Point-of-sale (POS) systems have been around since the 1970s, first launched by IBM. Groovy, right? McDonald’s then became the first to use a restaurant-specific POS in 1974. We’ve come a long way since the era of peace, love, and understanding, but we’ve also made great strides in POS technology, specifically in the ways we can use our POS system to gather and interpret data to make our operations more streamlined and efficient.
A survey conducted by Salesforce in 2020 found that 50% of SMBs said that the data they collect from their POS is key to running their business, and we imagine that number has only grown in the first half of this decade.
The data you’re generating is a powerful tool, but to fully understand its benefits, you must first harness it and learn how to use it. To do that, your senior living community needs a POS that delivers. Here, we’ll take a look at what type of data your POS system should be collecting, what to do with that information once you’ve got it, and how it can be transformative for your senior living or assisted living communities.
It’s important to note that not all POS systems are created equal. For instance, some cater more to retail sales and services, and that simply won’t work in the senior housing and dining space. Some systems are designed specifically for restaurants, yet they still fall short of helping you achieve your goals. What you need is a POS designed exclusively for the senior dining experience.
Here are some of the data points our clients track with eMenuCHOICE:
Your POS sales report is the foundation of your data collection, as it gives you a detailed look at exactly which meals or food items are selling. A sales report can help you identify changing trends and look for specific meals that are more popular. This can give you a better understanding of which ingredients you need to stock and how to plan your menus. You can also keep tabs on your sales report to know when a particular meal or item is underperforming and doesn’t have the sales you expect. That way, you can cut expenses on items that don’t sell and be more efficient in your ordering and meal planning.
It’s critical to carefully monitor resident invoices, and having them all in one report can be a major timesaver. A standard restaurant POS wouldn’t account for the flexible billing options that are available in many senior living communities, but that’s what sets eMenuCHOICE apart. With resident invoices, you can see exactly what residents have ordered and paid for. This makes your billing more accurate and puts a stop to revenue leakage. It’s also extremely helpful to have a report like this in case of billing disputes or errors.
Most independent living or assisted living communities allow for a variety of payment types, and that kind of flexibility is key to resident satisfaction. Unfortunately, that means revenue can often slip through the cracks as meals go unaccounted for. This is particularly problematic when it comes to guest and staff meals. An amount due report will show you exactly what your community is owed by residents, guests, and staff members so you can make informed decisions to stop the revenue leakage and get back on track.
Product mix reports have become standard for any restaurant or food service POS in recent years. A p-mix report will show you gross sales and item quantity sold for every food item or category within a given timeframe. This allows you to see how demand changes over a period of time, identify recurring trends, and forecast shifts in what residents are likely to purchase. With this tool, you can identify popular food items and meals, which makes ordering more manageable and reduces your food waste.
The eMenuCHOICE Velocity Report is likely to be one of your top resources when it comes to using data to manage your senior dining services. With the Velocity Report, you can see your peak dining times at a glance, which helps you identify busy periods or slow stretches and staff accordingly. Often, when peak times are unknown, the kitchen and dining areas are staffed continually at one level, which means they are often overstaffed during slowdowns and understaffed at the busiest times. With the Velocity Report, you can easily avoid that by tracking and preparing for the natural flow of residents in your dining areas.
Your payment details report allows you to see specific payment details made through your POS system. You can monitor the dates and times of each purchase made, along with payment methods and other valuable information. Understanding this data will help you identify trends, understand resident behavior, and optimize your payment processes. For example, if you run a payment details report and find that residents are more likely to pay with a gift card after the holidays, you can review your process and make staff members aware to be prepared and increase efficiency.
Now that you know what types of data you can access through your POS, you need to understand what you can do with it to benefit your senior living community.
By keeping an eye on the trends your data uncovers, you can better plan your menus and dig deeper into customization options that fit with resident preferences and dietary needs. For example, if you learn that most of your residents are opting for items that are sugar-free or that they use a certain sugar substitute, you may want to incorporate that into your menu planning. Using senior dining management software allows you to add specific, custom menu items for a personal touch.
Your dining room should run like a well-oiled machine, but that’s not always easy. When you use data to understand peak times, however, you can know in advance when you’re going to be serving a popular meal and work ahead to prepare accordingly. You can even plan to have increased staff during your busy times and preorder extra ingredients for in-demand dishes. Your senior living POS collects data on adding more flexible dining options to your service offerings, including online ordering, self-service kiosks, or in-room meals.
In an independent living or assisted living setting, it’s easy to let some payments slip through the cracks. Residents frequently have visitors who also eat in your dining hall, and your employees eat on-site as well. This can mean payments aren’t quite accurate, which can cause resident balances to rise unexpectedly. Ultimately, this leads to revenue leakage and could cause misunderstandings with your seniors or their family members. Keeping tabs on invoices, balances, and billing payments will help you avoid any conflict and provide accurate data should questions arise.
Resident experience is critical to the success of your senior living community, and that means working to keep residents and their loved ones satisfied. Senior dining includes providing healthy, nutritious meals that are also delicious and enjoyable. But it isn’t just about the food — resident satisfaction also hinges on the quality of the service, ease of ordering, accuracy, attention to detail, and much more. Leveraging your data to create more efficient operations, ensure you’re properly staffed, and always have the inventory you need to deliver meals as promised goes a long way toward resident satisfaction. It also helps when you can accurately and immediately show invoices and billing information whenever there’s a dispute.
Using a restaurant POS system can do some of these things, but it can’t do it all while keeping the focus on the experience and satisfaction of your older adult residents. A POS that’s designed exclusively for seniors can __ your efficiency and streamline your dining operations.
This is something that a standard POS could never dream of. With eMenuCHOICE, you can integrate resident data with all of your other senior software solutions, like EHR and eMAR. That means you can always stay on top of resident information like dietary restrictions, allergens, or medication interactions and then use that data to ensure residents are safe and satisfied.
When it comes to integration, eMenuCHOICE can easily work alongside and within your existing tech ecosystem. The data you gather through eMenuCHOICE can be piped into external programs through many of our partner software providers and APIs. This further maximizes the value you get out of using a senior living POS and expands your data monitoring and analyzing capabilities.
Getting started with eMenuCHOICE for senior living is simpler than you might think. We can walk you through the process step-by-step so you can see exactly how eMenuCHOICE can deliver data — and so much more. Find out how it can streamline your menu planning, give you unparalleled customization, and optimize your billing to maximize revenue capture. Schedule a call with us today!