Replace all the manual estimating and demand planning. Make accurate predictions about restaurant demand, sales, and labor, and schedule your restaurant staff according to these forecasts.
Imagine a busy Friday night when you’re short on staff, resulting in slow service and annoyed customers. On the other hand, think about a slow Monday afternoon with too many staff members with no one to serve, leading to unnecessary labor costs.
These situations lead to dissatisfied customers, stressed employees, and decreased profitability.
Accurate sales forecasts help you schedule employees to meet demand. Start eliminating the costs of understaffing and overstaffing and provide your customers with better service.
“At one of our beachfront locations, we’ve cut labor costs by $9,000-10,000 a month because we built schedule templates based on forecasted demand in HotSchedules.”
— David Culhane, Operations Director, Sun Pubs
With AI-powered sales forecasting, you can use your historical POS data to predict future customer demand before planning your employee schedules. Incorporate local weather forecasts, and upcoming events, and add your own manual adjustments to achieve optimal labor efficiency for your restaurant.
How It Works
HotSchedules utilizes Fourth’s AI-driven forecasting to accurately predict sales and labor demand. The system analyzes up to 7 years of historical sales data from your POS, considers upcoming events, and incorporates weather forecasts to generate accurate sales predictions. Restaurant operators and managers can manually adjust to account for unique factors, such as promotions, ensuring the forecast aligns closely with real-world conditions
In the restaurant industry, many scheduling decisions are made based on intuition. Even with experienced managers, different types of stores and locations have varying labor needs. Labor Optimization brings clarity to scheduling by providing managers with a clear understanding of scheduling needs based on store-specific rules and forecasted demand.
HotSchedules allows managers to predict weekly sales by selecting and referencing historical sales data with AI forecasting. Additionally, managers can adjust the percentage for upcoming events such as sports matches, marketing campaigns, or unusual weather to ensure precise forecasts.
Percentage adjustments fine-tune sales forecasts for special events, using historical data to avoid anomalies. This ensures the restaurant is well-prepared for varying customer demands.
Adjust forecasts for special events to reflect expected changes in sales.
Use historical data to refine future forecasts and avoid anomalies caused by specific events.
“We have seen a 25% accuracy improvement”
— Graham Fenwick, Productivity & Change Director, Pizza Express
Labor optimization uses sales forecasts to create optimal shift schedules, balancing labor supply with demand. Key metrics and settings include:
Automatically creating optimized shifts based on your restaurant’s sales forecasts ensures appropriate staffing levels at all times. This eliminates the need for manual scheduling, improves efficiency, and reduces labor costs.
Ensure shifts are only created if labor demand meets a specific percentage threshold. This approach prevents unnecessary staffing, optimizes labor costs, and maintains operational efficiency.
Configure minimum and maximum shift lengths for each job role. This ensures compliance with labor regulations and aligns with operational requirements, providing flexibility and control.
Optimize your staff schedules with actual sales and advanced forecasting that seamlessly integrate with your existing systems boosting efficiency and profitability.
Your restaurant can save on labor costs, reduce food waste, and eliminate staffing errors, enhancing profit margins.
“We are maximizing our efforts in the right places to increase sales year over year.”
— Amber Ghotbi, Braum’s District Manager
Save time, reduce costs, and increase profitability with Fourth’s intelligent solutions.