Hey, I'm Sean from Open Pantry company and this is the prep list.

This week we're talking about something that sits in the heart of every modern venue, but often gets ignored until it's too late.

Your POS system.

Whether you're on square, lightspeed, shipdate, abacus, there's so many out there, the question is the same.

Is your POS actually helping your business or quietly costing you money and and momentum?

So the trend to watch for this week, over the last couple of years, point of sale systems have evolved massively.

They're no longer just cash registers with screens.

They're now integrated hubs for inventory, loyalty, rostering, ordering, even marketing.

And that's the problem to some degree, because with every new feature there's more complexity and more from your team to learn.

I've been in venues where the point of sale can do amazing things, but half the features aren't even turned on or used correctly.

Or worse, they've been switched on without training.

So staff work around them instead of with them.

Here's the good thing.

A good point of sale should do three jobs really well.

Speed up service.

So thinking fewer taps, faster transactions, help you sell more prompts for upsells, have a clear product visibility and give you data you can actually act on.

Daily, weekly, monthly reports that actually influence decisions.

And if yours isn't doing those three things, it's not a tool, it's a liability.

And in a tight margin environment, that is the last thing you need.

Here's how to run a quick but powerful POS audit in your venue this week.

Step one, staff feedback.

Ask your front of house and back of house teams what works, what doesn't and what slows them down.

Step two, the feature usage check.

If you're paying for modules or features you don't actually use, like loyalty table mapping or advanced reporting.

Step three, what I call the three minute test.

Hand the point of sale to a new casual employee and see if they can take an order without guidance from you.

That's an interesting little tip.

Step four, upsell prompts.

See if your system is actually reminding staff about high margin add ons or if they have to remember it on their own.

And step five, the final step, reporting reality.

Pull your five top reports and ask yourself when's the last time these actually influence a decision in our business?

Here's the top five again.

Look for staff feedback.

Look at the features that you actually use.

Do the three minute test with someone in your team.

That's new.

Focus on those upsell prompts and look at the reports that you actually use.

The goal here isn't to get rid of your point of sale, far from it.

I know how hard it is to do that in a hospitality business.

It's to make sure it's earning its place in your business every single day.

Because otherwise, what is the point The Operator Move for this week we worked with a cafe that we wanted to boost upselling but was constantly in the weeds.

During peak service.

The point of sale had upsell functionality but it was buried in three different scarings.

We stripped the layout back, we moved the high margin add ons to the top and created a single tap make it a combo button for their lunch menu.

Within two weeks their upsells increased, their average transaction rose and because of this they also had faster service.

So everything else improved as well.

Sometimes it's not about the new tech, it's about using the tech you already have better.

On the flip side, I've seen multiple multi site groups pay for their top tier point of sale with every feature under the sun.

It's literally cost them thousands a month across all their venues.

The problem with this sometimes is that staff were still handwriting orders during busy periods.

Inventory tools weren't properly set up so stock levels were always wrong giving inconsistent data.

And the data actually being pulled was inconsistent between the sites so they couldn't compare performance accurately.

They were paying for the idea of efficiency, but in reality they slowed down and lost the trust of their own reports.

After a full review, they scaled back to a simpler plan, retrained the team and focused on the features that actually use.

Suddenly the system felt like a help and not a hindrance.

This is basically what we do when we go into a venue and do a tech audit.

We will look at every single bucket that you're using with inside your business.

And before we say move on to another product, we want to make sure that you're using that tool properly first before we tell you to change 10 question for the Week this week ask your team what is one thing you wish our point of sale did better?

And here's the follow up to that question.

If you could do that tomorrow, how would it change your shift?

The answers will tell you what's slowing them down and where to focus on the next upgrade or training session.

Your point of sale is the heartbeat of your venue.

If it's not set up to serve you, it's silently working against you.

So do the audit, have the conversations.

And remember, sometimes we have to slow down before we speed up.

Stripping back, simplifying and training well will do more for your business than chasing every shiny new feature.

That's your prep list for this week and if this episode's hit home with you, share it with those that you know in the hospitality industry.

We'd love to get your feedback and see what you think about it, so leave us a review and a rating.

It'd be awesome.

And if you haven't connected with us before, you'll see all the links to connect with us in the show notes of this podcast so you can talk about your new startup venue, your existing venue, and how to make it better, or any recruitment that you need around the country.

We're doing a lot of that as well.

Until next week, we'll see you on the prep list.