Feedback Requested: Your Restaurant Management Tools

[Ramsey_A]

Hi Community,

I’m Ramsey A., an Integration Product Manager on the Square for Restaurants team. I’m responsible for better connecting the tools you use to run your business with Square POS (ex: online ordering, inventory management, etc.).

In order to continue to improve the integrations we offer, I’d love to hear your feedback on the following questions:

• What are the tools you use to manage your business, including areas such as inventory management, labor management, loyalty, etc. 
• Are any of these tools not integrated with Square today that you would like to see integrated? 
• What else comes to mind when you think of how Square could better connect to the tools you use today?
  

We really value your time, so thank you in advance for your valuable input.

Ramsey

[Sunrisecantina7]

things that would be helpful for square

more than one % for auto gratuity. for example we are trying to implement a 15% gratuity for carry out orders and a 18% grautity for parties larger than 8

a service charge would be beneficial to work on square restaurants

being able to split an item between checks. example 1 item split 2 ways between checks

inventory management for bar management and being able to put the amount of liquor used and have that deducted from each bottle in ineventory

being able to 86 modifiers 

[saydad]

I agree being able to split a single item in two would be great for restaurants. 

as well as the bar suggestion, will follow this thread to see feedback

[cupzcoffeeaz]

Hi Ramsey,

I tried using shopventory at one point for inventory management. Main reason was to track inventory for modifiers. There solution was hacked but worked.

1.all of that to say it would be awesome if it would be awesome if data could be synced with a Google sheets.

it would give so much flexibility to build systems using the power of spreadsheets.

2., have you all look into partnering with Zapier or building something similar to autonmate workflows without writing code. that wlljkd be great for automating some of my coffee shop business processes, marketing, inventory management, etc

those two could bring a lot of power to the platform .

 Cheers

[Ramsey_A]

Hi, @cupzcoffeeaz thank you for your response.

Could you provide a bit more detail on:

1) What specifically you were looking to get out of the ShopVentory integration? E.g. ingredient tracking or other features from their restaurant bundle? https://shopventory.com/restaurant-bundles/

2) What data would you like to see pulled into Google Sheets and how would you leverage that data?

3) The nocode for workflow automation is an interesting idea! Do you have more insight on the types of workflows you'd like to see support for?

[cupzcoffeeaz]

@Ramsey_A  all great questions.

1. The reason for looking into shopventory is to be able to track modifier quantities. They call them bundles, but that is really their way to get around square not tracking modifier quantities. 

They pretty much create a copy of the modifier as an item to be able to track quantities. Every time there is a sale of an item, they deduct the quantities for all ingredients in the item.

I don't think this is a restaurant-specific thing, but definitely more relevant for restaurants.  Think about Ikea. You can purchase a table, legs, attachments, etc. The buyer is purchasing a table in their heads, but we merchants have to assemble the product, track our inventory and track out cost of goods. 

Even simpler, if you happen to sale shoes, and you get things from different vendors like get shoes, shoe lasses, boxes, tags, stickers,etc. They still need to track each of those items. 

2. Honestly, the reason for Google sheets will be to create customs systems that square is not prioritizing.

In my head data like itemized sales, detail inventory, labor cost would be extremely useful.
If I can pull itemized sales with their corresponding modifiers("inventory"). I can create a weekly report with my COGS.

And if I get detail labor cost and can automate a weekly report to estimate my profitability, since I can extract my operation cost from other sources myself.

I sort of do this manually today, but it is painful. Plus, not reliable since I can't track all items that make up my products. 

3. With workflows the sky is the limit. I can automate marketing segmentation, campaigns based on sales, reporting, schedules, alerts,  automated team slack communication. 

Example, marketing segmentation would be something like based on an .edu email I could put them in a university group. Or based on sales, click thru rates, redemptions, social media post, I can put them into a special group.

Campaigns based on sales: I could make hourly checks to see if my sales are below a threshold an automate square marketing campaign or a third party marketing campaign

I could automate messages to my team if during the day we are doing great, or if tips are amazing given that this is a sign of good customer service. 

There is just many many possible things possible with workflow automation. 

I don't use weebly cause I don't like how basic it is, but If square web builder was a lot better, workflow automation makes square a platform in which other apps can help fulfill custom needs

[Ramsey_A]

@cupzcoffeeaz really useful feedback!

(1) Noted on modifier quantities. I'll look into what we can do to support you here as I believe this is a common ask.

(2) Are you using Square's custom reports at all today? I wonder if what you're hoping to accomplish is already possible.

(3) These are all really great ideas. Have you tried connecting with some of our integrated marketing partners when it comes to marketing segmentation, reporting, etc.? E.g.:

Domo for reporting: https://squareup.com/us/en/app-marketplace/app/domo

Delighted for customer feedback: https://squareup.com/us/en/app-marketplace/app/delighted

Copper for email marketing: https://squareup.com/us/en/app-marketplace/app/copper

[gemcityjunction]

I requested the modifier change here...https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-for-Restaurants/Mark-Modifier-Ingredients-OOS/idc-p/373210...

[SIDEBar]

The ability to run “close of day” report on Square register and print the report on the receipt printer just like the “retail” square. Paying a terminal fee for an iPad just to do that and not being able to do that online with dashboard is a nuisance. Also charging $40 a month for a feature that is a necessity after paying $800 for the register. I was not informed of this when I purchased 3 registers until after setup, I almost returned them because of that reason.

[Donnie-M]

@Ramsey_A 

1.  Digital Signage integration with real time updating (mangosigns) etc.

2.  Menu Management/catalog integration with 3rd party menu design software (1 point of input for menu changes).

3.  Remote Temperature Monitoring.

4.  Digital Checklist Management (Jolt)

5.  Par List/Product Label Printing/Date Code Printing/Prep Sheets.

6.  BOH Management Communication Log (Redbook) through team app. (Groups etc.)

7.  BOH Management Input Invoices from Vendors for a Cost of Goods Sold Report (Inventory Management but not detailed purchases versus revenue).

8.  Employee Scheduling (better tracking integration of request offs/partial request offs/historical requests off).

That's my wishlist!

[Ramsey_A]

Hi @Donnie-M thank you so much for your input. A few questions:

(4) Are you using Jolt today? Can you tell me a bit about some of the main use cases you find Jolt helps with?

(6) What is your preferred BOH management communications software?

Let me know if anything else comes to mind, this is super helpful feedback.

[Donnie-M]

@Ramsey_A 

I currently subscribe to jolt and use their prep list/label functionality to print barcoded labels for grab n go items.  I also use the date label functionality, remote temperature sensor monitoring, & digital closing walk through checklists (on the staff's cell phone).

6. I have used jolt's communication log, but we have since set up a group hangouts to communicate back and forth between shifts/stores.  I would like something inside the teams app similar to forum software for notes from day to day.

Jolt is a digital back of house management powerhouse, but does not come at a cheap price ($120 per location).  But it is used by a lot of big franchise brands.  Think of it as checklists and SOP for the business.  

So when you ask for a wishlist for restaurant management not just point of sale..this is it for me.

[HangrySpartan]

I would like to say that this new interface is horrible. And that's putting it mildly. I hope enough people complain and you guys go back to the old interface because they just made it absolutely more time consuming and difficult to go to what we need. We are very upset about this. 

[ZDeli]

We are not currently using Square for restaurants as for a quick service restaurant it didn't make sense. May of the aspects of the regular POS work for us but i agree with a seamless integration with a digital menu program would be nice. We use Restaurant365 for inventory and accounting but haven't been able to full onboard because of API integration issues with Square. It seems square is the hold up here and it would be nice if 3rd party tools that integrate with Square do so in a seamless manner. We also would love the ability to 86 modifiers the way we can items. We are constantly removing a modifier and having to remember to put it back for online orders.

[mksavage]

@ZDeli -- We're in the same boat. We are also a QSR, and have stuck with the regular Square POS instead of switching to Square for Restaurants. But you're absolutely right -- a way to quickly 86 modifiers would be SO helpful. 

[Ramsey_A]

Thank you @ZDeli for the feedback. A couple questions:

1) When you say an integration with a digital menu would be helpful, do you mean for in-store signage? E.g. https://squareup.com/us/en/app-marketplace/app/customer-screen

2) Do you know what the issues with Restaurant365 are? No worries if not, I can work on finding out.

[murisseattle]

Hi!

For R365 I have a ticket in but have no response. The issue is an API issue. The sales data that transfers over from Square to R365 is often different. Sometimes the returns aren't recorded correctly. In R365 if I check my daily net sales it often does not match with what is in SQuare.

Ill look into the Square sign that you recommend.

[maybeonmonday]

Yes a QSR option would be great, let us pick the features on Restaurant Plus and Retail Plus ala carte.
A solution for cafe, bakery which is a hybrid between restaurant and retail without having to signup for both plans and features.

• Automate - Inventory Update and reset count daily or (scheduled).
  For Eg reset the inventory to 6 Blueberry Muffin everyday while keeping track of the inventory
• Automate - Update and reset for variables since the blueberry can be a variable under (Muffins)
•  

[jjsmeatshak1]

With the Digital menu that is now integrated... I'm having trouble understanding how it works. Does it automatically mark items as "Sold Out" on the Digital menu if its marked Sold out on the POS? @Ramsey_A 

[Ramsey_A]

Good question @jjsmeatshak1 - it looks like it integrates with inventory so that seems likely but I would verify directly with Customer Screen.

[BeerGuy]

I am wondering why our Square registers continue to have network issues. Our internet never goes down, but all the registers (hardwired and WiFi) fail to connect to the network for about 10-15 mins randomly every day. Is that a feature that you could eliminate?