The Scenario.
It doesn’t take much to figure out – a server sends a few orders to the kitchen, bar or barista and then - once the customers pays for the bill – they void a few items to reduce the bill total then close it, pocketing the change. This can have a massive impact on the profitability of a business.
Metrix.
Sometimes servers need to void when a client doesn’t accept the product or makes a big mistake – that being said, this should not happen often as it costs owners money to prepare a product for a client only to get it wasted. To that end, when reviewing your Higgins e-mails or report app, verify that voids should be lower than 1 to 2% - if they are around 3 to 5%, some training is required. Anything above 6% generally involves theft – we have seen numbers go as high at 11% and then get reduced to 1% by diligent owners using Higgins.
Solutions.
The key is that you can’t steal what you can’t see. Higgins limits the information that managers and servers see to only the sales. Void data is absent from the POS system that staff use and can only be found in the owner report app or the daily sales emails that Higgins sends every morning. In this way, owners can view the voids – even down to the detail of which items were voided and by whom.
Servers and managers have no idea how much is voided – this prohibits them from easily gaming the system as they have to memorize the voids they made to pocket the money.
Any discrepancy in the amount they take from the cash may be found when the float is counted. This gets them scared to play around with the system. This system has found amazing success in a wide spectrum of businesses - some of the data is shown above - voids were recorded in the initial time period that Higgins was implemented and then calculated a few months or more after use of the POS system.
Owners see the void details via e-mail every day or real-time using the report app and react instantly to make sure the voids are minimized. It's this unprecedented visibility for the owners coupled with staff and managers having access to only the data they need to cash-out without any access to critical business information that makes this strategy an effective one-two punch to drastically reduce voids and theft. This is one way that technology and process can help owners get the last laugh - all the way to the bank.
