What are Meal Periods?

Meal Periods in Avero 

How do your meal periods get defined in Avero? How do you make changes or update this information? How can meal periods enhance your reporting? We will answer these questions and more in this deep dive on Meal Periods. 

Jump to:

• What are Meal Periods?
• How do Meal Periods get programmed in Avero? How do I change or update Meal Periods in Avero?
• What are 'Standard' Meal Periods and how are they used?
  • Available Standard Meal Periods
• Meal Periods in Reporting & Best Practices

What are Meal Periods?

Meal Periods are distinct periods of time in which a named type of service happens. These may also be called Serving Periods, Service Times, or Day Parts depending on your point of sales system.

Meal periods are programmed in your POS, and may require programming on the Avero side to match, depending on your POS. To get information about meal periods specific to your POS, view the *Avero POS Integrations list and select your system to view our comprehensive guide.

• Meal Periods must be distinct and fixed time periods
  • For example, Lunch starts at 11:00 AM and ends at 4:00 PM) and must cover the entire 24-hour day even if your restaurant/outlet is not open 24 hours per day.
  • If your restaurant or outlet assigns meal periods manually when items are ordered (this is common in Banquets outlets, for example) these cannot be captured. Consider using an Order Type/Order Mode to differentiate this revenue and have fixed time periods of the day associated with your meal periods.
• There cannot be gaps
  • For example, if Breakfast begins at 6:00 AM and Dinner ends at 10:00 PM, Dinner must go until the beginning of the next meal period, in this case 5:59 AM.
• There cannot be overlaps, not even for 1 minute when the meal periods change over 
  • For example, if Dinner begins at 4:00 PM, Lunch needs to end at 3:59 PM, and can't end at 4:00 PM or it will create an error.

If you need to update or change your meal periods and you have already confirmed this requires an Avero Support Request (for most systems, updating your POS is sufficient, check your POS Guide to confirm) please submit this form detailing your meal periods. 

How do Meal Periods get programmed in Avero? How do I change or update Meal Periods in Avero?

Meal periods may change over time as you adjust operating hours, schedules, etc. You may even use your Avero analytics to help make these decisions (See our Hourly Sales Report, run in a Trend for insights into operating hours and profitability)!

For most POS systems, you will change your meal periods in your POS and see them reflected in Avero following the next data load. Some POS systems do not supply Avero with meal period information and we need to program the meal periods on our side to match your POS, which means you'll have to open a ticket with Avero Support to make the change. To find out how to adjust meal periods for your system, see our list of *Avero POS Integrations and select your system from the list to get a complete guide. 

If you need to request changes:

There are 2 steps to updating Meal Periods:

1. Check your POS System to determine if you need to update this in the POS, follow this link to a list of systems and select your system from the link: *Avero POS Integrations
2. If you need to update or change your meal periods and you have already confirmed this requires an Avero Support Request (for most systems, updating your POS is sufficient, check your POS Guide to confirm) please submit this form detailing your meal periods. 

Meal Periods also have a 'Standard' association - this is a normalization to enable reporting across many different locations with individually named meal periods. You can run a report or create a logbook template that filters only 'Lunch' revenue and have all 'Lunch' meal periods, regardless of their time period and actual name, reflected for all of your locations. The logbook only allows revenue to be filtered by the Standard Meal Periods. Read more about this below.

What are 'Standard' Meal Periods and how are they used?

Meal Periods also have a 'Standard' association on the Avero side - this is a normalization to enable reporting across many different locations with individually named meal periods. You can run a report or create a logbook template that filters only 'Lunch' revenue and have all 'Lunch' meal periods, regardless of their time period and actual name, reflected for all of your locations. The logbook only allows revenue to be filtered by the Standard Meal Periods.

For example, meal periods at your individual locations may be named 'Lunch 11-4', '*Lunch', 'Luncheon', 'Restaurant Lunch', and 'Lunch Bar'. Setting your logbook or report to filter only 'Lunch 11-4' would miss these other Lunch variations. Avero has each of these various lunch names mapped to the 'Lunch' standard meal period, so you can use the same logbook template at each of the above locations for consistency and still see your Lunch sales information. 

Available Standard Meal Periods:

Multiple Actual meal periods can be applied to the same Standard meal period. These are typically mapped when you are installed but can be changed at your request by opening a ticket with Avero Support. If you have added new meal periods, you may need to request that they be mapped. 

• All Day (this is a distinct meal period, not a summary of daytime meal periods)
• All Night (this is a distinct meal period, not a summary of nighttime meal periods)
• Breakfast
• Brunch
• Lunch
• Dinner/Swing
• Late Night
• Unknown

Meal Periods in Reporting / Best Practices

Meal periods are associated with specific times of day and, usually, distinct menus. When you are analyzing the performance of your menu, your service team, or revenue generation, you'll want to compare like with like. 

Lunch will often include lower-priced entrees than Dinner and a much lower percentage of beverage sales than Dinner or your weekend Brunch. Comparing the total check average across all your servers may make it appear that servers working both Lunch and Dinner shifts are underperforming. By limiting the reporting to only Lunch shifts, you'll see who is performing well in that service period. 

If your restaurant or outlet assigns meal periods manually when items are ordered (this is common in Banquets outlets, for example) these cannot be captured. Consider using an Order Type/Order Mode to differentiate this revenue and have fixed time periods of the day associated with your meal periods.