“Budgets” refer to a way you can track what you're spending in whatever categories you are interested in. They are designed to help you track spending both during a period and at the end of a period.
If you haven't setup your budgets yet, here's help to do just that: How do I setup or edit Budgets?
Budgets - Viewing at a Glance
When you first log into the software, your budget section is conveniently located on the main screen just below the Sales section. The front page gives you a quick snapshot of how your budget is tracking for the location you're in.
In the upper left, you'll see how many days left in the period, and on the right is a date selector you can use to select a different pre-set range (such as "Last Period") or a custom date range.
Budgets - Drilling Down
To see how your budget is accruing over time, just click on the budget line. Below is an example of the detail you'll see when viewing the budget detail:
The dotted line in this case represents the target - 21% of sales for Beer, Wine, Liquor. That line reflects what you would be spending if spending exactly 21% of sales. The solid line shows how was actually spent. Tip: hover over any day on this screen to see what your actual versus budget is for the period to that point.
Below the chart is a table showing every order (expenses AND credits) as well as inventory adjustments related to the budget category(ies) you are viewing. Most restaurants count at the end of each period, and the above image represents this scenario - an adjustment is made for the count done at the end of November. If inventory went up, then there will be a credit to the budget, and if inventory went down (meaning you used more than you bought this period), there will be a further hit to the spending shown in the budget.
Note: Anytime you are viewing the budget between two inventories, whether they are a week apart or a period apart, you will have your true food cost (or BWL cost, or beverage cost, etc.)
Drilling Down - Fixed Budget
Here's an example of a budget using a fixed dollar amount - often called a 'declining budget.' This budget is an R&M budget set for $1,000 per period:
The above shows a budget of $1,000 for the period, and the spending for the period exceeded the target slightly, with total spending of $1,054 (note the amount shown on the left top of the graph.)
Using budgets with a fixed amount, you can see at any given time how your location is doing against the budget.
Budgets - Viewing Multi-Unit Groups
Now, suppose you want to see how different restaurants in your group are performing?
To view all units, from the main menu, select Performance > Budget. On this page, you will see three sets of information.
The top – “Wasabi Natick” is the same budget information we see on the home page for this particular restaurant we are in. However now in the second group of information I see “Unit Rollup”. This shows me at a glance how both my Wasabi restaurants are doing. It takes the individual budget categories in each store and “rolls them up” so you can see in total how they are performing. I see her Natick is doing great, but Tyson’s is over budget!
Note if you have more than two restaurants in your group they will all be listed here, in order by budget performance.
Clicking on Tysons lets me see see those same budget categories we were just looking for in Natick, but now I am looking at the Tyson’s store. I can see they are way over budget in both Food (at 29%! Vs a target of 25%) and Restaurant Supplies. Let’s click on Restaurant Supplies and see what is going on.
I can see there were three days they received large orders – 2/1, 2/8, 2/15. By looking at the table below I see on each of those days they received large orders from Adams Burch. Time to call the manager and find out what’s going on!
Check out the next video “Setting up Budgets” to get started, it only takes a couple minutes!