Franchise
Auditing
A typical day in the life of a Barmetrix Franchisee means getting up at the crack of dawn and sometimes even earlier. As many of our clients are bars or restaurants that open for lunch, the Barmetrix representatives will need to be in and out by 11am. Thankfully not every client opens this early, especially in the case of nightclubs client that don't open till late in the evenings. That is why getting a good mix of early and late opening clients is important so that we schedule our clients to be audited through out the day rather than trying to do many audits in the morning.
Preparation
Before the Barmetrix Franchisee starts his day, he will first make sure that he has all equipment he requires to conduct his audit and that all equipment is operating correctly. This equipment consists of a laptop for each person doing the audit, an electronic scales and barcode scanner for each laptop. Also, if the client is selling keg beer, then there will also be a keg scale to weight all open kegs of beer in the venue.
Once the Barmetrix Franchisee has everything he needs to conduct his audit, he drives to his first client of the day. Often, we will be the first person at the venue in the morning, in that situation, you will have your set of keys to open the venue. Mostly, there will either be cleaning or kitchen staff there to allow is in to the venue.
On Site
Once, we get into the venue, we immediately begin the process of collecting all the data required to conduct the audit. The first part of this process is to count all the stock in the venue using our laptops, scales and scanners. Once we have completed the counts, we then collect all the invoices for stock purchased over the last week or 2 weeks. We then enter all this data into the system. Finally we grab the itemised sales for the last week or 2 weeks from the clients point of sale system (POS). This will be in the form of an electronic file that we can import directly into our system.
Once we have these 3 pieces of information entered in our system, we are then able to run our reports. The first generation of the reports will allow us to double check our data collection accuracy and ensure that we have not made any mistakes. The software system has many checks and balances built to eliminate the amount of data collection mistakes that will inevitably happen during this process. Once we are happy that all data entered into the system is 100% correct, we then generate the final reports. The Barmetrix proprietary software system PILOT, can generate nearly 50 different types of reports.
Client Interaction
Once, we have reconciled the data and run the reports, we then come to the final and most important part of the process. This is where Barmetrix offer real service to our clients and where we can make a real impact on their business. Once we have the final report, we sit down with the owner or manager to take them through the reports. The first report we always go through is the variance report. This report identifies how each product being sold in their venue is doing from a loss perspective, i.e. how much of that product has gone missing over the period of the audit. Once we have communicated this to the client, we then advise and offer solutions on how to reduce these losses. This part of the job is critical to building a long term relationship. Barmetrix is not a company that just outlines what the issues are but a company that will help our clients fix these issues and make sure they are always making progress and thus increasing their profits.
Depending on the number of employees you have and the size of the venues you are auditing, you could be doing 4 of these audits in any one day. In which case, having completed your first audit of the day, you then drive to your next and repeat the same process as outlined above.