Promos & Voids FAQ

Frequently asked questions about Avero's Promos & Voids Section - reporting on promotions, comps, and voids.

Jump to:

• What is the Promos & Voids section?
• What is the ROI?
• What is the difference between a promotion and a void?
• How can I track down the source of suspicious voids or promotions?
• Why are my House Charges / House Accounts not showing on the Promotion/Void reports?

What is the Promos & Voids section?

Promos and Voids is a powerful, easy-to-use solution that helps you manage loss in your business. This module reveals unfavorable trends with one click to see who, what, and how payments, promotions, and voids are being used so you can take quick action and save money.

By utilizing Promotions & Voids, you will have access to a number of reports, such as the following:

• Available in our Essentials and Professional subscriptions:
  • Promotion Summary
  • Void Summary
  • Group Promos & Voids
• Only available in Professional subscriptions:
  • Promotion Detail
  • Void Detail

What is the ROI?

Promotions and voids are one of the easiest ways for servers to steal from a restaurant. Tracking each promotion and void allows you to easily catch possible sources of theft or loss of time. The ROI lies in finding potential sources of loss and taking action to eliminate them. 

What is the difference between a promotion and a void?

Promotions

A promotion is any transaction where a cost is incurred for the business but is not fully paid for by the customer. This is also sometimes referred to as a comp. 

Example: giving a VIP guest a free bottle of wine is considered a promotion or giving a client 50% off all cocktails during happy hour.

All promotions are factored into gross sales and can be seen as % of gross sales, but are factored out of net sales.

Voids

A void does not incur a cost.

Example: a void could be an item that is ordered but then canceled before it is made and therefore incurs no loss.  

A void is not factored into gross or net sales because it does not have any monetary value attached to it. Voids can be tracked to identify moments where time is being wasted.  

How can I track down the source of suspicious voids or promotions?

The best way to track down a possible source of theft from a particular employee is to run a Promotion Summary Report.  Report on the preceding 3 months of business.  By running this report,  you can drill down to see the following:

• which employee has the greatest number of promotions
• the greatest dollar amount in promotions
• the greatest number of checks with a promotion
• select an employee to examine each of his/her promotions to examine if he/she has been abusing promotions.

You can also identify possible theft by examining trends of promotions or voids. To do this, complete the following steps:

1. Set up a Promotions & Voids report by weekly trends
2. In “advanced filters," select one of the metrics (such as % Gross Sales). 

With this report, you can track weekly trends in promotions or voids to identify any periods of unusual levels and look into what is going on during that period and who is responsible.

Similarly, if you have multiple outlets within your group, you can also identify possible theft by examining promos & voids as % Gross Sales across all your outlets to see if there are any outliers that you should look into more deeply. 

Why are my House Charges / House Accounts not showing on the Promotion/Void reports?

Hotels will sometimes have 'House Accounts' reserved for promotional use - all the charges to that account are for promotional reasons, such as a complimentary cocktail for a certain rate type or a gratis meal for the booker of a large block of rooms. 

Charging to a House Account is programmed in POS as a tender, or method of payment, not as a promotion. Therefore these charges will appear in your Payment Types  reporting, not in your promotion reporting. If you wish to see these charges reflected in Promotions reporting, use a programmed POS promotion or discount button instead of charging to the house accounts. 

Why is no data found when selecting View by Item in the Promotion Detail report?

The View by Items option in the Promotion Detail report is not available for check-level promotions as these promotions apply to an entire check and not individual items. Only item-level promotions are applied to specific menu items on a check, so only these types of promotions have a View By Item capability. Refer to your POS setup to adjust whether your promotions live at the check-level or item-level. 

Item-level discounts should be used when tracking situations such as customer dislike, service issues, and/or long waits. On the other hand, a check-level discount is applied to the overall bill, regardless of what items were ordered, like a local's discount or loyalty program discount. This type of discount can be useful for restaurants that want to offer a promotion or discount to their customers as a whole, without focusing on any specific menu item.