Manage your Restaurant and Employees with the BarSight Software

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Key notes

  • The Barsight software is a great tool for employee scheduling and financial reporting for your restaurant.
  • Creating a schedule is extremely easy and all the employees can interact and request shift changes or time off.
  • The financial tools include downloading reports in Excel so they can be sent directly to the accountants.
Barsight employee scheduling

If you own a restaurant, you know already how difficult is to manage your employee scheduling, update the manager logbook, or record restaurant expenses accurately.

But with the BarSight restaurant software, all those worries are gone because today we’re talking about a restaurant management system that will revolutionize the way you work.

We tested this solution and we’re going to emphasize its best features and use all the tools to increase your restaurant’s profitability.

How can BarSight help me manage employee scheduling?

First of all, the BarSight software is actually a web app, available online from wherever you are on virtually any device that can load a browser.

That means after youโ€™ve created a schedule, you and all your employees will be able to quickly and easily check their weekly schedule on their phones or computer.

Your employees can also download the free mobile app to their phones, so they can get notified immediately when new shifts are published.

With all this information right at their fingertips, your restaurant will see a decrease in personnel problems.

So, BarSight has a very simple restaurant scheduling software, allowing you to create precise scheduling for all your staff but that’s not all.

For instance, at the end of the month, or pay period, it’s easy to download the restaurant’s labor reports as an excel spreadsheet and send it to your accountant or import it into your payroll software.

Moreover, BarSight provides a very clear report of your restaurant expenses so you can track down your budget easily.

What are the most important features of the BarSight app?

1. Restaurant employee scheduling the easy way

The main feature of BarSight is its employee scheduling tool which is extremely easy to use and manage.

You simply add the employees and set the working times and as you’re building the schedule, the staff will see the schedule on their apps instantly.

The scheduling software automatically validates the start and end times of the shifts and will let you know if there are conflicts with employee availability or approved time-off requests.

That way, you can be sure your staff is ready to show up for their scheduled shifts.

If your staff are unable to work the shifts you have assigned to them, they are able to either request shift trades (aka shift swaps) or drop the shift (aka submitting shift cover requests) and wait for another employee to pick it up.

Once a shift has been requested to be picked up or both employees agree to a shift trade, your restaurant managers will be notified and are able to make a decision.

If the scheduling changes are approved, the changes are effective immediately and all employees are able to see the newly revised schedule.

After you make the schedule for a day or a week, you can just copy and duplicate the data for the next days or weeks.

You can even create and save different schedule templates that you can use when required, such as special event weeks or a summer schedule and a winter schedule.

As you build the schedule, you can see in real-time, the estimated labor costs displayed on the screen.

If you connect your POS system to BarSight, the software will automatically forecast your daily sales and display other critical financial data to help you budget your schedule and reduce labor costs.

2. Simple reporting

To keep your accountant’s head from exploding due to frustration, BarSight makes it easy to record and generate reports for your restaurants’ expenses, such as vendor invoices and store receipts.

With BarSight, you can connect your POS system and create accounts for your vendors so all of them will be in one

With BarSights’ Accounts Payable module, you are able to create accounts for your vendors so all of them will be in one place, in a digital format.

Vendor contact information (such as phone numbers or account information) can be stored as well as the ability to instantly see the buying history from each vendor.

Either you or an employee you designate is able to enter the data from invoices right into BarSight and record the method of payment (credit card, direct debit, etc).

So, at the end of the month, all you need to do is to go to the Reports tab, select Accounting from the list, and hit the Get Report button for the desired period.

You will get the Excel file that you will be able to send directly to your accountant who will be finally happy and stress-free.

In the Reports section, you will also find detailed overviews of the attendance of your employees, their availability, and even their scheduled time off.

3. Workforce management

In addition to being more than just employee scheduling software, BarSight comes with additional tools that will help you communicate with your restaurant staff, and manage their time off requests, availability, and employee profiles.

Gone are the days of chasing down employees to make sure their address is correct so you can mail out important tax documents on time, or having random notes left on your desk with time-off requests.

Your restaurant employees will be able to simply make these changes and request time off or changes to their availability from the free mobile app.

Once a request has been made for time off or availability changes, you or your manager will see them instantly on your Work Force dashboard, and with a simple click, they can approve them instantly.

Also included is the ability for you and your employees to send messages to each other.

This will help improve team communication when you need to make important announcements, such as menu changes, an upcoming event, or staff meetings.

As a manager, you’ll also be able to check up on who has read the messages you’ve sent, and who hasn’t by simply clicking on the message.

How can I implement and use the BarSight app?

  1. Go to the BarSight dedicated website and click the Try it for Free button to test the app.
  2. Enter your email address to create an account and hit the Start Free Trial button.
  3. Next, you will need to enter some details about your company and location.
  4. Now, you can enter the functions for your staff and create the departments like Front of House, Back of House, and more. You can start out with the basics for now, as you will have the ability to modify these roles and departments later.
  5. Of course, next, you may enter the employees’ names and their email addresses but it’s possible to do that later as well.
  6. That’s it! Now, you can see your dashboard but at first, it’s going to be pretty empty.
  7. However, straight away you can create a daily manager log book by clicking on New from the Logbook Entries and selecting Daily Log Book.
  8. By default, it’s an empty window where you can add lots of elements like cook times, reservations, freezer contents, and a lot more, but BarSight provides a predefined free form, so you don’t have to worry about that either.
  9. And after that, just access the entry and you will see all the relevant data for that day.

As you see, it’s very easy to create an account and start using BarSight just with a few data entries and a few clicks.

On your dashboard, you will see a brief report on all important data like the scheduled hours, turnover rate, operation costs, margin, and more.

How can I add employees and create a schedule for them?

  1. To start adding employees, click the Work Force section, select Employees, and click the Add Employee button.
  2. Now, just enter their data, select the role, wage, and click on Send Email to let them know you added them.
  3. After you add all of them, it’s also a good idea to click on the Export List to download an excel table with all that data. You’ll be able to double-check all the employee information and verify it is correct.
  4. Now, you can click on the Schedule section from the left, select Create and choose the Plus sign from the daily schedule calendar.
  5. In the new window, set the working hours, select the employee from the list, and hit the Save Shift button to add the entry.
  6. Then, you can access the department drop-down menu to see the schedules for each one or for all of them.

This is how you can easily add your employees and create an employee schedule in BarSight with just a few actions.

As you’ve read above, there are plenty of other functions and options you can access, and you can do a lot more with this amazing employee scheduling software.

It is also worth noting, that while this program is geared towards the restaurant industry, we think it would be useful for almost any workplace with shift schedules.

While we have only scratched the surface, we believe that we managed to capture the essence of working with this software and its ease of use.

Anyway, if it got your attention, you can test it yourself for 30 days before making any financial commitments.

โ‡’ Get BarSight Restaurant Systems

Pros
Simple and comprehensive user interface
Simple and quick employee scheduling
Cloud-based app, available on any device that can load a browser
POS integration
Export payroll and employee reports instantly
Cons
Can take a bit of time to add all your employees

Final notes

Honestly, we don’t know much about restaurants except for good places where to eat around our houses, but we do know a lot more about scheduling apps.

And BarSight has all it takes to be an ideal tool for this job, especially because it adds the interaction of the employees who can change their shift on their own devices.

We also found very useful the reporting features that will help you effectively manage your business.

The cherry on top is that you don’t need to download an app or maintain a physical server because everything is online.

You might also be interested in our selection of the best small business finance software because they might help with budget keeping.

If you’ve tried BarSight already, feel free to share your experience with the app in the comments section.

More about the topics: Business software, task scheduler