Protect Profits Initiative: Reduce Theft, Fraud, and Abuse with Smart Searches
Recipe: 20 Minutes + Any Subscription
Let us walk you through it step by step: Protect Profits: Smart Searches
Log into Avero in another tab, then click the link to launch a step-by-step guide to using Smart Searches.
Avero's Check Search
The Check Search tool is commonly used to reprint checks or export them to PDF to email to a customer, but there's an added benefit to Avero's Check Search that is free to all customers - and a huge time saver!
Avero's Smart Searches are focused on areas where we commonly see poor staff behavior. This may indicate staff making mistakes due to negligence, sections that are too large, or actual fraud and theft. Let's take a look at each type of Smart Search:
- Promotions Searches:
- Promotions, Comps, Discounts - these are meant to promote the guest experience. They may be intended to reward regulars, drive traffic, or round out the guest experience. Promotions should require a manager to apply but even then they can be misused or overused outside the business intention.
- The available Promotion, or Comp, focused searches are:
- All Checks with promotions: This is an easy way to bring up every check with a promotion for the time period. Best for a single day and a specific interest.
- Promotions + Cash Payments: Are these legitimate promotions? Find out at a glance, some scams involve having a comp or promotion applied after a guest has paid in cash, and the server pockets the extra money - which should be your revenue!
- Promotions + Payment = 0: Checks that were completely comped. How often does your restaurant legitimately offer a Full Comp?
- Voids Searches:
- Voids should be error corrections that didn't incur a cost - meaning the items were not made. If your Cost of Goods Sold is higher than it should be or your Check Average or Revenue suddenly dips - you may have a problem with void misuse.
- The main Void focused searches are:
- All Checks with Voids: This is an easy way to bring up every check with a void for the time period. Best for a single day and a specific interest.
- Voids+ Cash Payments: Are these legitimate voids? Find out at a glance - some scams involve having an item voided to reduce the check total after a guest has already paid.
- Voids + Payment = 0: Checks that were completely voided. Is the team running a "Void tab" where they split off errors to be blindly voided by the manager at the night's end? Spot Check these types of checks for legitimacy
- All checks with irregular cover counts or average check - this is a pre-filtered list of checks that stand away from your averages so you don't need to run a service report and manually add average check or cover count filters; this one click will do it all. We recommend checking this smart search often, it helps spotlight errors (such as entering 80 covers when the correct amount was 8) that might be affecting sales reports or team average check. It may include things such as large to-go orders that were closed out to 1 cover, banquet or private dining events where the average check was unusually high/low, or deliberate under-/over-reporting of cover counts.
What do you notice?
Look for patterns:
- Do you see a lot of comps for the same table? Guests may have problems more frequently here.
- Does a particular staff member appear far more frequently than others?
- Use the scroll bar to scroll right and view the promotion types - are some promotions dominating this list?
Create a Habit
Use this feature regularly to keep tabs and follow up on your findings. Make sure your team is properly trained in how to handle promotions and voids so they serve the business and take action on any malfeasance you may uncover!