Technology has gradually and regularly crawled into the restaurant industry. So much so, that it has become an essential part of streamlining restaurant operations and has become an absolute must for running the business seamlessly. The restaurant KOT is a small, although an important feature of the restaurant ordering system, and with alterations in technology, has seen important changes in how orders are transferred in a restaurant.
KOT is an abstraction for Kitchen Order Tickets. It is actually a note which is forwarded to the kitchen, billing division, and one copy is retained in the system for future reference. The KOT essentially contains details associated with the table amount, items ordered and its quantity. Having a restaurant KOT which is automated, reduces the range of standard mistakes, saves time, helps you to have real-time reporting of all the orders at your restaurant, and decreases monetary discrepancies. With so many positives, what is preventing you from having an automated restaurant KOT generation process at your restaurant?
Why You Should Shift from Your Tradition Restaurant KOT Generation Process
While you may plan to have an automated restaurant KOT generation process at your restaurant unless you know how it will benefit you, or how it will be different from the popular restaurant KOT generation process, how will you recognize the actual value of it? Let us split down the steps how a popular restaurant KOT generation process really works.
The waiter takes order using carbon paper. Typically the popular restaurant KOT contains 3 copies, in Red, Yellow and in White.
The Red runs to the kitchen to prepare the food. The kitchen retains this copy and ideally should transfer all the KOTs to the audit team after the day ends.
The yellow copy continues with the waiter till the food is served. Once the food is made, this copy is forwarded to the billing counter. The cashier enters the KOT in the system.
All these yellow KOTs are then sent to the accounting section to create their jobs. But, somehow this is a tiresome task and often ignored and delayed for this very reason. Most of the times the entire audit process is stopped. Loads of such pads are created and sorted. Eventually, all those pads are transferred to the recycle bin.
How An Automated KOT System Upgrades Restaurant Ordering and Kitchen Operations
Clashing to what tech-phobic restauranteurs might tell you, an automated KOT system is easy to connect and use. In fact, the entire process can be divided down into three simple steps:
Install KOT printers in the kitchen and bar.
Make sure that the kitchen prepares and supplies food, based on the printed KOT. Train all your staff accordingly.
Install the POS system at the food service desk.
While shifting from the common to the automated restaurant generation process appears rather simple, its associated actual impacts are a lot more than expected.
The different ways an automated restaurant KOT generation process can smoothen your restaurant services are:
1. Easy to Use
The process of taking orders into the POS is pretty simple. Orders can be simply stricken into the system and the KOT is automatically generated. Most of the restaurant POS software is the touchscreen. It does not need much practice as it is just like using a mobile phone. This makes it easy to use and the training can be done on the fly.
It is a religion that using an automated restaurant KOT generation system needs tech-savvy restaurant staff.
2. Accelerates Your Restaurant Service
The food service process will be stimulated as the order is stricken right at the floor and the KOT is printed in the kitchen in real time. Otherwise, someone has to hold going to the kitchen all the time to handover the KOT manually.
This kind of system also saves time since it allows the automatic capture of data. It decreases table turnaround and the time taken to serve the customers. This immediately affects customer satisfaction since it takes you less time to deliver, prepare and deliver the order.
In case you are further looking to automate your restaurant ordering system, you can digitize the entire KOT generation process as well. A Kitchen Display System (KDS) comes in handy in this case. Instead of a printing a paper-based KOT, the orders are immediately displayed in the kitchen through display screens onward with the order details. Get more about how KDS increase performance in your restaurant kitchen here.
3. Integrated with Online Ordering
One of the largest difficulties that restaurateurs face is streamlining the online orders taken from ordering programs such as Zomato, Swiggy, FoodPanda etc. Except your restaurant ordering system is automated, there is a high possibility that these online orders can get delayed or even missed while sending them to the kitchen for preparation. An automated restaurant KOT system assures that these orders are immediately accepted at the POS and the KOT is generated immediately and printed at the kitchen.
4. Provides You with Real-time Reports
You can have a complete control over your business through real-time monitoring, even if you have tears at multiple locations. This becomes possible through the cloud back office, which links the stores established at different locations.
5. Reduces the Scope of Discrepancies
Since you can have daily sales and stock details on your fingertips, it helps in minimizing revenue leakage. For example, you will know the raw materials, which are there in stock and the ones that will have to be ordered. So, there are fewer chances of duplicate orders. You can also utilize theft control because you can keep a tab on the inflow and discharge of materials.
6. Reduces Dependence on Manual Labour
In the standard system, the wait staff always check-recheck the KOT. Automated restaurant KOT system reduces the manual tasks at hand and thus the labor costs are lowered as well. In extension, it also slices down the difficulty of wrong delivery, since it contains the token number, which is also present on the bill. This is one of the brownie points that helps in providing better customer satisfaction.
7. Low Investment
The current age cloud restaurant POS is easy to install and makes not take many periods in your restaurant. The preponderance of the restaurant POS have a yearly subscription and you can position those processors on the surface at the service desk.
When the billing apps are integrated with the KOT feature, you will not have to spend much. These are ordinarily affordable and preferably commands on an overall development of the business and thus the revenue earned.
These clearly show that have an automated restaurant KOT will not only help you accelerate your restaurant operations, it will also help in reducing the restaurant expense to a great extent. Since customers need for seamless order taking and payment methods, what is preventing you from shifting to the new age KOT generation process?
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