Category: Reporting

October 19th, 2009 by ssadmin

Do you ever bill customers for product? If so, did you know that SP-1 has an extensive billing system built into the software. Last week I was talking to a customer that did not know we did this! So. . . .

In SP-1 you can specify per customer if they are allowed to run an account tab. Once this is selected, you will have an account payment button and an account charge button appear.

If you are near a number of businesses, schools etc – this can be a great method of picking up more business. Setup the account so that when that business orders, you can just bill them!

Once someone orders and you are on the ticket complete screen, simply hit account button to
add the total to their account bill. SP-1 will track this for you. One suggestion: In the remarks, enter the ticket number / name of the person running the account. This makes it easier to answer the account billing questions.

Now the business owes you money. The next step in this is the run the billing report and billing cycle. In the reports, you will see all the options for this. SP-1 will even run a bill that can be printed and then folded and put in a windowed envelope. This makes life easier as far as sending the bills.

Once the check comes in, look up the customer and select the account payment button. Apply the payment and you are done!

Hopefully this brief introduction to accounts helps you understand how to use this to capture some of more of your customers business. While these factories and schools like to place big orders, we also know that the accountant and bookkeepers at these places like easy billing systems!

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Order Entry, POS Features, Reporting, Uncategorized Tagged with: , , ,

October 9th, 2009 by ssadmin

A little different topic this time on the blog. Recently we have seen a big upswing in people that are asking about how to use SP-1 to help drive more business through the store. Part of this is through the strong gift card program and with the holidays around the corner it’s time to start thinking about this.

Are you using gift cards? If not, you are missing out on one of the best ways to increase sales and cash flow. Also, if you are using them, let’s make sure it’s not by just plopping them on the counter and expecting them to sell themselves!

First let’s define what we are talking about. . . A plastic card (with no swipe fees or monthly fees when used with SP-1) that can be used in different ways:

1) Traditional gift – I buy it and give it away.

2) Prepaid – I buy and continue to keep it charged for my own use.

3) Rewards – The same card can be used to keep a buy 10 get 1 free or other promotion.

4) Customer Discount card – When the card is used a discount is automatically applied.

This is ALL the same card. So first, this card is a great marketing opportunity for you – it’s a “billboard” in the customers pocket.

So what can be done with these to help you make more money? Let’s skip the usual arguments (although they are valid) about how people spend more with a gift card than cash and what percent of cards are lost. We know that the gift cards are a good idea – the question is how to move them.

Here are some ideas that we have had over the years to move gift cards and boost sales.

1) Instant gratification: “Hi, would you like that drink free?” or “Would you like to have that sandwich / pizza 1/2 off?”; “would you like some free breadsticks with that order?”. Once the customer answers yes – tell them they only need to buy a $25 gift card for that. The little chain store that cuts my hair has a deal that if I buy a $50 gift card I get a free haircut – I do it every couple months.

2) This one is a little obvious but I’ll mention it anyway: Buy a $25 gift card and pay only $20!

3) Friend cards: Give your employees or even customers small dollar amount gift cards to use as a promotion. They could be $1 -$3 each. Tell them this is to hand out to their Friends.

4) Discount or VIP Cards: Purchase a large enough gift card and receive a discount for the rest
of the year. This discount could be worked many ways – only on certain days, certain items, certain order types etc. If someone buys a $100 / $250 / $500 gift card is it worth a 10% / 20% discount?

5) Traditional rewards system: Buy 10 get 1 free.

6) Non-Traditional rewards: Every dollar you spend you get a point. Once you accumulate enough points, you get free or discounted product. I.E. at 50 points you get 25% off next order or a free appetizer / pastry.

So there you are – a half dozen ways to start off the marketing kick on gift and loyalty cards. There are more! If you have a great idea on this – let me know and I’ll spread the word.

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence

800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Gift Cards, Reporting, Uncategorized Tagged with: , ,

October 5th, 2009 by ssadmin

Theft – It’s a fact that it happens in your store. It happens in everyones store. Over the years I have seen a ton of methods that employees and managers will use to steal / give away product.

Recently in Washington State a fine dining restaurant found out that an employee was using a managers code to void cash transactions. This employee wound up stealing over $30,000 over three years through this method. Think about that – $30k. Now, even if it is only $1k that is still unacceptable!

So, this brings us to the question of audit tracking. Are you using your balance till, employee summary, business summay and audit reports? If not, you should be. These are the best ways to see the ‘red flags’ that we all know about and to catch what is happening.

Remember that we show re-opened tickets on the Balance Till – this shows which tickets have been re-opened and which code was used. A good start as to what is going on.

Employee Summary – Run this periodically over a timeframe. This will show voids by employee. If one employee has a larger percent of voids as opposed to another then there is something going on. Either that person needs re-training or they are doing something funny.

Business summary – each and every day, look at the total number of voids and edited voids. This will show you a total dollar amount that you will be responsible for.

Audit reports – This is the absolute best report to run. Remember that this report is not stored inside SP-1 so it is not accessible to the normal employee. This will show you every ticket that has been changed or voided along with who did it, when it was done etc.

Please take a look at these on a regular basis! This does not have to be a ‘negative’ topic – it’s just about protecting yourself!

Don’t hesitate to contact me or our support guys for more information!

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Employees, Reporting, theft, Uncategorized Tagged with: , , , ,

September 29th, 2009 by ssadmin

Price tables are a great way to help control pricing and make your life easier. Price tables are a way to assign a three digit code to a specific price. For instance, you may want TOP for topping or FLV for flavor. You can then assign that price table to an item.

Where this helps is in the following: Let’s say that we have a string of 20 ingredients/modifiers that all have the same price ($.50). You could enter $.50 on each of the 20 items. The only problem is that if you want to change the price on all 20 items you then have to change it 20 times! With a price table, you put the TOP in the price field (20 times the first time). Now when we want to change the price, we just change the price table once and it automatically updates the menu for us.

Some more benefits of Price Tables are that they are day and time dependant! For example, if you have an item, discount or coupon that only applies on a certain day – use a price table and it will only work on that day. Further, if the price table is on a coupon or discount then the coupon/discount will not even show up unless it falls in that time!

Don’t forget about happy hours! You can set pricing based on the time of day! That will allow you to setup items that are discounted during certain times of the day.

Price tables can be a great way to change your system menu and to make life easier for yourself!
Don’t hesitate to call us if you need to!

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Order Entry, Reporting, Uncategorized Tagged with:

September 21st, 2009 by ssadmin
Before talking about the quickbooks interface, I wanted to mention that some customers have asked me about how to get an automatic blog update. While you can sign up here, you can also email me (mike@selbysoft.com) and I’ll email you the blog each time!
Two things involving the QuickBooks interface today. This interface is designed to provide the basic information from the Business Summary in a QuickBooks import file. The setup is under System Setup and is pretty easy. Basically you will enter the account name as you have it in QuickBooks into these spots. If an account name is in ” “, then it will be treated as a “class” accounting field.

The file is exported through the Business Summary and is saved in the SP-1 folder. The file is always named QBMMDDYY.IIF (month, day, year). Once the file is exported, you can transfer that to yourself or accountant by email, usb flash drive etc.

Now there is a new Reports setup available for this as well. You can now rename the deposit name fields to your own fields. For example, you may want to change them to separate out the Amex from Visa/MC in your deposit. This will then export out to QuickBooks as well.

Contact us at:
Mike@SelbySoft.com

SelbySoft

800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in POS Features, Reporting, Uncategorized Tagged with: ,

August 31st, 2009 by ssadmin

Did you know that you can save virtually any of the reports in SP-1 to the disk? Now, what that means is that the reports can be saved in a format that you can then bring to your home or office and review without having to print them off. One of our current customers, Jennifer Horne from Java Angels, asked this recently.

Remember that when you go to print a report, SP-1 will give you the option of saving the report to an “Unformatted Disk”. When this is selected, you will be prompted for the name. SP-1 ALWAYS saves reports to the SP1 folder on the main drive. For almost all our customers, that will be the F:\SP1 Folder.

The extention of the of the file is blank. So if you copy the file from there to a Jump Drive (USB device) you can take it home.

Now there is another way to do this that has been poplular as well. Setup a Gmail or Yahoo account and then everyday have the employees start an email and attach the file – then save it as a draft! You can then instantly check that email and see or download the reports at home or the office.

Don’t forget that Logmein Free is another great option to remotely view the reporting from a location outside the store.

Contact us at:
Mike Spence
SelbySoft, Inc.
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Reporting, Uncategorized Tagged with: ,

August 21st, 2009 by ssadmin

Over the last couple weeks we have had some questions regarding the Business Summary. As you may know, this is the best report to see what is happening in your store! One of the questions came from a current customer (Ralph from Classic Pizza in Michigan): Ralph wanted to know about splitting the sales into a day and night shift for total sales comparison.

Our Business Summary has a the ability to break down the total sales by a day and night part. This is great for seeing where the majority of your business comes from. Also, these numbers break out the total tickets and the average dollar per ticket on the report. This is very useful in figuring out what is happening in the store!

Don’t forget that you default which reports show up on the Business Summary – this way you can set it up to only have your pertinent reports show on a daily basis.

One other item to be aware of is that a portion of this report will be exported to an excel compatible file when you select the XML button.

Contact us at:

Mike Spence
SelbySoft
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Reporting, Uncategorized Tagged with: , ,

July 20th, 2009 by ssadmin

New 40 Column Balance Till Report.

Version 7.50g and above have a new balance till report available. This is our till report intended for the 40 column receipt printers.
This report will make it easier and more convenient for you to close shifts! Thanks for all the suggestions on this from our customers and for the input. Don’t hesitate to call our support or sales department for more information

YOUR STORE NAME HERE
555-1212
7/20/09 7:52a
SHIFT CLOSE
Shift# 1 ( 4:00a- 3:40p)
 
Total Sales: 184.64
 
Cash: 165.75
 
Check: 0.00
 
Credit Cards: 0.00
 
Account: 0.00
 
Gift Cards: 108.41
 
Paid Outs:
Description Amount Ticket
100001090 -50.00 0009
100001090 -39.52 0012
—— —
-89.52 2
 
Voids: 17.95 (6)
 
Coupons: None
Discounts:
Description Qty Amount
FIRE DEPARTMENT 2 3.77
——
2 3.77
 
 
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in POS Features, Reporting, Technology Tagged with: , , ,