6 Must-Have Restaurant Reports To Keep You On Track In 2022

The first month into the year 2022, we are already excited to have you onboard as part of the biggest quick commerce enablement in the fast-paced online ordering system and retail goods industry using Blink for Restaurants.

At Blink, it’s all about empowering our business partners with a technology stack that positions you as the driving force behind every scalability operation. Therefore, goodbye spreadsheets and hello automation.

Speaking of automation, our robust business intelligence dashboard, logistics, and marketing-related data panels work as a dynamic trio for online restaurants looking to push beyond boundaries. With that in mind, we will talk about one particular aspect of online restaurant management systems – it’s the must-have reports to keep you on track.

Which Restaurant Reports To Keep You On Track Are Worth It?

Assuming that you have already signed up for a vendor account on any restaurant management services platform, you know that the reports section in your backend account is essential to pinpoint many things.

These reports are like digital snapshots; laden with all the necessary information regarding:

• The overall financial health of your online restaurant business
• vs. max customer retention efficiency by different filter options
• Cumulative sales data
• Digital food menu’s most purchased & user-intent combined items

You also get insight into advanced reports where labor spending, marketing campaigns scalability, and many different options can be explored.

Restaurant reporting is a complicated activity unless and until it is automated.

We commend your dedication if you prefer going through manual entries over a long paper trail each week. But manual reporting and monitoring restaurant activities also mean that you are spending a lot of extra time, which can be spent elsewhere to expand your business.

In that order, online restaurant management systems are already set up so that report management doesn’t take more than an hour or less on your part.

Blink incorporates an all-in-one integrated restaurant management system where reports are just part of the overall technology that we offer businesses. We’ll be going through different must-have reports to keep you on track.

Also, our powerful dashboard is segmented into different sections so that there’s no information overload for you. This was done to ensure that revelations and comprehension of each aspect of your online restaurant report are not hard to come by. Here are six must-have restaurant reports to keep you on track.

1. Sales Reports

Sales data is the most obvious for doubling down on must-have restaurant reports to keep you on track.

Ideally, these reports should highlight quarterly, monthly, and weekly sales stats if the situation calls for it. For this very reason, our sales data dashboard always shows numbers fluctuating over different filter options where you can get the revenue breakdown into overall online ordering performance.

2. Best Selling Items

Which item, or items, in particular, sold at an all-time high level over any given time?

The business intelligence aspect of the must-have restaurant reports to keep you on track comes in. With Blink, restaurant owners have direct access to Microsoft Power Bi reports; it’s an on-request add-on available without any extra charges.

Which item was most combined with a burger, or which is a particularly “odd” looking menu combination is something your customers usually go for? With Power Bi, you can effectively review menu sales in an item-by-item order. These reports showcase customer-side preferences during order checkout for precise and efficient menu performance. Which item was most combined with a burger, or which is a particularly “odd” looking menu combination is something your customers usually go for?

This item combination and sales breakdown level further play a vital role in restaurant online menu optimization. We have already discussed restaurant menu optimization in our previous blog posts on a separate note. However, it was a one-off discussion since we didn’t mention how important backend Microsoft Power Bi reports are in this process.

For a more efficient estimate of your restaurant performance, always ensure a dedicated sales report section for menu-only performance stats. You can also pitch your upcoming promotions and discount campaigns accordingly.

3. SMS Campaigns + Relevant Reports

SMS campaigns are a Blink exclusive feature where you can pay for different SMS plans against a text message bucket purchasable directly from the Blink Portal. This way, you can broadcast one-way restaurant messages to all the customers in your customer data reports section and any other contacts imported through a simple CSV file.

We have talked about SMS packages in other blog posts before. Therefore, we will only be talking about the reports aspect of the duo. Customer contact details, such as their phone numbers, are only available if they have a verified order with you before. This data is maintained in a dedicated repository, where you can take a quick look over the raw data set.

As quick commerce enablement advocates, we do not own your customer data. This is to empower you and enable control on your part to throttle hyper-growth without any string attached. The important question is, what else can you use this data for? The possibilities are endless, where each one is a league on its own.

4. Promo Code Reports

Restaurant management system users have access to a cheeky little function where promo codes can be easily created. Blink also offers this system to anyone looking to execute restaurant marketing campaigns or loyalty programs on an intermittent break.

These promo codes are part of a list format that can help see conversions, unused vs. used codes, etc. This system is part of the must-have restaurant reports to keep you on track in 2022.

5. Table Reservation & Wait Times

Turning tables takes an entirely different meaning when relying on a reports dashboard in a restaurant management system.

This section is imperative to the reports to keep you on track in 2022 for restaurant businesses. You can review daily reservations alongside average wait times and much more. Many software highlight last-minute cancel requests, dropouts, and such scenarios too. This way, you can use these reports to adjust other customers who have been in the wait queue.

Depending on your restaurant management platform, your reports may also show the software’s quoted wait time vs. the actual length of the wait time. This feature isn’t necessary, but when it integrates with reports to keep you on track in 2022, you can give your dine-in customers accurate updates on wait times.

6. Online Orders Reports

Online orders are part of the normalcy culture for any restaurant operating these days.

Since the COVID-19 situation, there has been an upward spike in the online order trend worldwide. They are a consistent source of revenue for your restaurant. As you may have guessed, online order reports are also an important part of the must-have restaurant reports to keep you on track.

Simple sales reports normally don’t cut it because they may or may not highlight the order source. With that in mind, reports are solely for pinpointing customer orders that take place directly on your food ordering app or online.

These reports also orchestrate the requirements for deploying additional resources needed for leveraging online ordering at any point during restaurants’ operations.

What Else Is Part of The Must-Have Reports To Keep You On Track In 2022?

Although the aforementioned feature-wise breakdown of a restaurant management system’s report section is great, we need something else to keep it all spinning.

How about a dash of daily and weekly reports on the side?

We believe in developing a daily reports section that you can customize as per your restaurant’s specific requirements. You can set up short-term KPIs for your business through daily reports, which is great to assume a proactive approach.

In this sense, the key drivers in this hyper-growth conundrum are:

• Daily Sales: How many sales did your restaurant makeover the last 24 hour time window?

You should be able to get a complete item-by-item breakdown of the sales. This is important because beverage and food cost is not the same.

• Daily Labor Charges: Given that you have hired on-site employees as contractors to work in your restaurant. Their daily labor charges need to be paid. This section of the report also helps determine whether nor not to place fixed hours.
• Cleaning Service: Depending on how large your restaurant is, cleaning services take a 5% chunk out of your restaurant’s daily revenue. These charges stack up by the end of each month.

What’s Your Stance On The Must-Have Restaurant Reports?

We would love to get your opinion on different reports that make managing a restaurant a slightly less arduous task. If you think that we missed something in this post, let us know through the comments section.

We look forward to hearing from you.