You may not consider it compared to a busy café or lively restaurant, but a school canteen is still a functional business. With all businesses, it needs to run successfully to make a positive turnover in profit but more importantly, it must operate and keep up to date with current prices, dietary requirements and student demands.
School canteens are a completely different landscape compared to previous years, where healthy eating lifestyles have replaced less nutritious ones and technology incorporation is becoming more evident. It is now time to ensure you are doing everything to keep up with continuously changing times, which all starts with your canteen operating seamlessly. This means making the user experience across your school community feel effortless, allowing traffic to flow easily. Here comes a point of sale system (POS) that considers all factors of running hospitality businesses such as a school canteen.
How to operate a point of sale system in your school canteen
When applying any new form of technology into a school or business environment, you need to ensure that you’re letting all your staff members understand the opportunities your new POS system will provide to the business and how= to take advantage of them.
Here are a few steps to get you started in the right direction
Once you have been given the all-clear to install the system into your school canteen, you will need to certify implementation is ready to go ahead. While the team at 21st Century Business are busy installing your new POS system, for individuals using the system, you should communicate to the following:
Canteen staff: If you have a canteen manager, or specific leader type role implemented into your Canteen operations, ensure this person is kept up to date and informed. This person must be efficiently prepared for the new POS system as they will be more than likely responsible for training and understanding every
function of the new POS system.
IT Support: The IT support will be a big part of the newly installed POS system as well. Give them as much information as possible around the hardware, any requirements and how they can gain access to ongoing support. At 21st CBE we provide timely assistance if anything is to go wrong concerning your new POS
system.
Finance department: All purchases in your school are more than likely to go through the finance department, so ensure they are kept up with the installation to make sure nothing is held up where possible.
Principal: Probably participating in the early stages of the new POS system implementation decision, but just in case, make sure your direct leadership is more than aware of how the system works and what benefit
it will bring to your school canteen.
Image source: https://mrseducate.com/2018/09/22/10-tips-for-a-killer-open-evening/
Assign an individual in charge of decisions:
Concerning menu items and/or updating inventory prices, IMPOS makes it easy to adjust to your requirements and the changes the canteen may go through. We have noted that having someone exclusively overseeing this process will resolve any delays, miscommunications and eliminate potential double handling. This individual needs to approve and will be responsible for new food items, pricing structure and any special considerations for certain staff or students for example.
Establish a training program
The most valuable step of all, implementing a comprehensive training program is the key to effectively installing a new POS system into your school canteen. Our team at 21st CBE can help yours but there are still a few potential issues that you can avoid and help get your staff accustom to and head around the openings:
Have a regulation and system process printed out or easily accessible so they can be referenced on demand.
Make sure staff understand any responsibilities they will have surrounding the product.
Inform of rollout dates of your new POS system in advance.
Call our team today at (08) 9321 8902 or email sales@21stcenturybusiness.com.au to find out more about all or any of these integration options and discuss how these can help your business thrive - especially as we as a community get up and running as things improve.