Loaded

New Stock Module

2011-07-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

Loaded Reports is very happy to announce that very soon you will be able to manage all of your stock through Loaded. The ordering system is now entering the test stage and we will be adding further stock management features in the coming weeks.

We've tried to make it as simple as possible to create purchase orders, and to send these to your suppliers. We think it's pretty cool, with features like being able to Fax and Email orders straight from Loaded without even having to print them.

But it's worth pointing out that this still a test version, there's heaps of features that we will be adding to the Stock system that aren't ready yet, like automatically generating orders based on your stock levels, and tweaking recipes based on the quantities you're actually using.

Keep an eye on our progress, and pretty soon you'll be getting even more value out of Loaded.

Loaded Roster is out of beta

2010-11-29T13:23:00.001-08:00

Thanks to all of you who tried out the new Loaded Roster module. We've been busy testing it and making it better over the past few weeks, and now we think it's ready to remove the "Beta" label.

Like all the reports in Loaded, we'll still be improving things over time, but for the time being, we've locked down all the big bits. This means that won't see any major changes to the user interface, or how things operate in the near future, so you can teach your staff to use the Roster without worrying that it won't look the same in a week's time!

Some of the cool changes we've made since we first released the Roster:

You can make your roster viewable by anyone. This means that you can email your staff a special link, and they can view your roster to see when they are scheduled to work. (Check out http://www.loadedreports.com/Staffroster/Settings to do this)
You can copy a Roster from a previous week. If most of your staff work the same shifts each week, then you can save a lot of time by just copying last week's roster. Click on the "Copy Roster" button in the Roster module to do this.
You can Filter the roster view to only show some of your Departments, this makes it easier to see which staff have shifts assigned, and how many people in each department are rostered during your busy times. Also, if you print a roster when you have a filter applied, then only those Departments will be printed!

There are heaps more features of the roster module, keep an eye on our blog over the next few weeks for more hints and tips to help you get the most out of your Staff Roster.

Beta features

2010-09-08T16:42:00.000-07:00

We're constantly working to make Loaded Reports better. That means that over time you'll see more features come along that you can use in Loaded, but it also means that we need to test these features to make sure they work right.

A lot of this testing is internal. We always do our best to make sure that things are working properly before releasing them onto the main LoadedReports website. But occasionally we have a feature that's a special request - or a feature that we just think is worth getting out as quickly as possible!

When this happens, we'll release them a wee bit early so that our customers can start using them sooner. These are "beta" features: brand new parts of Loaded, fresh off the tree!

The latest beta feature of Loaded is the new Staff Roster module. Now, not only can you manage your employees' Timeclock and payroll with Loaded, you can also do all your rostering.

We're pretty pumped about the new Roster, as we reckon it will save you truckloads of $$ in staffing costs, so we'll be releasing it as a beta feature this week. You'll find it under the "Time" section, along with the Timeclock editor.

The roster is still under heavy development, so keep an eye out for new features. We're stoked about integrating this into Loaded, and will be bringing out a bunch of new reports to go with it, to help you better manage your staffing costs and ultimately save you money!

Testimonial: Captain Cook Tavern

2009-11-03T16:33:00.000-08:00

About The Cook
The Captain Cook Tavern is a large venue with three bars, and approximately 30 staff working on a busy Saturday night. It is extremely important with so many staff working, that the General Manager Stu Munro can easily track each of his staff members performance behind the bar. With 80% of the businesses turnover coming between 11pm and 3am on a Thursday and Saturday night it is important that all of them have the ability to work at a high level of speed to ensure sales are maximized.

About Loaded
Not only does loaded graph sales per half hour for the outlet but it also does so for each staff member, so staff members performance can easily be compared.
The discounts each staff members are giving out can also be individually monitored. If a staff member seems to be giving out more discounts than normal, management can drill down to each transaction to see if the discounts were legitimate or not.

Results
By publishing the reports of each staff members sales on a Thursday and Saturday night, Munro’s best bar tenders now serve at $420 every half hour, versus $380 when it was first put in. Most importantly however, by identifying the slowest bar tenders he has been able to have them re-trained and the gap between the fastest and slowest bar tenders has reduced significantly. Before Loaded was introduced the outlet would turnover between $1,600 to $1,800 per half hour. After 6 weeks the outlet was consistently turning over between $2,000 and $2,200 every half hour, a 15% increase in productivity. This equates to $2,000 - $3,000 of extra turnover on a busy night.

Munro also worked with his managers to identify staff members that were discounting illegitimately. Throughout a shift the managers were told to monitor each staff members discounts and if there were any staff members that had high discounts the manager would go through each transaction to find out why the discount was given. Munro found that the biggest problem was with staff members giving out staff discount (30% off) to people that were not staff. To eliminate this Munro cut all staff discounts for a month as it was clear it was being abused.

Following the month of no staff discounts, the amount of discounts given out was reduced by 55%.

Staff Discounts
Month before no staff discount - $2,100
Month after no staff discount - $900

Testimonial: Alibi Bar and Restaurant

2009-10-22T16:22:00.000-07:00

About Alibi
Alibi is a bar and restaurant located in the center of Dunedin. It operates from 11am until midnight on weekdays, and 4am on the weekends. Long operating hours and operating as both a restaurant and a bar creates some unique challenges from a management point of view.
One of the General Manager, Matt Warby’s biggest challenges was accurately rostering to ensure wage costs were being minimized without any effect on the excellent customer service that alibi offers.

About Loaded
Loaded was introduced at alibi to help monitor sales and staffing levels throughout the different times of the day. Warby was also able to monitor what happened when he wasn’t on site by monitoring the 30 minute sales graph. He was able to pinpoint when the business was at its busiest and therefore needed maximum staff numbers and which sales periods were low and therefore required minimal staff

Results
Wage costs were reduced on a stable sales base by matching the roster to the 30 minute sales graph. Warby also spent time training his managers so they could understand how many staff he expected they would operate with versus the amount of sales they were doing every half hour.
Manager’s quickly began reducing wage costs as they now reduce staff numbers as sales begin to drop during certain periods of the shift they are managing.

Statistics
Over a period of 8 weeks alibi was able to reduce its staff cost by $1,400 per week. Wages have now been consistently reduced to this level for 6 weeks.

Week 1 - $8,059
Week 4 - $7,631
Week 8 - $6,590
Week 12 – $6,796
Week 14 - $6,654

Another Upgrade.

2009-09-21T16:57:00.001-07:00

Monday afternoon you may have noticed an upgrade of your loaded reports account.

The main addition that has been made is the ability to manage your outlets timeclock through Loaded.

You will see there is now a "Time" link on your dashboard page.

Clicking here will take you through to a page where you can view your currently logged in staff. You can also look at a daily overview of all your staffs clock in and clock outs by clicking punches by day.

Also particularly helpful is punches by staff, you can view each staff members punches by day, week or month the same as all of Loaded's other reports.

Printer friendly pages are available for these reports, so they can be printed and given to the person responsible for completing your payroll.

Cashups

There has also been some improvements to simplify completing your cashups in Loaded. By clicking on the "Cash Ups" link on your dashboard, you will be taken to the cashups page.

In this area you are able to enter all of your daily cash up information. You can then view of all of your reconciliation reports under "reconciliation" on the reports page. This is a fantastic way to monitor your variences over a period of time to ensure your money makes its way to the bank!

Testimonial: Velvet Burger

2009-08-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

George at Velvet Burger has been using Loaded for the last six months. Profits have risen a solid 200% since then, listen to how he utilises it by watching the video.

New Reporting interface

2009-08-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

Loaded's just had a facelift, and a whole bunch more reports. The new reporting interface makes it easier to navigate through your reports and gives you a better insight into how your business is going.

To check out the new interface hit the login button on the Loaded home page as usual and you will be able to select which version of Loaded you want to use.

Where is your money going?

2009-06-14T16:48:00.000-07:00

Understanding the financial situation of your business can be a pretty intimidating task, accountants often speak in a foreign language and struggle to bring complex reports regarding your money down to a level which you can understand. Without the knowledge of where your business stands financially it is impossible for you to make good decisions regarding how you are going to make it better and more profitable.

The three most important reports you need for your business is a profit and loss report, a balance sheet report and a cash plan.

The profit and loss report, which can also be known as a statement of financial performance shows the profitability(hopefully) of your business over a period of time, usually a month or a year. Simply, this report shows you the dollar value of the “sales” you have made less the” cost of goods” which you had to buy to make these sales. For a clothing store this would be the wholesale cost of the clothes they buy to then on sell in their store. The “cost of labour” is then subtracted, this is all those people working for you that help make those sales. Finally all of your “general expenses” such as electricity and rent are subtracted and you end up with your profit for the month. This is pre any interest or tax payments and any depreciation on any of the things you own. As with all financial reports a profit and loss report is only as accurate as the information that you have going into it, you must have every invoice for the period you are looking at, no matter how small you won’t have a true indication of how your business is performing until every invoice has been entered.

The Balance sheet or statement of financial performance shows you the health and the value of your business. It tells what you own and what you owe. It identifies assets, which are the things your business owns such as cash, equipment, material, buildings, money owed to you etc etc. Liabilities, which are debts and money you owe to others, things like accounts you still have to pay, tax, payroll etc etc, and equity which is what’s left for you the owner and after liabilities are subtracted from assets.

Why do you need both?
Picture two businesses, both businesses do the same amount of sales and both have exactly the same expenses. They spend the same amount on labour, they have identical electricity bills, and both payoff their credit cards every month. In other words, their profit and loss reports are identical. However one business owns the building in which it operates (an asset on its balance sheet), whereas the other business rents. Obviously the business with the equity in the building is a bit stronger financially? The financial picture of each business is much clearer with both statements providing information.

Finally you need your cash plan so you can manage your business on a day to day basis effectively. There are all types of cash plans, they all work on the premise that cash is king and that when you know what days you have money coming in and what days you have money going out you can ensure that you never get caught short. A good cash plan extends out twelve months in advance to give you the best help in making decisions. Imagine a restaurant who plans on adding a courtyard in six months time, by entering the estimated cost into their cash plan in the month they plan on making the addition they can see whether they will have enough money or whether they might need an overdraft facility for a period of time from the bank. The bank far prefers to be asked six months in advance rather than two days before when you realise you are going to be short.

There is work involved in getting these reports up and running however once they are a part of your businesses process they are very easy to manage. Once you have these reports produced regularly, areas where you can reduce costs and increase sales will begin to emerge and the opportunity to increase the profits of your business will never have been greater.

visit www.e-myth.com for great resources on financial statements
visit www.xero.com for a great easy to use online accounting package

TESTING PARTNERS

2009-06-11T19:42:00.000-07:00

Goodbars based in Queenstown has signed on as a testing partner with Loaded currently connected to six of their Queenstown outlets.

www.goodbars.co.nz

Elevate bar in Christchurch has now been testing Loaded for the past three months, the feedback has been outstanding with owner James O'connell loving the ability to monitor his business performance from anywhere.

www.elevatebar.co.nz

Loaded is currently holding several other meeting with possible testing partners to ensure the product is spot on before going to market.

We're Secure !!

2009-05-04T17:58:00.000-07:00

We have just updated our entire site to use a new security encryption which means all data transferred is now encrypted. Although the previous version was secure, this new version creates a higher level of security. The encryption we are using is called SSL, to find out more about SSL click here. You don't need to do anything for your site to be upgraded, so all your data will now be 100% secure !!