Use Avero for Smart Scheduling
What reports can I use to make scheduling decisions based on data?
No matter which Avero solution you've signed up for, it delivers helpful tools to zero in on a functional and profitable schedule. This article shows some Sales, Labor, and Service reports that help inform dynamic schedules. Don't forget, these reports can be set up to run automatically and be delivered to your inbox each week.
Scheduling based on Sales
The most basic question most managers need to answer for scheduling is: How busy will we be?
Sales reports from Avero can help you forecast expected levels of business in two ways:
How busy were we last year? and How busy have we been lately?
How busy were we last year?
There are two easy ways to check business levels for last year: Calendar and Trend Report.
To check the Calendar navigate to the Calendar tab on the top:
The calendar will show you daily sales as well as the weather, any events that took place, and other metrics you can configure in Settings.
How busy have we been lately?
The Trend Report is your key to unlocking recent fluctuations in business to make sure you have enough staff without over-staffing. The trend report places each day's performance side by side with helpful information like weather, events, and an average for the included days.
Set your report generator to the business and metrics you'd like, and in the date box, select Trend:
Compare the last week or 10 days:
Or dive into the details and compare the last 10 Fridays to get your most likely needs for this Friday.
Each Friday will be listed individually, plus an average provided:
In the settings for a trend report, you can select to compare days, specific days of the week, weekend or weekday blocks, or entire weeks! The trend report defaults to ending yesterday (showing you the most recent data), but you can also set an ending date if you want to look at last month's or last year's data:
Sales by Hour - Adjust shifts based on business needs.
Under the Revenue Management tab (not available in the Starter subscriptions) review the sales by hour and adjust the start and ends times of your shifts or stagger the in-times of employees to match your business volume.
Make your business and date selections and then indicate how narrow a time period you'd like to view; for scheduling, we recommend the 30-minute view.
These sales are based on the time items were entered into the POS instead of check open and close time, so you get an accurate picture of when guests in your restaurant need service. You can also review the Item Sales by Hour report if you want to dive into beverage sales for bartender scheduling or dessert sales to know when the grade manger shift should end to avoid overtime:
Labor Reports for Scheduling
Labor reports are most commonly used to review and evaluate labor costs after the fact, but using productivity metrics can help you proactively reduce labor expenses while still driving revenue. Instead of only looking at the labor spend in dollars or a percentage of sales, look at how many covers can be served per employee to know that if you expect 200 covers on Friday you'll need 6 servers on the floor because they average 30ish covers each or that your kitchen staff can manage 50 covers per labor hour.
Make your selections and choose the job class you are looking for. Then select appropriate productivity metrics. You can read more about all of the metrics available here: Metrics Glossary
For evaluating Back of House employees, Covers or Checks per Weekly FTE (Full Time Employee) gives you an idea of how many customers or tables you kitchen can handle. Use this to manage your reservation book's capacity or adjust the kitchen schedule based on bookings.
For evaluating Front of House employees, Checks per Weekly FTE help you know how many tables a server can handle in their section and Gross Sales per Weekly FTE can show you how much sales you can expect them to generate.
Service Reports for Scheduling
See also: Schedule for Profit
Service Summary
The most basic service report is the service summary, which provides an at-a-glance evaluation of your service team's strengths and variation. Compare apples to apples by looking at one meal period and narrowing the report to only servers or only bartenders:
See your top and bottom performers and sort by check average or turn time to find the best fit for each employee:
Party Size Report
Understanding which servers perform best with different party sizes can help decide which section to schedule them for or create priority for serving events. Run a Party Size Report to view servers' check averages by party size. A server whose highest check averages are 2-tops will perform well for you in a cozy section of small tables but may not deliver high sales when they are struggling to command large booths in the back or an event room.