6 Restaurant POS Tools that Prevent Employee Theft

Employee theft can cost you thousands of dollars before it's noticed. This issue, we look at some ways SpeedLine can prevent and detect internal theft of money, time, and inventory.

Access Control. If you’re not using fingerprint sensors for employee login, it may be time to reconsider. Biometric ID has come a long way. Today’s sensors are fast and reliable, taking the guesswork out of the equation. In addition to the added security in employee time clock tracking, fingerprint security adds a new level of control over cash handling, providing an audit trail so you can see who did what at every step of every transaction.

Within SpeedLine, you can define security roles and permissions by department, or by individual employee if required, to grant staff access to only the information they need to do their jobs. You can also regulate break, clock-in, and clock-out times to ensure employees are working their scheduled hours.

Cash Count Safeguards. Pre-empt any funny business behind the scenes. Consider these tips to control the flow of cash:

• For consistency, set a default opening amount for banks.
• Use a quantity counting method to record the number of bills and coins rather than totaling dollar amounts, for a more accurate cash count.
• Allow bank recounts in the POS, and have them double checked by a second person.
• Set the POS to require blind counts to deter staff from pocketing overages.

Cash Limits. SpeedLine lets you limit the amount of cash on hand using these controls:

• Set cash limits in the point of sale, and require a cash drop.
• Assign one employee responsibility for the contents of a cash drawer.
• Restrict access to comps, voids and discounts, which have the potential to be converted to cash, and pocketed by a dishonest employee.

Tracking of physical access and actions with video security. SpeedLine integrates directly with video surveillance software, creating a searchable database of videos and transactions to speed up the detective work. You can view the actual transaction on screen for any part of the video that seems suspicious, giving you solid visual evidence in a case of employee theft.

Inventory Software. Inventory on your shelves is valuable, and thieves know it. With inventory software, you can control stock levels and reduce your stock on hand, which in turn reduces both theft and waste. Employees are more likely to be free with ingredients—on pizzas and in their pockets—if they see a large stockpile on hand. With consistent menus, proper portioning and regular physical inventory counts, your “shrinkage” will stand out on reports—sometimes matching exact weight of a box of cheese. And SpeedLine Inventory is designed for pizza, with accurate topping usage tracking, even for create-your-own pizzas and sandwiches. Find out more about SpeedLine Inventory.

POS reports. Staff who know you’re watching are less likely to steal. Keep your eye on critical auditing reports, and make sure your employees know you do them. SpeedLine tracks “notable activities”—actions that can indicate theft—and displays a list at the touch of a button. Other reports to review regularly include time clock reports and those that list employee payouts and discounts.

Prevention works. Controls like these make it difficult for staff to cheat the system. In fact, one chain executive told us that once they’d implemented these controls in their restaurants, all the tricks employees used to play with the POS system just stopped.

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