Why and How to Invest in Technology for Financial Efficiency in Restaurants

With modern tech revolutionizing every industry, restaurant owners must keep up or risk falling behind the competition. Modern tech solutions are taking restaurants forward, from advanced robotic solutions that are automating food packing to software solutions enhancing front and back office efficiency.

This is a good thing, and it’s an opportunity for restaurants of all sizes to stay competitive in a fast-paced, overinflated market. Nowadays, new restaurants, ghost kitchens, and virtual food brands are popping up at every corner, making our industry the most competitive it has ever been.

Using the right tech is the way to reduce financial waste and elevate financial efficiency in the coming years. Here’s how to do it. 

Consolidating tech into a comprehensive solution

First, it’s important to remember that tech integration shouldn’t break the bank, nor does it mean you need many tools to run your restaurant efficiently. Many restaurants make the mistake of overinvesting in new software and even hardware solutions without first analyzing their needs, goals, and focus areas.

For example, one of the major focus areas for any growth-oriented restaurant would be to consolidate its tech and use a solution to seamlessly aggregate orders and automate processes. Deliverect is the all-in-one solution that seamlessly reduces all online orders in your POS, manages your menu on the fly, tracks essential analytics, and much more.

To drive efficiency forward, especially if you’re running multiple sales channels for your restaurant, you must have a unified overview of all incoming orders. That’s where simplicity and consolidation come into play.

Always aim for a lean tech operation where you use only a handful of critical tools that provide as much bang for your buck as possible. 

Utilizing smarter financial tracking 

Wise financial management is the key to success. So it’s not just about how much your restaurant is making or how much you’re selling. It’s also about how you’re managing your expenses and how you’re tracking all finances throughout the year.

Financial monitoring and meticulous analysis are the foundational pillars of data-driven decision-making in this business, which will give you your competitive edge. It all starts with the right accounting software that will provide you with a comprehensive overview of your accounts receivable and accounts payable, along with detailed reports.

Your reports can be very granular, but they should also be on the macro scale, such as seasonal and annual reports, allowing you to identify cash flow trends in your business.

Use fully accounting-friendly software, which your accountants can use for bookkeeping, tax preparation, financial management, and more. The software should cater to your needs as the decision maker and your accounting expert. 

Using technology to manage labor costs

Let’s be honest—everything is becoming more expensive. From logistics, food, packaging, equipment, and compliance to labor, training, and talent retention, restaurant owners desperately seek ways to cut their expenses.

The solution to building better financial efficiency and stability is not always to raise your prices. That course of action isn’t sustainable and is not good for your brand’s reputation.

You can focus on managing your restaurant labor costs to benefit your business and your employees. This means that the answer isn’t to cut down on staff but better to manage your workflow, staff, and processes.

Make sure to:

• Automate your POS and order aggregation.

• Delegate tasks according to their value and employee rank.

• Reschedule staff regularly to avoid being under or overstaffed.

• Minimize employee turnover and maximize retention.

• Invest in staff training to improve productivity and efficiency.

Remember that while good tech exists to empower your staff and maximize their value, it’s not there to replace them. It would be best if you had good, trained workers to push your brand forward.

Improving efficiency on the e-commerce side

With restaurants increasingly adopting an online presence, properly managing the E-commerce aspect of your business is more important now than ever for revenue growth and building your competitive edge.

From social media ordering to online food platforms and marketplaces, there are many ways to capitalize on your online presence and boost your revenue. That said, the E-commerce aspect of restaurant management can significantly drain your human and financial resources if you’re trying to do it all yourself.

You definitely should have a presence on social media, but you should leverage the power of your customers to boost your brand while reducing your marketing expenses. Be sure to start focusing on user-generated content.

User-generated content is everything from positive reviews and five-star ratings to photos and videos of people enjoying your food or talking about the experience they had with your brand. Engage enough people to create more of this kind of content, and you’ll reduce your marketing expenses, which you can divert to other areas of your business.

Improving onboarding to minimize financial waste

Lastly, while you can minimize turnover, you can’t prevent it. When looking for new employees and hiring new people, you need to have a strong hiring and onboarding process to avoid financial waste.

All of this starts with hiring tracking that will help you automate and accelerate candidate sourcing, interviewing, follow-ups, and other essential processes. Once you’ve sourced your ideal candidates, you can start hiring and onboarding them in their roles.

For cost-effective onboarding, you must have a straightforward process for every position. It would be best if you also had the right onboarding tech to make it easier. For example, consider creating a new-hire resource center.

This can be a self-help database they can use when they’re stuck, or it can even be an AI-driven chatbot that can answer their questions, making their work more efficient.

Over to you

The restaurant industry is becoming more competitive than ever, but that doesn’t mean that small businesses or up-and-coming brands can’t build long-term success and stability. There’s more opportunity for growth every year–but you need to modernize and invest in the tech that will take you forward. 

With these tips, make smart, strategic tech integrations to ensure steady growth and retain your competitive edge in 2024 and beyond.