Project map – planning and Food Service system configuration

While Salesware’s Table Service Food and Beverage and Quick Service Food and Beverage sub-modules include several features designed to simplify system configuration, taking the time to plan carefully prior to actually setting up the system makes configuration substantially easier.

Click here for a configuration matrix to aid you in the planning process; you definitely want to use this to guide you before you dive into system setup. For a general overview, see below for a basic guide to what information you need to know and what steps you want to take, to ensure you are taking the path of least resistance in setting up your system.

• You want to define where salespoints are located and, even more importantly for system configuration, whether you are using remote printers (such as kitchen printers for ordering food). Whether or not you have installed or even purchased these printers yet, you assign a number to each of them to designate which printer is which. When you start setting up your system, you can specify that certain items print to certain printers and you select those printers by number.

2. Review your menu. Scrutinize it for possibilities. Think like a customer. Then review it again.

• You’re looking for a number of different pieces of information when you review your menu. Some of this information includes:

• What choices does a customer have when ordering any given item? Are there “sides” associated with some menu items? Can the customer make substitutions for certain items or menu elements?

• How do you want these choices to be presented to your servers? Does the system remind them to select certain options when putting in an order? Does the system in fact require the server to make these choices when putting an order into the system?

• Do certain menu items have the exact same choices associated with them as other menu items?

• What prices are associated with the menu? Do the choices or substitutions a customer requests require an additional charge?

• What discounts might be available with various menu items?

• What profit centers are associated with the sale of your menu items?

• What taxes are associated with the sale of your menu items?

All the “choices” mentioned above are designated as “modifiers” in the Salesware system. Modifiers are used to indicate the selections available to a customer as they order a menu item. An example of a modifier is “Swiss Cheese,” which might modify the menu item “Ham Sandwich.”

Modifiers can be further labeled with “Pre-Mods,” such as “NO” or “SUB,” to further reflect the desires of the customer ordering the menu item. If the ham sandwich regularly comes with cheddar cheese, a customer might want to SUB SWISS CHEESE and the server needs a method to specify this when entering the order into the system.

You also want to consider grouping similar modifiers together into categories (such as dressings, sauces, cheese, cooking temperatures, etc.) This makes them easier to locate as you’re assigning them to menu items during system configuration.

All these options need to be considered prior to your setting up the software. You want to consider these options in this order: pre-mods, modifiers (with any associated pricing options), and then items.