All-in-One POS Automates Outdated Processes for Four-Unit Bar & Grill
Opened in 1995 by brothers Richard and Mike Chavez, Mavericks Bar and Grill is an Arlington, Texas institution, with three other locations spinning off the success of the original: one in Arlington and two in El Paso. These establishments, which serve alcohol and food, offer patrons a chance to watch their favorite teams on numerous high-definition televisions, or play a game of darts or pool. As Arlington is a college town, Mavericks is a bustling enterprise and serves anywhere between 600 to 900 $1 draft beers on both Wednesday and Thursday nights
Until six months ago, this family run business depended on the Chavez brothers' parents to do all of
the accounting and inventory through hand-written receipts and an antiquated Casio cash register. This laborious task included pouring over rolls of cash register tapes, hand-written guest receipts, timecards and order slips so that the books could be balanced, employees would receive their weekly wages, and Mavericks' owners would know how much food and staples they needed to order.
While Mavericks used accounting software, the owners understood that as the business grew they needed a better way to manage that growth to remain profitable. "My brother and I were looking for an upgrade to our POS operating system," says Richard Chavez, the younger of the brothers, adding they came across PointOS at a trade show in Las Vegas in mid-2009. "Everything that it did on the accounting side was everything we needed to make my parents' job easier."
And what Mavericks needed was an all-in-one tool that allows them to keep tabs on the day's sales, the amount of liquor and food ordered and delivered, and employee time slips. Plus having a system that could also act as a watchdog is a bonus. The PointOS system can be calibrated to account for the exact amount of alcohol in each drink when that drink order is entered into the system. When inventory is checked against the system's tabulations, management can see if there's an issue with employees skimming the profits.
"We set our target cost of sale based on what we're selling and how much we're putting in each drink," explains Chavez. "Every month we do inventory and if we're plus or minus one percent [or] two percent of that projected cost of sales, then we don't have to inventory as often. Once there's a month where we're off by four percent [or] five percent, that's a lot of money; we can then look into it."
The system also allows Mavericks to create a database entry for each customer. When a specific customer comes in and starts a tab, a Maverick's bartender will ask for that customer's credit card, swipe it to open the account, and can immediately see the last time that person was in the establishment, their favorite drink, what they like to order for food, and even their birth date.
PointOs's recent partnership with Merchant Warehouse offers an added benefit to the PointOS software by making credit card transactions more secure. When customers use their credit cards, all credit card data is encrypted at the point of swipe through MerchantWARE encrypted card reader technology and is unreadable. This gives Mavericks peace of mind in knowing that their customer's credit card data and financial information is safe from theft.
"It works well, and it's super affordable for a small business," explains Chavez, who notes that he outfitted four stores for $15,000, including all hardware, software and licensing fees. "We really got a product that works for a small business."
Drive Efficiency with Effective Inventory Control (Part 1 of 2)