Neil Mukerji
As a QSR customer, I’m used to being asked whether I’m going to eat in or takeaway. There are two main reasons why we are asked this.
The first is that a sale item’s recipe might change slightly if it is to be taken away. For instance, plastic cutlery may be added to a boxed salad, or a paper cup to a coffee. Diligent operators who track their GP and margins will want to account for these additional materials.
This is why operators will favour a powerful stock control system like Kobas which lets them adjust their recipes based on what we call “Consumption Mode” – which may be Eat-In, Takeaway or Delivery.
The other reason why consumption mode is so important to operators is sales tax, known as VAT in the UK. Most goods sold are subject to standard rate VAT, which is 20% at the time of writing, but there are other rates of VAT including a zero rate, which is usually applied to food and drink for human consumption. However, standard rate must be charged on goods sold for consumption on an operator’s premises, and must also be charged on all hot food. There are other exceptions and rules – please check the government’s guidance for full details.
So a prepared salad for instance would carry standard rate VAT if consumed on the premises (eat in), but would be zero rate if consumed at home, back at an office, or on a park bench (takeaway). Where that salad is going to be consumed then matters to all financially minded folk, from government staffers, through an operator’s accountants to the venue’s manager reviewing their GP.
This means an operator needs clear guidance from their EPoS and stock control systems to ensure full compliance and margin analysis. Again here, Kobas has it all.
When setting up items for sale, Kobas collects tax rate and recipe cost information to show clear net margin information.
Then at the point of sale, it is important to be certain whether the customer plans to eat in, take away, or if the EPoS unit is taking an order for delivery. Kobas tills have always had a consumption mode picker permanently on-screen above the payment buttons which allow the EPoS operator to change mode at any time.
However, for those operators who wish to ensure their team never forget to ask the customer whether they wish to eat in or takeaway, Kobas EPoS can now be configured to ask this question at the start of every order.
To set this up, head on over to Kobas Cloud, navigate to Venues -> Venue Details and hit the Tills tab. There, when adding a new till or editing an existing till, set the “Default login action” to “Select Consumption Mode”.
Kobas provides this combination of per-consumption mode recipes and per-transaction prompts as a part of our holistic approach to hospitality management. Our single solution ensures everyone, from your front of house team to your accountants, is confident your business is running smoothly.
