EPoS: The agile EPoS system

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The Millstone is a thriving leasehold that proves one-pub operators can benefit from EPoS as much as the big boys.Simon and Juliet Devine acquired...

The Millstone is a thriving leasehold that proves one-pub operators can benefit from EPoS as much as the big boys.

Simon and Juliet Devine acquired the lease in the affluent village of Tickhill, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire in 2005, and the pub quickly become renowned for its carvery, home cooked food, cask ales and functions.

The first thing that struck the couple when they took over, though, was that the only management information available came from badly printed till rolls that were difficult to read. "We were flying blind," says Simon. "If we wanted to see how many rump steaks we had sold in the past three months we would literally have to scour every inch of our till rolls and manually prepare a report. It was a nonsense system which we knew had to change if we were going to make a success of the pub."

The answer came in the shape of the HIT Solutions' pointOne EPoS which Simon discovered at the Hotelympia exhibition.

"We had seen some pretty horrifically complicated and intimidating systems at the show, and after spending 20 years of my career designing and coding IT, I knew I could not tolerate a system that was not clean and logical," explains Simon. "The pub needed an EPoS system that presented itself simply to the user.

"All our staff were involved with the installation so that they could see how things worked and without exception they took to the system like ducks to water. It really has been as simple to adopt as we had hoped."

Menu information including the drinks list, opening times and price changes were loaded onto the system by HIT Solutions.

The pub has two tills and four printers, all networked, to deal with 2,000 covers a week. Waiting staff key food orders into a terminal which are automatically sent through to the kitchen. After the meal all food and drinks are allocated to the customer's bill and printed off. There is also a facility to split bills, useful for large parties.

Stock management through the system enables the pub to monitor stock held and set promotions to shift stock nearing its sell by-date, minimising waste.

The system has also been modified specially for the Millstone so it can print out tickets for the carvery, a change that has "transformed" that side of the business says Simon.

"The information pointOne EPoS has provided is invaluable," says Simon. "From having no management data whatsoever we can now manage stock, calculate gross profit and drill down to key business information. We can even monitor staff in terms of order taking, which helps us manage productivity.

"EPoS has allowed us to be more agile - we can see how we are doing relative to previous years."

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