Track $$$ spent by a group in Aloha 5.3

[danag]

I'm not sure I can explain this one very well. It's complicated and I don't know much about Aloha so I may be asking for the impossible here. I would like to keep track of dollars spent by a specific group of guests for the night and at the end of the night, rebate a percentage of their total before taxes. This is a "rebate" type promotion where we are going to give back a percentage of the checks from an organization's members that dine with us. This will not be one big group coming in at one time. Anyone dining with us during certain hours that says they are with the organization will be added to the total for the night. So, during the night we need a way to enter an item or promo or something on a ticket that would be a percentage of the check total before taxes. But NOT a discount on the ticket. I just want a line item that shows what portion of the check will go towards the "rebate" total. I would like to require a manager's approval to do this. At the end of the night I would like to be able to see the total number of dollars from this group of checks so we can write a "rebate" check to the organization.

DaNag

 

[zahead31]

We do this at our restaurant; at least I am pretty sure we do from what you described. We have these fundraisers for organizations. The guests coming in for the fundraiser will bring in a flyer so we know to donate a certain percentage of their total check (less taxes) back to the organization.

We do not have a line item on the guest check, but I do have a menu item labeled "Fundraiser". If the guest presents a flyer, the server will ring in the "Fundraiser" menu item on the check. Then, I built and Excel spreadsheet that will search through the appropriate Aloha databases to find every check # that has the "Fundraiser" item. Then the total check amounts are added up and multipled by the appropriate percentage to get the total donation. This sheet also serves as our check request document to submit to our accounting department to get the check processed.

It took some knowledge of VBA and the Aloha databases to get done. Just thought I would throw this out as one possible option. Hopefully everything I said makes sense!

Matt

 

[posrescue]

If you only have one group that this will apply to you could simply set up a new "order mode" (send order, to-go, xyz group. The order mode would not have to have any specific headers etc for kitchen printing. The order mode sales could then simply be viewed on the sales by order mode report. The order mode could also redirect the sales to it's own revenue center if you wanted. No manager approval capabilities but probably your easiest method.

ORRRRR

You could set up the managers as cashiers. (closes checks and tracks credit card tips owed to servers by shift) The manager does a get check on all of the checks for organization members when it is time to apply payment to the individual checks. The manager then closes the checks on their number. Since the payment is processed on the managers number and closed those checks become the manager's trackable on their own checkout. The manager must be set up as a cashier!!! The servers checkouts will show what charge tips are owed to them by the manager as long as the manager enters the charge tips before any checkouts are run. At the end of the shif the manager runs a checkout and that is the total sales for the organization for that shift... The manager's checkout will also have a tally of all charge tips that were owed to the servers which could be used to reconcile a drawer or petty cash for that money... If you write a check weekly or monthly instead of daily you could simply run a labor report for that manager or group of managers for that month or week and see the sales for that time period. Obviously it would be important that there are never any other sales on those manager numbers... You could also add a cash drawer to a terminal very cheaply and use it to store cash payments, cc reciepts etc for the group sales and then use it to pay out cc tips. Be sure it is only assigned to the manager on duty...

 

[danag]

Thanks Guys!! Those are all good ideas. I will look into each one and see where I go from here. The one about the database is interesting. I'll have to brush on my VBA! It would be great if you could use a comp or a promo in Aloha that didn't discount the check. That's probably bordering on being an oxymoron, huh? I'll get back to you guys with questions.

DaNag

 

[danag]

Hey Guys,

OK, I'm ready to dig into this one again. I had some surgery and had to lay low for a few weeks but I want to get back in here and figure this one out.

zahead,

I like your idea about creating a menu item labeled "Fundraiser" and building an Excel spreadsheet that will find every check # that has the "Fundraiser" item. I would then like to extract enough info from the databases to generate a "report" (spreadsheet) to give the organization.

I have some knowledge of VB and VBA. Where I'm lacking is on the Aloha databases. Some of them are pretty straight forward but some of them....not so much!

Can you, and would you be willing to, help me out with the database details? If so, for starters, in which database would the "Fundraiser" item show up? ITM.DBF? GNDSALE.DBF? Will it be a numeric value in one of the fields or a string?

BTW, I'm running version 5.3.29.376.

Thanks,
DaNag



DaNag

 

[TobeThor]

Doesn't Aloha have a frequent buyer program that would accomplish this? Enterprise perhaps. It seems like you're about to do a lot of work to get what you want. I am not familiar with Aloha's program but have seen other POS programs that do track purchases and pretty much do exactly what you describe. Aloha's a market leader, I would check with your local Dealer. Good Luck.