Daily Administration Spreadsheets Build Consistent Restaurant Management Systems

Did you know the key to building consistent restaurant management systemS starts with a simple group of spreadsheets that only take about 15 minutes a day to complete? And did you know that if you don't track this data, you're most likely losing money? Let’s talk about these spreadsheets and what they do for your business and your ability to run a consistent operation.

To run a profitable restaurant, one that doesn't require you, the restaurant owner, to be in it 24-7, and have managers who can run the business for you your way, you need to start with implementing a very specific group of spreadsheets. These spreadsheets allow you to share the tasks, free you up to lead your restaurant versus working in it, and track key data to help you build consistent restaurant management systems.

Here are five daily admin Google Sheets I provide my members as an example of what you need to have in place to achieve these goals.

1. Sales Forecast Generator: You need a spreadsheet that allows you to take past data, whether last month or the same month last year that you want to forecast for. Simply copy and paste data and add a target sales figure for that upcoming month so it automatically shows you what your sales are by day. These numbers are extremely important for other systems. This forecast drives all of your systems that are proactive: how many servers, how many bussers, how many cooks, how many prep cooks, how many cashiers and drivers do you need each day of the week in order to be on budget? How much food, bottled beer, draught beer, wine, liquor do you need to order this week to have enough product but not too much product for next week?
2. Daily Sales Report Tracker: I call this the DSR. Your POS system prints off a daily sales report that tells you what your sales are, but it's important your DSR tracker tracks the right data. For example, you want to track gross sales by category, not net sales. You want to know your comps so you know how much less cash to expect. You want to know your accounts payable, such as gift cards sold or catering deposits, so you know how much more cash to expect. And this tells you exactly based on your sales minus your discounts plus those accounts payable, such as sales tax collected, how much money you should expect to bring in. Then the other side of that equation is how did the money come in: cash in bank, MasterCard, Visa, Discover, and it gives you your over/short. This does two things: it allows you to hold your management team accountable to make sure every penny makes it to the bank. You know what your over/short should be based on your servers being over or even and your bartenders over and under $5 per set of hands. Plus, it gives you your gross sales figures to run those proactive systems so you know how much food you can buy, how much bottled beer, draught beer, wine, liquor and where is your labor tracking?
3. Invoice Log: I always suggest you have software to handle your cost of goods sold, but even if you do, the challenge is services that enter or process your invoices for you are often one to three days behind. When it comes to the proactive ordering system to know how much you can order for your next order, you need an invoice log that summarizes the bottom of the invoice, which is how much food, how much janitorial paper and so on. That way when that food invoice comes in and it has multiple categories of product on there, you're only tracking the food portion to allow you to proactively manage to order properly.
4. Paid Out Tracker. This spreadsheet is the sister spreadsheet to the Invoice Log. If you run to the store for tomatoes and also buy printer paper, you want to make sure that not only are you controlling your cash, which that paid out goes into that DSR tracker, but you know how much of that receipt was food. That gives you an accurate food cost and ordering system.
5. Manager Log: Whether it's a Google spreadsheet, built into software, a Microsoft tool or Slack, using anything that communicates is incredibly important because it keeps your managers on the same page, whether they've been there or not for a day, two or three. It makes sure everybody's informed. Subjects to cover include employee issues and tasks that need to be done from getting the lady’s room commode fixed to calling somebody about the refrigerator temperature fluctuating. Anything that happens in the restaurant that other managers should know about should go in the Manager Log.

These five systems are so critical and so easy to do. The most amazing thing about these sheets is that they only take about 15 minutes to complete each day, and they're completed by your management team, not you.

Tracking this data on a daily basis puts you on your way to using restaurant management systems such as the Restaurant Checkbook Guardian, which allows you to give up ordering without giving up your checkbook, and calculating your food and beverage costs, managing all your cost of goods sold by category because you need to know what your sales and purchases are. These daily admin systems set you up for the Restaurant Labor Guardian, which like the restaurant Checkbook Guardian, tells your managers how to stay within budget for labor based on your forecasted sales and your budget targets and what you did last week.

These are just some of the major systems those five spreadsheets set you up to use these bigger systems to make real change in your business and make the money you deserve.

If you would like to learn how to own a restaurant that doesn't depend on you being in it to be successful, sign up for my free video course that teaches you three key principles to running a successful restaurant. If you're ready right now to make some serious changes in your restaurant, you can also book a 60-minute call with me where we talk about your challenges and figure out exactly what is holding you back from having a restaurant that doesn’t depend on you being in it to be successful. 

Be sure to visit my YouTube channel for more helpful restaurant management video tips.