Can your Senior living Facility afford a POS Solution?
The better question is, Can you afford to not implement one?
When considering a POS System, the most important aspect is to understand the value. A POS System for your Senior Community can actually make money. Please don’t look at your consideration of POS as an expense, because it may truly be one of your most valuable assets!
How much free product are you giving out?
Do you know how much money you are losing by giving out free stuff? A free coffee or soda here…an appetizer or desert on the house there…it really adds up. One of our clients found out just how much they were losing in discounts and comps after our system was installed.
Often a department within a Senior Living Community will claim that they will cover a purchase made within the community. The venue would expect to capture the revenue, however, the expense, instead of being paid by cash, credit, or charging off to a Resident’s account, is written off to a department. In a case study, a client of mine operates 5 different venues that use POS, each with their own manager. Previously, everything was tracked by sticky notes and scraps of paper. After a POS System was installed, the community discovered $4000.00 in departmental comps were being charged out on a monthly basis between different departments.
They thought they had a handle on accounting for it. It wasn’t until the system was installed that comps were accurately tracked. The community assumed they were comping $400 per month. What a shock to find out $4000.00 was being given away in one month’s time. That adds up to $48,000.00 per year. Our tool allowed this community to get a handle on interdepartmental spending in a traceable way. They were able to make each department responsible for their own budget. In this scenario the POS system paid for itself!
How much could you save in hourly LABOR?
Are your hourly staff scheduled to be in the correct places based on transactional volume?
One great features of a POS System is the ability to track transactions per hour. By looking at transactions over time, you will be able to see your peak times for sales. Comparing this to your labor scheduling you will quickly be able to see areas that are overstaffed at the wrong times.
In using this tool, a dining venue in one of our communities realized they had 2 people coming in about an hour earlier than they were really needed Monday through Friday. By bringing these $10 an hour employees in one hour later, they were able to reduce labor by $20 a day, $100 a week, $5200 a year. This is prior to them doing the same analysis to other days and day parts.
The community claims they were able to reduce hourly labor by $12,000 annually.
How much could you save in the Billing or Accounting Department ?
How much would you save in your billing/accounting department when you no longer have to manual bill for transactions?
Often times the billing department spends 2 hours of a day reconciling billable charges that come through manual entry. With a POS it is as effortless as a click of a few buttons. Once the system is implemented you can look forward to 10 hours a week, or 40 hour a month, of replaced work. Perhaps the workload of the person in this role is reduced, other work, that took a backseat before, can be focused on. Maybe this work is now handled by a part time employee. If a part time transition can fit into your business, you could save $20,000 + in yearly salary!
Could you improve your revenue stream through increased Customer Service?
Excellent customer service is imperative in a Senior Living Community. Residents are paying a lot for care and there is a lot of competition in the market. Recent studies show some of the main things factored in the decision of which community someone may live in is the quality of dining and services offered.
Errors in order entry
Have you ever got the wrong food, or service that takes forever? By reducing order errors between the servers and the kitchen, residents receive their food quicker and with more accuracy. This is crucial around 5:00 pm when the doors open to your main dining venue as those early residents filter in! With the use of a POS, prompts that help the server get the order right the first time (i.e. selecting temperatures on meats, prompting for side item selection, prompting whether someone may like light or dark meat chicken, and alerting the order taker and kitchen to special dietary needs.) occur. Kitchen Display Systems and/or printers that eliminate deciphering the servers illegible handwriting and abbreviations. How many remakes a day do you have due to improper order taking or ticket reading? If you have to remake and waste one $10 meal a day, it equates to $70 a week, $300 a month, or $3600 yearly! … and we know this is a modest example!
Increase Opportunity
By using a POS, your servers will can be prompted to offer add-ons based on what the resident has already ordered. Up-selling these items increases your profit on each resident ticket. Encouraging your staff to offer these up-sells can be tracked through the POS System, making employee competitions easy to implement. Sometimes we hear that this does not apply to your particular dining environment. This may be true, however, are those missed opportunities thought of the same in the Beauty Salon, Retail Outlets, Spas, Activities, or the Thrift Shop?
If your community could capture an additional $50 in revenue daily, across all revenue centers, by just suggesting valuable products or services that are available to make the residents overall experience greater, the community could realize $18,000 in missed opportunity.
Return on Investment (ROI) of POS
Senior Living Communities are unique, and require a unique a POS System built for the Senior Living Market. By using a POS System which is built specifically for your community, you capture an amazing return on your investment. My clients that have implemented a solution have easily paid off their systems within one to two years, sometimes even quicker once profits are realized and losses are managed!
Community Example:
- $20 a day, found in tracked comps = $7,280 per year
- $50 a day, loss to order errors = $18,200 per year
- $30 a day, over staffing employees = $10,920 per year
- $20 a day, captured opportunity = $10,920 per year
By solving only 4 key problem areas, A POS has the potential to save a community $47,320.00 per year! This is just a modest estimate of savings and does not take into account other areas of your community that make become more efficient, realizing more cost saving potential!
These are real numbers, POS Systems are business tools, using these tools correctly and efficiently is the key to increased ROI.