While guests are the focus of the hospitality industry, restaurants can’t delight guests without all of the things they do behind the scenes to keep the business running. TouchBistro’s POS-integrated kitchen display system, profit management solution, and staff management integration help you keep things moving by putting the back of the-house (BOH) front and center. These back of house solutions are designed to help you control costs, run your kitchen more efficiently, and streamline operations, all without breaking a sweat.
Want to learn more? In this guide to TouchBistro’s back of house solutions, you’ll:
- Learn why you need back of house tech
- Get a complete list of TouchBistro’s back of house solutions
Why Do You Need Back of House Tech?
You already know how to keep your restaurant running like a well-oiled machine, but there are always opportunities to make your operations more efficient. With back of house software, your team can check common tasks off the to-do list faster, work more efficiently, and make fewer mistakes. Here’s how.
When front of house vs back of house communication relies on manual means, such as writing order tickets, mistakes are inevitable. These mistakes can result in customers waiting a long time to receive orders, leaving diners disgruntled, and potentially never coming back. A back of house solution, like a kitchen display system, minimizes communication errors and gives customers the flawless experience they expect.
Another common pain point for the BOH is manual inventory tracking. It can be difficult and time-consuming for restaurateurs to stay on top of fluctuating food costs, which makes it harder to maximize recipes for profitability. However, with restaurant operations management tools, you can track fluctuating food prices around the clock and achieve your target profit margins.
Speaking of clocks, managing staff is one of the most time-consuming BOH functions. Not only does creating labor-law-compliant staff schedules take a long time, but making changes on the fly and communicating them to staff is also challenging. However, when you’re equipped with a two-in-one staff communication and scheduling tool, you can automate scheduling, avoid compliance violations with built-in compliance monitoring, and instantly alert staff to changes.
The bottom line is that back of house tech makes restaurants more efficient and profitable, while ultimately improving the guest experience.
TouchBistro’s Back of House Solutions
TouchBistro has everything you need to run an efficient back of house, including TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Powered by Fresh, TouchBistro Profit Management Powered by MarginEdge, and the TouchBistro and 7shifts Staff Scheduling Integration.
Here’s an overview of how each of these solutions works together to keep your back of house running smoothly.
TouchBistro Kitchen Display System
Say goodbye to manual order tickets, communication errors, slow service, and paper waste with TouchBistro Kitchen Display System (KDS) Powered by Fresh.
How Does the KDS Work?
When an employee inputs an order into your POS or a customer places an order via online ordering, it’s automatically routed to your KDS. As soon as a ticket is sent from the POS, it appears on the KDS, providing an instant line of communication between front of house and back of house staff.
These digital order tickets appear on screens throughout your kitchen, allowing BOH staff to see how long tickets have been open, what’s left to fulfill, and more.
KDS Features
TouchBistro KDS’ features are designed to help you increase sales, deliver a great guest experience, and save time and money.
POS integration helps you speed up service and turn tables faster to make more money by instantly sending orders from the POS to the KDS, so BOH staff can begin preparing them immediately. And with offline mode, your KDS keeps receiving orders even without the internet.
Real-time reports help you further improve efficiency by identifying bottlenecks, speeding up order times, and highlighting cost savings. You’ll also save money by using TouchBistro’s commercial grade hardware, which is designed to last and to withstand all the heat, falls, and spills that come with day-to-day use.
Finally, the KDS accelerates service with audible alerts so you never miss a ticket and reduces errors with ticket routing capabilities that help you deliver orders with the speed and quality customers expect.
KDS Benefits
Kitchens equipped with TouchBistro KDS enjoy:
- Improved FOH and BOH communication
- Faster service
- Improved order accuracy
- Reduced paper waste
- Easier management of orders from various sources
TouchBistro Profit Management
Just as crucial as the KDS is your back office tech. TouchBistro Profit Management Powered by MarginEdge is POS-integrated back of house software that helps restaurants streamline operations, uncover opportunities, and maximize profitability.
How Does Profit Management Work?
TouchBistro Profit Management integrates with the TouchBistro POS by pulling sales and labor data nightly, then connecting with leading accounting software and inventory suppliers to help streamline your restaurant’s entire back office operation. In short, it puts your financial puzzle pieces together and helps you make sense of them so you can better manage your bottom line.
Profit Management Features
Just like TouchBistro KDS, TouchBistro Profit Management’s features were made to help you increase revenue, delight customers, and improve efficiency.
Custom email alerts let you know when ingredient prices have gone up so you can make adjustments to your menu that maximize margins, while data-driven menu analysis reveals what’s selling well so you can avoid running out of popular items in the middle of service. Plus, multi-location management tools help you deliver a consistent experience from location to location.
Finally, automated invoice processing, unlimited bill payments (U.S. only), and a seamless accounting integration allow you to manage your entire back office operation faster with – no manual data entry required.
Profit Management Benefits
Restaurants that use TouchBistro Profit Management enjoy:
- Streamlined inventory management
- Opportunities to maximize profits
- Ability to track and manage food costs
- Fewer costly errors
- Greater visibility into spending
- Consistency across different locations
“TouchBistro Profit Management Powered by MarginEdge took four hours of bookkeeping per day down to literally 15 minutes.”
– Chris Lorusso, Managing Partner of Sweetwater Sports Bar & Grill, Lake Wylie, SC
TouchBistro and 7shifts Staff Scheduling Integration
The final piece in the back of house puzzle is your staff management solution. TouchBistro integrates with 7shifts, an all-in-one team management solution built just for restaurants, to help you and your team simplify BOH operations.
How Does the 7shifts Integration Work?
7shifts integrates with your TouchBistro POS to access your sales and labor data. It leverages this data to automate staff scheduling based on forecasted demand, weather, and other factors.
7shifts also comes with a mobile app for staff communication that your team can use to request time off, pick up shifts, swap shifts, and more.
7shifts Staff Scheduling Features
You can think of 7shifts as your general manager’s sidekick. Every feature is designed to make back of house operations more seamless.
For instance, 7shifts’ labor law compliance features, like overtime and break alerts, help you avoid costly fines and keep your team doing their best work.
Meanwhile, real-time sales reporting improves efficiency by letting you keep a pulse on the business, while real-time labor reporting helps you make on-the-fly decisions.
Plus, automated scheduling saves you time and takes forecasted demand, historic sales data, and even the weather forecast into account to help you staff as accurately as possible and save money.
7shifts Benefits
Restaurants that use TouchBistro’s 7shifts integration have:
- Saved 3% on labor costs
- Reduced staff scheduling time by 80%
- Streamlined staff communication by reducing calls and texts by 70%
- Increased staff retention by 13%
“7shifts has been a pretty big asset in controlling labor costs, scheduling, and things like clocking in and clocking out. It allows our staff to use 7shifts to do all their scheduling on their end. From a business perspective, we love how it’s tied in with the sales data from the POS so we can combine our labor costs and make sure that that’s staying in line with what our revenue is doing.”
– Tod Whipple, Owner of Ichiban Sushi, Gainesville, FL
The right technology can take your BOH operation – and your whole restaurant – to the next level. Back of house solutions empower your team to work more efficiently, delight guests, and generate more sales.
Katherine is the Content Marketing Manager at TouchBistro, where she writes about trending topics in food and restaurants. The opposite of a picky eater, she’ll try (almost) anything at least once. Whether it’s chowing down on camel burgers in Morocco or snacking on octopus dumplings in Japan, she’s always up for new food experiences.
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