Aloha POS Numbering Systems Best Practices 2

[JRNYC]

I am managing the installation and programming of a new Aloha system at the restaurant I work at.

Note that I have an IT background but I am new to the restaurant industry.

Our current Aloha system is an inherited system that pretty much is the best example of garbage in/garbage out. So that is why we are building a new database from scratch.

Does anyone have or know where to find best practice documents/tips for things like inventory numbering, employee numbering, etc?

For employee numbering we don't want to go the last 4 digit of the SS# route because its too random and we want to do data sorts on reports by employee #. So we were thinking of coming up with number systems that represent employee's position followed by a sequence # (for example 101023 would be an employee who is a busser (the second 10 being the busser code).

Thank you!

 

[AlohaRoss]

Hi JR

I have been writing databases for aloha for 20 years. Here are some things that have worked well for me

Start at 1000- Apps
2000

salads
3000 soups
4000 sandwiches
ect. keep each 1000 range for the types of food you server.
make your submenu 1000 for items in the 1000's
submenu 2000 should have items that start with 2000

Avoid the 10,000-10999 all together

41000 mods for apps
42000 mods for salads
43000 mods for soups
ect


Put your bar the same way
Vodkas
rums

For staff
1000 for servers
2000 bussers
3000 hosts
4000 bartenders
5000 bar backs
6000 support/kitchen/dishwasher
7000 security or other non boh and not order entry
8000 boh staff like bookkeepers,DJ, Bathroom attendents
9000 managers/owners

Best way to program is with stand alone system. See

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1759352

this way you do not mess with current system until you are ready to implement.

Good luck

AlohaRoss

http://www.needaholahelp.com

3rd Party support​

 

[PosTech72]

I do 2000-9999 for Food items
10000-19000 for alcohol
20000+ for Mods

 

[MenulinkMan]

I tend to find that employee number get forgotten to easily by employees if they are not the last 4 of their social. Plus, if an employee figures out the POS number scheme that you are using, it wouldnt' be hard for them to find a manager who does not have a password assigned to their POS number. Just because you require it doesn't mean they assign one.

 

[JRNYC]

Thank you everyone for the info. Definitely helps me get started.

AlohaRoss,

Just curious why not to use the 10,000-10999 range?

 

[AlohaRoss]

save for open items

AlohaRoss

http://www.needaholahelp.com

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[MenulinkMan]

I thought 30100 - 30199 were reseved for open items and 30200-30299 were reserved for Aloha GC only. Am I wrong here?

 

[AlohaRoss]

Open items can be used with any number. What you are referrign to is the very old aloha versions. Same for gift certificates

AlohaRoss

http://www.needaholahelp.com

3rd Party support

 

[PosGuyUS]

Although spreading out the numbers seems important it sort of is a waste of time. Unless the system requires it or has ways to do presets, I don't see the value unless you are running reports sorted numerically. Most managers want to see how categories sell so they would be searching for burgers or entrees.
As for employees, what do you do if someone is both a bartender and server? What happens when they change jobs?

 

[MenulinkMan]

2 words: Database Growth.

My current database is around 45k items. The previous 2 admin's didn't make the ranges big enough for growth over the years, and now i've got items spread throughout the entire database. For example, draft beer has 2 different ranges, and bottle beer in 2. Our most well known item has core items in one range, and specialty's in 2 different ranges. Growth for 1 year might only be a few items, but year over year, plus specialties can cause a database to grow quickly.

I personally have 10k for modifiers, 2k for apps, 2k for burgers, 5k x 3 for our well known items, etc....

 

[AlohaRoss]

POSguy, while you may not see the value in spacing out items, there is huge value in it

1. Creating new items. easy to see what modifiers, taxes, routing, priority, surcharges were applied to like items
2. Wanting to change any of the above mentioned items to a range, such as adding the a new modifier group to all your salads. No need to search for ech salad they are bunched together under salad area
3. Making submenus in aloha is much faster as all the items will be one after an other for each group.
4. As Menulink pointed out, future growth and reporting. If you kept renaming items how is it possible to see a report from 5 months ago how butternut squash ravioli did if you have used that same number for every other pasta special.
5. Finding an item for special pricing when making price change events.

Menulink, please offer additional value.

Running a business or programming Aloha is much simpler when you have a clean, well organized plan and room for future growth. If you spend more time looking for things, you spend less time doing things.

AlohaRoss

http://www.needaholahelp.com

3rd Party support

 

[JRNYC]

An interesting point is made about staff with multiple job / changing jobs.

I might have to forgo creating a number sequence for job position because we often have people changing jobs and giving them new numbers would be a mess

But I definitely understand the advantage to sub sequences for inventory categories and similar.

 

[PosGuyUS]

When I was a programmer and trainer, I used to teach people how to number and thought it was more important. Mind you I don't use Aloha. In our software it just doesn't matter all that much. Certainly you can number things and if you want to update items by number ranges you can but you can just update items by categories so none of that matters. And of course, for those that want to do it by numbers and forgot to leave a gap, there is a way to renumber everything fairly quickly although you'd lose some history.

 

[MenulinkMan]

Keeping a clean database is always important - but bear with me here, i'm sick and swamped to the gills as my staff are out today.

1. Space out your items so they stay grouped together throughout years of growth.
2. Keeping like items together makes it 20x easier to setup categories and adjust your routing. No picking through it to find one item to add. Just select everything under the range and go.
3. It will help keep you organized so you know what is what. If you have an item named Buffalo Blue, you could easily have one under Burgers, one under Chix sandwiches, and one under Salads.
4. When I was setting up the timing in AKV, it helped when I could just select a range of items and move it over to the timing table and adjust all at once. I didn't need to pick through trying to find one item.
5. If you use programs like Aloha Enterprise, they don't forget. If I go in and rename my Buffalo Chicken Sandwich to Hickory Chicken Sandwich, I will already have unit movement on it since the system runs off the PLU/ItemID.
6. If you run an inventory / reporting program like Menulink, I can only imagine the chaos that would occur by changing a name due to recipes, comparative reporting (did my Buff Chix Sandwich sell better than my Hickory Chicken?), or even wanting to bring back an item as an LTO (creating it again could show references to the old item and confuse you)