Top 5 Add-Ons For Breadcrumb POS
Welcome back to the POS integration Hunger Games! These last few weeks have included the top 11 add-ons for Revel POS, the top 7 add-ons for Shopify POS, and the top 5 add-ons for Vend POS. What lucky POS systems’ add-ons will have to duke it out for fame and fortune this week? Breadcrumb POS.
Breadcrumb was founded in 2011 to assuage the burdens of restaurant/hospitality businesses. Since then, it has repeatedly faced crumbling management situations (sorry, I couldn’t resist). The company’s founder left only a year after its conception; it was bought by Groupon in the same year, then sold to Upserve in May of 2016. But even with all that internal turmoil, Breadcrumb POS has stayed strong and relatively profitable through it all – and considering that Upserve is a much better parent company for a POS system – they may come out all the stronger. I mean, who doesn’t love a good underdog story?
If you are wondering which Breadcrumb add-ons you should be integrating into your business, here is a cheat sheet:
Table of Contents
Restaurant Management: CTUIT RADAR
Founded in 2000, CTUIT’s mission is to be the solution to the restaurant industry’s most formidable challenges. CTUIT RADAR seeks to manage your restaurant on numerous levels so you don’t have to worry about a thing. It is largely successful in this goal – thus earning its rank as highest rated restaurant management integration for Breadcrumb POS.
With RADAR, you have access to business intelligence that helps you make more money while doing less office work – a perfect combo. From planning events to preventing fraud, this integration does it all. The manager log feature allows you to administrate daily restaurant activities from a single dashboard; the On The Fly™ feature brings instantaneous and current data to your fingertips through your mobile device; and the enterprise report designer lets you write custom reports that are intuitive for you.
Let’s talk about food – this is a restaurant management integration, after all. Recipe costing and food costing can be a hassle without the proper tools, but RADAR provides valuable insight into how to manage food costs. It also tracks inventory to eradicate errors and generates prep sheets to make your kitchen more efficient and profitable.
If sales are your Achilles’ heel, RADAR is the add-on for you. With features such as forecasting, benchmarking, and reporting, you can know the ins and outs of how your business is running and what potential changes could make it run more efficiently and profitably.
Finally, RADAR helps you manage your employees. Labor scheduling, payroll validation and integration, special pay, etc. have never been easier to take care of with their automated and user-friendly platform.
The Takeaway: CTUIT’s RADAR is basically the Swiss Army knife of restaurant management integrations, offering features that anticipate the needs of any restaurant.
If you already have your business running like a well-oiled machine and only need specific integration solutions to make things go a little smoother, the following sections are for you:
Accounting: Shogo
Just the word “accounting” typically strikes fear into the heart of the average human being. But that is why most of us use technology like QuickBooks and Xero – to make all the terror go away. Unfortunately, Breadcrumb POS does not integrate directly with QuickBooks or Xero. But don’t freak out! Breadcrumb does integrate with Shogo, which in turn can integrate with QuickBooks or Xero.
Credit cards, cash, gift cards, and checks are all accepted and supported through Breadcrumb in the posting process. Posting of sales data varies depending on whether you choose QuickBooks or Xero to handle your accounting. QuickBooks lets you post sales data as sales receipts or journal entries. Xero gives you the option of posting sales data as journal entries or invoices. With Shogo, sales data is automatically posted specific to the location. Are discounts a big part of your business? Shogo can post discounts at the level of discount type and you can either map discounts to the same account or to detailed accounts for in-depth analysis.
Sick and tired of manually entering sales information and doing the whole accounting process by hand? Shogo automates the process for you by posting your sales information each and every morning. No importing or exporting necessary. If “accounting” is a scary word, “taxes” is probably up there as well – and don’t even get me started on “multiple sales taxes”. But this add-on can post multiple sales taxes as distinct line items like City versus State. Sales can also be posted at the Breadcrumb Category level or at the product level, whichever you prefer.
The Takeaway: Shogo is the bridge between your Breadcrumb POS and the foremost accounting services (QuickBooks and Xero).
Beverage Management: BinWise
If wine is a major part of your restaurant business, then look no further than BinWise. Now I am by no means a Sommelier – especially considering that I had to Google what a Sommelier was – but BinWise is designed for Sommeliers by Sommeliers (or wine professionals, for the similarly uncultured).
Let’s face it. Counting is hard and the added pressure of needing to get the right amount of wine to guests sure doesn’t help. You can save time and your sanity with BinWise; it counts accurately and consistently without the risk of human error. Wondering if someone is over-pouring? Such operational issues are easily caught, allowing you to make the necessary changes. What’s more, you can optimize your pricing simply by knowing what sells and what doesn’t. BinWise allows you to understand and adjust your wine program to keep you in your profit happy place.
You will never have to worry about losing money because of lost product with BinWise’s tracking feature. Corked wines can be tracked and a corked wine report can be sent to your reps including essential information like the exact product count, cost, and date purchased. And you can track all your outstanding orders/products and purchase history from the convenience of your Breadcrumb POS system.
They even have a wine database – yes, you heard me right. This veritable Wikipedia for wine is created and maintained by Advanced and Master Sommeliers to provide detailed descriptions about specific wine items.
BinWise permits you to process sales automatically from your POS so you never run out of customer favorites. Wine lists are easily formatted, updated, and priced to your liking. If you have multiple locations, the Enterprise View dashboard will give you access to precious data such as best selling items and sales variations across locations.
The Takeaway: BinWise is the digital wine expert you never knew your restaurant needed.
CRM: Venga
Venga is the highest rated customer relationship management integration for Breadcrumb POS because it is the only CRM integration for Breadcrumb POS. Nevertheless, Venga has earned its stripes by facilitating customer engagement since 2010.
The key to the success of any business is personalized service. Venga knows it well and helps you “turn every guest into a regular”. With automatically generated profiles at your fingertips, you can target the interests of your customers and provide personalized service. Any guest notes and codes garnered in one location are seamlessly shared between your locations for exceptional service at your customers’ convenience. Don’t let special requests or VIP guests catch you off guard – Venga sends a pre-shift report to your inbox so you are prepared no matter what.
Building relationships with customers in this day and age requires interaction through technology. Let Venga do the heavy lifting for you with automated email campaigns for guests who haven’t visited in a while, reporting on who returns after an email campaign and what they buy, and targeted marketing founded on categories such as visits, spending, purchases, or guest codes. You can even automate posting on the news feeds of the customer’s Facebook after they visit your store.
Begging customers for feedback can seem too pushy; that’s where Venga comes in. You can visualize reviews of your restaurant on OpenTable, Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc. all in one place or privately email specific guests using a branded email survey. You can even categorize customer reviews based on word choice as negative or positive. Venga collects data from Breadcrumb to see which servers and menu items are making your customers the happiest, and all of this can be reflected in their custom reporting feature.
The Takeaway: Venga keeps customers coming back for more with personalized features and email marketing while keeping you informed with feedback and reporting features.
Inventory Management: Orca Inventory
The success of Orca Inventory is based on the years of experience in the restaurant business accrued by its founders.
Orca Inventory specializes in – you guessed it – asset inventory management software and has perfected it to the last detail. This software provides ways for counts to be verified automatically, a drag and drop system for matching items to shelves, and a mobile app for inventory counts on site. Budgeting is a breeze as well. Daily sales can be tracked through Breadcrumb so you know where you stand financially in real-time. Some factors Orca Inventory takes into consideration are current weather forecasting and historic and future events.
Orca Inventory’s One Click Intelli-Vendor Ordering allows you to order inventory with just a single click. You can track credit and returns, view reports on historical prices, and create receiving forms to encourage vendor accountability. Also, any recipes you change will be updated in real-time. Building recipes and menus is simple and this add-on even informs you about costs so you can be smart about what menu items you offer.
Orca Inventory provides end of month, usage, and cost of goods sold (COGS) reporting. Variance reporting is also useful for seeing how your company is performing and for keeping your competitive edge.
The Takeaway: Orca Inventory was made for restaurateurs (by former-restaurateurs) to make inventory management as simple as it should be.
Final Thoughts
I hope this article has been useful in your search for integrations that will benefit your business. If you have any tips, questions, or suggestions about Breadcrumb integrations, drop us a line. We’re here to help!