News Briefs

Fourth, a workforce and inventory management technology provider, announced the ‘Level Up’ product release for its AI driven platform, containing a package of new capabilities to help customers face economic challenges head-on.

Rising costs are front of mind for most UK hospitality operators in 2024, with April’s increase in the National Living Wage and business rates a key contributor to stretched margins and over-burdened teams. Other ongoing challenges operators are facing include labour shortages, food inflation, and price-sensitive consumers, all of which require innovative strategies to combat them.

Available to customers from today, Fourth's ‘Level Up’ product release introduces capabilities enabling hospitality operators to increase profitability, efficiency and employee engagement in the areas impacted by the current challenges they face.

Key among the new features is ‘AI for Inventory’, bringing two AI capabilities into Fourth’s Purchase to Pay & Inventory product. AI Forecasting leverages Fourth’s proprietary AI to predict item-level demand, increasing the precision and efficiency of purchasing, inventory management, and preparation. Additionally, AI Invoice Processing reduces the administrative burden of manually processing invoices, saving time and reducing errors.

Fourth’s Managing Director, EMEA, Sebastien Sepierre, commented: “Since its launch in 2022, our AI Forecasting solution has been delivering great results for our workforce scheduling customers. It's used by many of the UK’s largest restaurant groups including PizzaExpress, and growing chains like Thai Leisure Group, who reduced overscheduling by 22% while boosting sales by nearly 16%. Our ‘Level Up’ product release brings the huge potential of this technology into our inventory solutions.”

Other significant features in today’s release include:

• Onboarding App: delivers a flexible and initiative onboarding experience, helping new hires get off to a great start.
• Shift Pooling: enables operators to optimise their workforce by offering staff the flexibility to take on open shifts across multiple locations.
• Precision Payroll: includes updates to help operators comply with the new Allocation of Tips Act which takes effect in October.
• Employee Engagement: offers new ways for employees to update their personal information, eSign employment documents and ditch WhatsApp groups with a dedicated messaging feature.

Sebastien Sepierre said, “For 25 years, Fourth has built a strong reputation for continually delivering the technology innovations our customers need to succeed; We are acutely aware of the challenges facing operators at this time, and we’re proud to proactively offer our customers new ways to make a measurable impact on profits, efficiency and employee engagement.”

PopID and Steak n Shake announced today that all Steak n Shake locations in the United States now accept PopID Check In (to review favorite orders and loyalty points) and PopPay for checkout. With more than 300 locations, Steak n Shake is the first national restaurant brand in the United States to adopt biometric check-in and checkout nationwide. PopID’s biometric check-in feature makes kiosk ordering faster, easier, and more personalized.

The implementation of PopID in every Steak n Shake location was accomplished rapidly and at low cost through a partnership between PopID and ACRELEC, a leading supplier of kiosk-ordering hardware and drive-through products. Cameras were shipped to every restaurant for attachment to the existing ACRELEC kiosks. “As explained in our recent publication, ACRELEC believes that our integrated biometric solution provides various benefits to restaurant operators related to throughput, ticket size, and loyalty engagement,” says Bruno Lo-Re, President of ACRELEC America.

“We are thrilled about our partnership with PopID and to be on the edge of biometric technology for the benefit of our customers. Our guests now have the option to use biometrics for a faster and more seamless experience,” says Sardar Biglari, Chairman of Biglari Holdings, the parent company of Steak n Shake.

Now that biometrics are enabled for all ordering and payment inside Steak n Shake restaurants, PopID and Steak n Shake will begin implementing biometric check-in and checkout at the restaurant’s drive-through units. “Similar to the kiosks, biometric check in can increase loyalty participation and revenue at the drive thru while also reducing payment processing costs,” says John Miller, CEO of PopID and Chairman of Cali Group. “Additionally, biometric payment at the order confirmation screen enables staff members to work on tasks other than taking payments by card and phone at the order pick-up window.”

Sojern, a digital marketing platform built for travel and a member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced its suite of Guest Experience Solutions is available on Oracle Cloud Marketplace and can be deployed on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and integrated with OPERA Cloud via the Oracle Hospitality Integration Platform (OHIP). Oracle Cloud Marketplace is a centralized repository of enterprise applications offered by Oracle and Oracle partners.

The Sojern Guest Experience Solutions enables hotel marketers to answer questions, resolve guest issues, and upsell services throughout the entire customer journey. 

Oracle Cloud Marketplace is a one-stop shop for Oracle customers seeking trusted business applications and services offering unique solutions, including ones that extend Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications.  

OCI is a deep and broad platform of cloud infrastructure services that enables customers to build and run a wide range of applications in a scalable, secure, highly available, and high-performance environment. From application development and business analytics to data management, integration, security, AI, and infrastructure services including Kubernetes and VMware, OCI delivers comprehensive security, performance, and cost savings. In addition, with multicloud, hybrid cloud, public cloud, and dedicated cloud options, OCI’s distributed cloud offers customers the benefits of cloud with greater control over data residency, locality, and authority, even across multiple clouds. As a result, customers can bring enterprise workloads to the cloud quickly and efficiently while meeting the strictest regulatory compliance requirements.

"Joining Oracle Cloud Marketplace marks a significant milestone for Sojern’s hospitality customers. This two-way interface enhances real-time guest engagement, with a suite of tools designed to enhance the guest experience and operational efficiency within OHIP. Sojern’s Reputation Manager empowers hoteliers to efficiently gather and manage feedback using generative AI for automated responses. Hospitality customers will also have access to advanced text and email marketing, along with auto reconciliation, simplifying marketing, performance, and measurement,” said Noreen Henry, Chief Revenue Officer, Sojern. “Sojern’s participation in Oracle Cloud Marketplace further strengthens our commitment to the Oracle community and enables customers to easily reap the benefits of Sojern’s Guest Experience Solutions. We look forward to leveraging the power of the OCI to help us achieve our business goals.”  

For more information about Sojern’s Guest Experience Solutions, click here.

Aptech, a hospitality company providing finance and accounting software for more than 50 years to hotels, will reveal a NEW dashboard for its PVNG enterprise accounting solution at HITEC Charlotte, to be held June 24 to 27 at the Charlotte (N.C.) Convention Center. Developed at the request of its customers, the tool provides a quick view of the status of a hotel’s financials from the previous night and more. All data is updated in the system in real time, enhancing the ability for hotel operators to make more informed decisions, improve efficiency, and achieve strategic goals.

“Aptech is known industrywide for exceptional support and quick response to our customers,” said Aptech President Jill Wilder. “Users asked us for fast access to financial and operational data – accounts payable, general ledger, statistical data – all on one screen and without having to execute multiple reports or inquiries to provide a pulse of where they are now and how they are progressing financially. PVNG was the only one of our three products that did not have a dashboard, so we went to work. Wanting to provide the most value, we asked specifically what they would like to be included on the dashboard – and we delivered.”

The PVNG Dashboard provides a quick glimpse of:

• Bank account balances for each bank account
• Open invoice balances for top five vendors
• Overall Accounts Payable Aging: Current / 30+ / 60+ / 90+ Days
• Comparative analysis on user selected KPI’s; Yesterday/Month to Date/Month to Date Last Year

“Our customers are saying they cannot wait to visit us at HITEC to see the dashboard in action,” Wilder said. “This tool will give users real-time access to data, enabling them to monitor performance and trends as they happen. This immediacy provides quicker reactions to changing conditions, such as market shifts or operational issues. The dashboard will also improve decision making. By consolidating data from various sources into a single, easy-to-understand interface, the PVNG dashboard will help operators work smarter, not harder.”

Just like the dashboards for its Execuvue (Business Intelligence) and Targetvue (Budgeting & Forecasting) solutions, the PVNG dashboard can be accessed from any web browser, enabling users to access all data via mobile phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop. This dashboard is a standard feature of PVNG and will be included in the next software release slated for July 2024.

“We encourage people to come by Booth 2644 at HITEC to see the PVNG dashboard and provide their input,” Wilder said. “This is the first release, and we will continue to develop the dashboard to provide more flexibility and information defined by our customers.”

On Display at HITEC

PVNG is one of the top ranked solutions in the Hotel Tech Report “Best Finance & Accounting Software” 2024 popularity index. It ranked No. 2 out of 37 companies in the finance and accounting software category. Ninety six percent of limited service and budget hotels, 94% of luxury hotels, 93% of branded hotels, and 84% of resorts say they would recommend PVNG for enterprise accounting. The solution earned an overall score of 4.7 out of 5.0 for ease of use, customer support, return on investment and ease of implementation.

PVNG features the Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Statistics, Financials, and Bank Reconciliation that today’s hotel operators are seeking with much-needed browser navigation. It features automated invoice processing, a myriad of payment options, drill-down capabilities in financial statements and reports, and the ability to handle single or multi-property accounting.

Attendees will also see Aptech’s IBM Cognos-based ASP BI application, Execuvue. It delivers visualizations of financial and operational data that hoteliers can act upon. The drag-and-drop environment provides easy-to-access reporting and analytics. The solution configures data portfolio wide, giving operators a performance snapshot by region, brand, and property. The scalability, flexibility, and integration capabilities of Execuvue sets Aptech apart from other BI providers.

Aptech’s hospitality-driven budgeting and forecasting solution, Targetvue, will also be showcased. The solution provides accounting teams with “one version of the truth.” It consolidates reports, identifies trends, and eliminates the maintenance and distribution of Excel spreadsheets throughout the organization. Automated forecast snapshots offers users ad-hoc capabilities to previous and future performance projections.

To learn more about Aptech solutions, visit them at HITEC Charlotte, June 24 to 27 at the Charlotte Convention Center in Booth #2644.

PAS (Professional Accounting Solutions, Inc.), Professional Advantage (PA) and LLP Group (LLP) announce the formation of a global alliance aimed at providing an Operational Intelligence & Integration platform to the hospitality sector globally. 

This strategic partnership brings together the collective expertise of all three organizations to deliver a comprehensive solution that seamlessly integrates with existing systems, across different platform environments whilst also providing visibility over key data. By leveraging their combined strengths, PA, LLP and PAS are committed to enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of hospitality services worldwide, ensuring that their clients can offer an exceptional operational experience through cutting-edge technology and insightful data analysis.

“We are excited to announce our strategic collaboration with PAS and LLP to introduce a comprehensive go-to-market offering specifically designed for the hospitality sector,” stated Neil Richardson, Business Lead, ISV Solutions, Professional Advantage. “This initiative addresses the persistent challenge of application integration faced by businesses in this industry, enabling seamless connectivity and communication between disparate software systems. By leveraging our combined expertise and cutting-edge solution, we aim to enhance operational efficiency, improve customer experiences, and drive digital transformation, empowering hospitality companies to thrive in an increasingly competitive market. This partnership not only signifies our commitment to technological excellence but also ensures our clients receive the most robust and reliable solutions available today.”

"LLP is excited to be part of this Alliance," stated Tim Smulders, LLP Group Western Europe Managing Director. "With over 30 years of SunSystems hotel experience and our deep expertise in multinational implementations of Infor SunSystems, EPM, HxGN EAM and PA solutions in over 70 countries, LLP Group is well-equipped to support global hospitality companies. By working closely with Infor, PA and PAS, we are dedicated to helping to provide complete Cloud finance solutions tailored to the needs of the hospitality sector, regardless of company size."

"This is a whole new collaboration of three teams that know hotels," said Gayle Edwards, VP Managing Director of PAS. "Together, we now have not only the technology but the application as well. Add that to our consolidated 24/7 helpdesk services around the world, and you have #oneteam to streamline communications and service for hotel properties. The extensive knowledge and scalability that PAS brings to the table are exactly why so many hotels across the world trust us with their back office needs. We are excited about these partnerships as we are able to add to our own existing team around the globe. Additionally, as partners of Infor – PAS, Professional Advantage and LLP Group will continue to support many of Infor's global customers as a team."

For those attending HITEC 2024 in Charlotte, please visit the PAS team as well as representatives from Professional Advantage and LLP Group in booth No. 935 to learn more about #oneteam, or you can schedule an appointment in advance here.