Labor Management. NOW Simple.

Managing employees in the foodservice or hospitality industry is a process that can quickly become a nightmare for both staff and managers.

Staff expectations and requirements will not mix well with business requirements leading to lower employee retention, higher employee turnover, and a reduction in profits for your restaurant.

Most businesses in the restaurant, foodservice and hospitality industries such as table service restaurants, bars, clubs, country clubs, and quick service / fast food restaurants have very little control over the monthly budget. After a lease is signed the building and utility costs will remain relatively fixed, licensing fees and insurance rates will not change drastically month over month, and credit card processing fees usually scale with the business growth.

Managers, however, can directly influence three of the largest budget line items:

• Advertising expenses are normally purchased in 3 – 12 month quantities, and are not likely to change on a monthly basis.
• Inventory including food and beverage expenses can change based on a number of factors, and switching suppliers is difficult and time consuming.
• Labor costs will vary on a monthly basis based on the prevailing wage, employees leaving (or being fired), staff communication, management practices, and a number of other factors that can be directly controlled by managers.

Of these three line items, managers have the most control over labor costs, which can be manipulated to improve business profits. Inversely, improper management of labor costs will reduce the business’s ability to satisfy customers and expose the business to the risk of liability lawsuits and labor violation fines – instantly slashing the restaurant’s profitability!

Improving employee labor scheduling and time / attendance management should be an ongoing effort in your business that results in happier staff members, better customer satisfaction, and higher profits for your company.

TimeForge is a leading provide of powerful and simple-to-use employee scheduling and online labor management software for the restaurant and retail industries. TimeForge software is used by restaurant owners and operators around the globe to increase profits, reduce turnover, and improve retention.

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• TimeForge Labor Management, a quick background ….
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• Free Schedule Entry Service , Get Started with Labor Scheduling Today
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2)

We are a few months late getting this bit of news to all of our users — but we were featured (for the second time) by Accuvia, in their monthly newsletter, Foodservice Tech Advisor.   In August, Accuvia featured TimeForge in their annual Back Office issue, featuring some of our recent improvements as part of their industry updates.   The newsletter mentioned important update features such as:

• Fingerprint and Biometric support
• Improved Attendance Reports
• Tracking employee tips and mileage
• Scheduling by Department

More can be read in their actual newsletter, located here.

Are difficult employee schedules practices taking up time at your business? Did you know that TimeForge can reduce turnover, improve retention and increase profits at your business? Sign up today for a free trial!

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• TimeForge Newsletter , November Edition (Part 3)
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Additional highlights from our four days in Houston at the Texas Restaurant Show included:

Steve Green of Pizza Magazine Quarterly and PMQ.com had the US Pizza Team showing off their skills at the show. Steve stopped by on Tuesday and took a look at TimeForge , it is a perfect labor solution for pizzerias without a Point of Sale solution, and TimeForge is a great add-on to help control labor costs for those pizza shops that already have an existing POS program.

Dave Hwang from DinePoint was in the area attending the show, and we spent some time with him discussing plans for his above store reporting software package. He has had great success with a number of Point of Sale resellers, vendors, and major regional and national restaurant brands adopting his product.

David (also known as David_L) from FoodService.com was showing off the Digital Dining Point of Sale product, along with some girls from Hooters. He regularly posts on the FoodService.com food forums, and it was great to finally meet him in person.

Dominos Pizza had a corporate meeting at the Texas Restaurant Association, and we met with many franchisees about using TimeForge at their pizza business. Most operators and owners were surprised at how simple TimeForge is to use compared to doing things the “old fashioned” way.

Join us in Dallas for next years Texas Restaurant Show – we have already reserved our booth!

How long does it take to make an employee schedule for your employees? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can minimize costs and increase profits through effective employee scheduling at your pizza, restaurant, hotel, bar, club, or retail business. Sign up today for a free trial!

Related articles or pages

• Labor Scheduling at the TRA Show – 2008
• Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show is Wrapped Up…
• Accuvia , Labor Scheduling Systems
• Western Food Expo is a wrap!
• Product Mix Relating to Inventory Costs

Not too long ago, I helped a user (Big Biscuit) with an inventory related question on the Foodservice Forums located at www.foodservicei.com

His questions (paraphrased) were:

• Let’s say that 15 restaurants have an average food cost of 27.50%
• If one of the fifteen restaurants has a 29.50% food cost, could the reason for the higher food cost be because of their product mix? Or, is the only option product theft or shrinkage?
• Put another way: Could a higher than average food cost at one store be because they sell more individual menu items that have higher food costs?

What an interesting question! This question isn’t specific to the hospitality / food-service industry, and could easily apply to a car dealership (average price of a vehicle), retail store, or plumbing repair shop. Without getting too deep into statistical analysis, the general answer to an anomaly in inventory is “it depends”, as the problem could be related to:

1. Vendor changes (perhaps one store gets smaller cuts of beef, so they have to use more beef to get the same amount of stew).
2. Personnel changes (a new cook may use more or less butter than her predecessor)
3. Shrink or Shrinkage (fraud, theft or loss of a product, accounting errors, or perishable inventory)
4. Different product mix (using or selling different quantities of inventory items)

To illustrate this particular problem, let’s assume we have two stores:

Store A and Store B sell the same “stuff” (menu items), and each store has sales of $1,000 per day.

Store A is located in a place where only “locals” would know about it, and most of the locals order burgers, which run $5 gross, but have a food cost of $1 (20%). The patrons also occasionally purchase steaks, at a gross of $20, but with a higher food cost of $10 (50%).

In this case, Store A has a product mix of 20 steaks ($400 gross, $200 in food cost), and 120 burgers ($600 gross, $120 in food cost). Total food cost is $320, or 32% ($320 / $1000) food cost, and each of the 140 clients spent an average of $7.14

Now, let’s say that Store B is located on the boardwalk, and sells more steaks than burgers. With 40 steaks ($800 in gross, and $400 in food cost), and 40 hamburgers ($200 gross, $40 in food cost), Store B’s product mix has an average food cost of 44% ($400 + $40 / $1000), and each of the 80 patrons at this store spent an average of $12.50

In this case, Store B has a 12% higher food cost than Store A. Interestingly enough, Store B only served 80 patrons, compared to the 140 clients that Store A was able to serve – another excellent indicator for tracking shrinkage. What is the average of the two stores? 38% food cost and $9.82 per person on an average check. Both stores are 6% away from the “average”.

As illustrated by the above example, varying product mix can certainly cause food costs to fluctuate, and one should be very careful when comparing averages against each other.

How do you compare product mix at your location?

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.

Related articles or pages

• Off Topic: Inventory Managment for Restaurants
• Accuvia , Labor Scheduling Systems
• TimeForge v1.9.2 , Scheduling is Simplified and Graphical!
• TimeForge Customer Feedback
• Texas Restaurant Association Show (Part 2) — 2008

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.

Related articles or pages

• Off Topic: Inventory Managment for Restaurants
• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees
• Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show is Wrapped Up…
• Accuvia , Labor Scheduling Systems
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2)

Our goal is to provide you with the best scheduling tool available, and we’ve built TimeForge.com so that it’s usage requires very little training.

Unfortunately, for TimeForge.com to work properly, it must know about your positions / job codes, employees, and required shifts at your business , and entering this data can take a few minutes. The Free Schedule Entry service is a fast way to be up and running on TimeForge.com with almost no work required for you!

To ensure that you are able to use TimeForge.com as fast as possible, you can take advantage of our Free Schedule Entry service. Our team will need you to complete a small spreadsheet, which can be downloaded from our website (by clicking here). Once you are complete with the schedule (there are only about six columns!), send us the spreadsheet and two of your existing schedules. You can send the documents by email (support@timeforge.com) or fax (806.799.1024). That’s it!

Our data conversion team will setup all of these items:

• Positions / job codes
• Employees
• Schedules
• Templates
• Our team can also enter availability and requests

The schedule entry process can take between 2 and 5 days. When we’re done entering your business’s data, you can login and make schedules in seconds!

Interested in more information? Visit our free schedule entry page, or send an email to support@timeforge.com

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

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• TimeForge.com Training Webinar – Learn How To Schedule Properly
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• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2)

In foodservice, your business is primarily controlled by two large expenses: labor costs and food costs. Unfortunately, both expenses are variable in this industry and can be challenging to control.

Accuvia, a comprehensive information and technology resource company for the hospitality, foodservice, and retail services, recently reviewed a number of labor management systems in their weekly Newsletter. TimeForge was one of the top labor management companies chosen to be reviewed by Accuvia.

Some of the other companies and products mentioned in the article include:

• Restaurant Manager POS by Action Systems, Inc. (ASI)
• POSitouch Labor Management by POSitouch
• RES 4.0 by MICROS Systems, Inc.
• HotSchedules.com by TDR3
• TMx Labor Management System by TimeManagement Corporation

The actual newsletter can be downloaded here.

Why are we posting direct links to some of our closest competitors? Because we believe our product is superior and we would like you to go check out the other packages to see how we stack up. You will quickly find out that TimeForge is faster, more affordable, and easier to use than any of our web-based competitors or point of sale applications.

When you’re done trying the competition, make sure to visit our Free Trial page, and sign up for our Free Trial.

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.

Related articles or pages

• Western Food Expo is a wrap!
• Product Mix Relating to Inventory Costs
• Off Topic: Inventory Managment for Restaurants
• Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show is Wrapped Up…
• Employee Labor Scheduling: Interview with TimeForge.com's Anthony Presley

On September 6 , 9, we exhibited at the Florida Food & Lodging Show and occupied booth 1506 for three days. Held in sunny Orlando, the show provided access to about 500 exhibitors for approximately 10,000 restaurant, hotel, and club professionals. This year, the show was held in conjunction with Pizza Magazine’s (PMQ) Orlando Pizza Show.

Hopefully, the show was a great success for the many restaurateurs who were at the show, seeking the latest in equipment, operations techniques, food cost controls, employee scheduling software, building leasing, credit card processing, and everything else that owners, operators, and managers in the restaurant, bar, club, and foodservice industries need. We enjoyed meeting everyone who stopped at our booth!

TimeForge was presented to several thousand individuals interested in controlling labor costs, reducing turnover, and making their life easier by using scheduling and labor management systems.

We’d like to thank a few of the exhibiting companies who share a similar passion for the hospitality industry (ordered by physical proximity to our booth):

• Don Edward & Company (Don) , Everything but the food
• Finn Marketing Group , Cutting-edge restaurant equipment
• DinerWare , Feature rich POS systems for the right price
• FishBowl Marketing , The de-facto standard in hospitality e-mail marketing
• PMQ Magazine , Dedicated publications for the pizza industry

Additionally, we met with DinePoint, who had several representatives attending the show. Expect some news from TimeForge and DinePoint in the near future!

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.

Related articles or pages

• Texas Restaurant Association Show (Part 2) — 2008
• Off Topic: Inventory Managment for Restaurants
• Age and Brand Analysis of POS Systems in Foodservice
• Accuvia , Labor Scheduling Systems
• Western Food Expo is a wrap!

Lubbock, TX , August 10, 2007 , Stop wasting time on employee schedules! Labor scheduling, considered a necessary headache by most restaurant industry professionals, consumes between 3 and 8 hours of management time every week; time that can be better spent managing employees, attending customers, and servicing business needs. Today, the industry’s leading labor-scheduling company, TimeForge.com, announced that version 1.7 of the TimeForge software will be released at the 2007 Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo.

TimeForge’s latest version of the popular employee scheduling software continues to improve on the company’s conviction that scheduling must be as fast as possible so managers and employees can spend more time on the floor. TimeForge clients report that labor schedules can be built in less than 30 minutes, an 80% – 98% savings for many in the hospitality industry.

Western Food Expo has selected TimeForge for this year’s “Onsite New Product Gallery” and will showcase the new features of the software including an enhanced user interface, requests and availability, shift swapping among employees, significant AutoScheduler™ speed improvements, a superior report interface, as well as new time and attendance features. TimeForge has also improved the core of the product: scheduling and notifications. Managers gain more control of automatic schedule creation, and employees have greater flexibility with availability and schedule requests.

No more sticky-notes and no more scheduling spreadsheets! To be competitive in today’s market, electronic scheduling is a necessity. Visit TimeForge.com at the Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo, booth #2827, to see what you have been missing!

About TimeForge.com
TimeForge.com is the leading online employee scheduling software product. TimeForge provides immediate ROI benefits to the business while meeting the growing demands of the workforce. TimeForge.com is designed specifically for the hospitality and restaurant industries including restaurants (quick-service and table-service), hotels, catering, and other hospitality markets.

Related articles or pages

• TimeForge v2.4.5
• TimeForge Labor Management, a quick background ….
• Labor Scheduling at the TRA Show – 2008
• TimeForge Selected for the Western Food Expo Onsite New Product Gallery!
• Time For a Schedule Change

Earlier today TimeForge.com was selected for the 2007 Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo’s Onsite New Product Gallery. The online version of new gallery can be found here. TimeForge.com beat out almost 200 other products, and will be featured at the show as one of the top new products of the year! We are extremely excited about the selection and look forward to launching our latest version of TimeForge.com, version 1.7, at the tradeshow.

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.

Related articles or pages

• More of The New Features Coming for Version 1.7
• Western Food Expo is a wrap!
• Texas Restaurant Association Show (Part 2) — 2008
• Some of The New Features Coming for Version 1.7
• Product Mix Relating to Inventory Costs