Regardless of the job they were performing, the managers were preoccupied and could not properly manage their store to ensure that customers were being served promptly.

Solution: Regardless of which task occupied the manager's time, they were not available to manage the store floor. If the store was using TimeForge.com to build their schedule, and manage their labor, management would spend 4 more hours on the floor, not in the back-office making a schedule. A good workforce management solution could give the management team another four (or more!) hours per week “on-the-floor”.


Possible Scenario Two: The manager responsible for the schedule was inexperienced or unable to schedule the workforce correctly. Too many employees may have been scheduled earlier in the day, and too many of those were sent home. Or, perhaps too few were scheduled all day, and those that were scheduled could not keep up with the increased customer demand.

Solution: Inexperienced and experienced managers both benefit from TimeForge.com's graphical scheduling capabilities, more than 20 labor reports, and many schedule visualization tools. Users of TimeForge.com can quickly see employees that are scheduled or not scheduled, which staff members are “on call” or “extras”, and when employees are available to work.

Regardless of what happened at this restaurant, poor staffing and labor management led to lost sales, and a bad reputation.

Are you ready to go home early? It should take less than 5 minutes to make the employee labor schedule for your business! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, or restaurant?

Simple, Fast Employee Scheduling

Choosing a simple and easy-to-use labor scheduling program takes time. Someone with buying authority and an operations background in your organization must:

• Research the available programs
• Contact each vendor
• Track down customer references (customer testimonials are available on our website)
• Narrow the list of vendors
• Evaluate each program (every TimeForge.com user receives a free trial)
• Purchase or finance the software (TimeForge.com is affordable, and payment is automatically drafted every month)
• Install and configure the software (no software to install with TimeForge.com)
• Train all employees (TimeForge.com training is free)
• Hope that the software works as promised (no contracts are required with TimeForge.com, and you get a free evaluation / trial of the software)
• Pay ongoing maintenance and support fees (no ongoing maintenance or annual support fees with TimeForge.com)
  

Our team has done the research for you!

In addition to our own TimeForge.com employee scheduling product, ScheduleSimple.com provides a list of many of the software products available for labor scheduling and workforce management in small, medium, and enterprise level organizations. The new scheduling site covers software for the retail, restaurant, food-service, motel, hotel, hospitality, and grocery industries.

How long does it take to make an employee schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that labor costs could be as much as 30% of your expenses? TimeForge can help streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, bar, or club.

Graphical Availability and Requests for Employee Scheduling

As announced last week, the next version of TimeForge will include a brand new graphical availability and request tool. We expect to release the tool with version 1.9, after Thanksgiving, and like all of our updates, it will be available to all of our customers at no additional charge.

With the new tool, managers can easily see when employees are available, differentiate between one-time requests and ongoing availability, and can quickly click-and-drag to make new requests. Behind the scene, our proprietary (and powerful) request software continues to allow your management team to make both simple and complex requests with a single mouse-click.

The TimeForge development team was gracious enough to provide us with two preliminary screen shots. Obviously, these are not the final, polished product that will be released next week .... but they should give you an idea of how simple the new employee request and availability tool will be.





As always, feedback from our users is greatly appreciated!

Are you ready to go home early? It should take less than 5 minutes to make the employee labor schedule for your business! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, or restaurant?

What's Coming Soon?

As you may be aware, we release improvements to the TimeForge employee scheduling software every few weeks, and our team is hard at work developing version 1.9 of TimeForge. The next version will be released around Thanksgiving.

What can you expect to be in our next version of TimeForge?

• Improved Availability. You will be able to view availability as you do now, in a list format – but you will also have the ability of adding and viewing availability on a calendar. Two clicks to create a time-off request! Also, Day Parts will be more integrated with the rest of the TimeForge system – so you can schedule around the different parts of your day.

• Faster. We are aware that TimeForge can slow down occasionally for those of you with a large number of employees. These issues will be resolved in our next release.

• Improved Templates. Templates will continue to receive upgrades, and you will be able to add and edit shifts with the same ease that you edit schedules.

• And much more! If you know of something that will make your life simple ... let us know!

Are you ready to go home early? It should take less than 5 minutes to make the employee labor schedule for your business! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, or restaurant?

Supercharged Scheduling from Nations Restaurant News

Nation's Restaurant News published an article entitled "Supercharged Scheduling" on Oct 8, 2007. If, like us, you receive the e-mail newsletter, you probably received the story in a "Tech Trends from NRN-Online" email last week.

The teaser introduction starts: "Why does one restaurant hum along, making schedules with little more than pencil and paper or a spreadsheet, while others see reason to spend tens of thousands of dollars on sophisticated labor optimization technology? Selecting what's right for a particular operation means making a clear-eyed assessment of the complexity of labor demands and the goals of the business."

At TimeForge, we believe that every restaurant, bar, club, hotel, motel, or catering business should be using an employee scheduling program. However, we do take issue with the idea that it takes "thousands of dollars" worth of investment to get sophisticated employee scheduling software. In fact, you can get started with TimeForge for $1.50 per month!

The article goes on to discuss four different products, including some "best of breed" and "all in one solutions". These included:

• Radiant Software's MenuLink featuring their installation at Fazoli's
  
• Time Management's TMx featuring their integration with Squirrel POS for Logan's Roadhouse
• Deterministics scheduling package, featuring T.G.I. Friday's
• TDR3's HotSchedules software, featuring Kona Grill

Standard Disclaimer: Why do we showcase other companies and products that perform similar functionality to TimeForge.com? Because we believe TimeForge.com is a superior scheduling product. Check them out yourself! Go review their products, ask for their free schedule entry services and free trials.

Come back when you're ready to make scheduling simple!

If you were at FS-TEC this year, you probably saw all four products on the show floor.

Our favorite quote is one we hear from TimeForge users all the time: "It really improved managers' quality of life and made it easier to write schedules, and [helped] shifts go smoother."

How long does it take to make your employee schedules? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, or restaurant.

Age and Brand Analysis of POS Systems in Foodservice

Entitled A Look Into the Leading Chains of the Casual, Fast Casual, Quick Serve, and Family Restaurant Segments, Chain Store Guide (CSGIS) recently published an whitepaper describing Point of Sale (POS) systems currently being used by various national restaurant chains.

There is some interesting information in the whitepaper, which is an examination of the data that Chain Store Guide has been collecting for years, and makes available in some of their products. The paper looks at the average age of POS hardware and POS software in use at the top five restaurants for several segments of the hospitality industry, including:

• Fast Casual (Panera Bread, Chipotle Mexican Grill, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Boston Market, Captain D's, etc...)
• Casual (Applebee's, Chili's, Outback, Olive Garden, T.G.I Friday's)
• Quick Serve (McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, Subway, Pizza Hut)
• Family Restaurant (Denny's, Cracker Barrel, Golden Corral, Bob Evans, Waffle House)
  

According to their data:

• The top 5 fast casual chains have Point of Sale hardware that is almost 7 years old, and Point of Sale software that is just over 5 years old (on average).
• The top 5 casual chains have Point of Sale hardware that is about 6 years old, and Point of Sale software that is right at 9 years old (on average).
• The top 5 quick service chains have Point of Sale hardware that is right at 4 years old, and Point of Sale software that is just over 3 years old (on average).
• The top 5 family chains have Point of Sale hardware that is just over 7 years old, and Point of Sale software that is more than 9 years old (on average).
  

You can read the full Chain Store Guide report here.

How long does it take you to make an employee work schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, grocery, convenience store, or restaurant.

Off Topic: Inventory Managment for Restaurants

One of the newsletters that we receive at TimeForge is the excellent (weekly) Restaurant Report Newsletter. Two weeks ago, this question was posed in the newsletter:

"Inventory Control Programs - What would you recommend as the best inventory control programs that is easy to read, follow and upkeep with information. As well we are looking into a new computer system and program for the front of the house....what would you recommend. We are in Canada and service and maintenance of course is very important."

Several years ago, we did a study of food-service industry inventory programs, and looked at the adoption and usage of inventory procedures in the marketplace. During this study, we also spoke with many of the "obvious" players in the industry - so we sent the poster a response to her question, which was published in this week's Restaurant Report:

---

As I'm sure you are aware, there are dozens of inventory systems on the market today, and even more if you consider systems which are part of the "back-office" software suites.

The interesting thing about inventory systems is that....few people use them. We did a study about 2 years ago of all of the major players, and how many people used their products. Less than 20% of the market uses inventory control (with a computer). That being said, there are some amazing programs out there that will help reduce food costs and/or track inventory.

Some of the main vendors include:

Eatec, MenuLink (part of Radiant), and Compeat are all "high end" systems. Expect to spend between $10k and $40k for your store to get started with one of their packages. Really designed for very large chains. These guys own about 3 - 4% of the hospitality inventory market.

iPro is (was) a one-man show, and is the "bargain bin" version of inventory software. I would stay away from this product, even if it's only $99. They own about 1% of the market (mostly eBay purchases).

ChefTec is "the" independent inventory product in the US, and is based out of Colorado. Getting support isn't always easy, but they are very knowledgeable about their product. About 20 employees (as of 2 years ago), and their product starts around $1k. About 2-3% of the market (on the high end).

Cost Guard is an excellent product, which was recently upgraded and a lot of new documentation was written for the product. The owner lives in New York, and runs a tight ship...but there are only about 4 employees at last count. Probably have about 1.3% of the total market. Given the opportunity, I would recommend Cost Guard over ChefTec.

Optimum Control is a Canadian company, and as of 2 years ago, had about 6 or 8 employees. They claimed to have 3,000 installed restaurants, or about .3% of the market. Pricing is around $1k.

If I was you, I would recommend that you give Optimum Control and Cost Guard a try, and see which one works better for you. I believe both of the products have online or downloadable demos.

Regarding the front-of-house...are you interested in a POS system, a reservation system, a scheduling solution, a marketing solution, a video surveillance system, bar and liquor control, or something else? There are all-in-one solutions (I don't recommend them), and there are individual pieces to the puzzle.

Of course, if you need a labor management tool - please take a look at our software.

Hope that helps - good luck!

Anthony Presley
Founder
TimeForge.com: Restaurant Employee Scheduling Software
P: 866.684.7191

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After writing this, I was contacted by Kenny at Cost Genie, and am currently reviewing their product. So far, it looks like something you might want to review as well.

How long does it take to make your employee schedules? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, grocery, convenience store, or restaurant.

Tech Tags: restaurant cost+genie cheftec inventory eatec menulink back+office cost+guard newsletter TimeForge labor+scheduling employee+scheduling foodservice hospitality

Simple Employee Scheduling - Version 1.8.5 (Part 3)

On Sunday night, we released the latest version of TimeForge, the groundbreaking, simple and easy to use employee scheduling software. This new version continues to improve the TimeForge software, adding many new features so you can go home sooner!

What's New?

Graphic Improvements. Many of the charts in TimeForge.com received an upgrade over the weekend. They look better, display faster, and can now be printed! To print a chart, right click on the chart, and click “Print”.

Colors! You can now change the colors of the graphs inside of TimeForge to meet your needs, based on the position being scheduled. To do so, click on “Employees” and then click on “Positions”. Click “Edit” on the position you want to change, and then click on the color box to pick a color for the position.

Reliable Text Messaging Alerts. We guarantee that our text messages will be delivered to you and your staff. We provide a high quality text messaging solution for our clients, and have partnered with ClickATell, a text-messaging pioneer, to ensure that your messages are always delivered to your staff.

Setup Wizard and User Wizard Improvements. These two tools enable you, and your management team, to quickly add employees and positions to TimeForge. They have been streamlined to include only the crucial information needed to build a schedule.

Free Schedule Entry. We have always offered Free Schedule Entry for you and your team. Fill out a simple spreadsheet, and send us two of your current schedules. We enter your schedules for you!

How long does it take to make your employee schedules? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, grocery, convenience store, or restaurant.

Tech Tags: employee+scheduling labor+management TimeForge employee+schedules

Simple Employee Scheduling - Version 1.8.5 (Part 2)

On Sunday night, we released the latest version of TimeForge, the groundbreaking, simple and easy to use employee scheduling software. This new version continues to improve the TimeForge software, adding many new features so you can go home sooner!

What's New?

Schedule without Wages. Just want a simple scheduling tool? TimeForge can now schedule employees without having any wage information entered into the software. All that is required are the names of your employees and the positions that they can work. That's it! Of course, TimeForge can do much more ...

Turn off the AutoScheduler. For many businesses, the AutoScheduler saves hours of management time by correctly placing the right employee into the right shift on the schedule. However a few of our users would like to do this process themselves, and want to turn the AutoScheduler off. To do so, login to TimeForge.com, and click on the “Settings” tab. Then, click on the “Settings for this Location”, and locate the “TimeForge configuration” section. One of the options is to enable or disable the AutoScheduler. Setting this option to “No” will disable the AutoScheduler.

Double Alerts. If an employee shift swap will result in a double shift (where an employee will work more than one shift that day) ... you'll be notified when you approve or deny the shift!

How long does it take to make your employee schedules? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, or restaurant.

Tech Tags: employee+scheduling labor+management TimeForge employee+schedules