3 struggles of bar owners and how a good payments partner can help.

While your passion might be creating delicious cocktails or sharing the latest brews, running a bar requires a deep understanding of finance and accounting. Without a clear picture of your numbers, you might ultimately overstaff your bar, reduce your profits, and limit your chances of success.

There is good news for bar owners who don’t enjoy the financial aspects of running a business: There are plenty of restaurant reporting tools that can help. Specifically, you can use a payments partner to streamline your sales and enjoy easy reporting. Here are a few of the most popular pain points for bar owners, and a few ways that reliable payment processing can improve your business.

1. Limited restaurant POS systems slow down your staff.

A packed bar is a dream for most owners, but without the right organizational tools in place, you could drive away customers and leave your staff exhausted and burnt out. According to research by Tails Cocktails, the average wait time for a cocktail is nine minutes. However, if the wait gets too long, customers will change their orders to something simpler (and often cheaper) and are more likely to be disappointed by the taste.

While training and staffing are a big part of serving customers quickly, so is payment processing. If your bartenders are stuck waiting to use a single POS system, service can slow to a crawl.

Consider working with a payments partner that helps you implement multiple restaurant POS integrations around the bar. This means your staff will spend less time trying to ring up drinks and more time serving them.

2. Financial reporting tools can be confusing.

Bookkeeping requires attention to detail and commitment to recording each sale and purchase in order to balance the books. If you fall behind on the books for your bar, you might not have a clear picture of how profitable you are.

This is where technology can help. Restaurant reporting tools like advanced POS systems can track your sales and ensure your revenue numbers are accurate. These same tools can also record business expenses like utility costs, provisions, and even employee payroll and benefits.

The right tools can help you focus on making strategic decisions to grow your profits instead of leaving you overwhelmed with receipts and transactions you need to record.

3. It’s hard to know which items are popular and profitable.

Bar owners aren’t immune from the 80/20 rule, which states that 80% of your profits will come from 20% of your items. You might have a signature cocktail that is your main sales driver or a few key food items that your customers love. Without reliable payment processing, however, it can be hard to see which items are popular enough to keep around and which ones are more expensive than they are worth.

Digital tools can clarify this confusing picture. You can see which items are profitable (like a $14 dollar cocktail that only costs $5 to make) and which ones aren’t getting ordered by customers. This allows you to improve your menu so you please bar patrons while increasing your revenue.

You can still follow your dreams of having the best bar in town while developing sound financial practices. Start by implementing the right restaurant POS integration systems for your business. With a payments partner you can trust, you will have a clear view of your finances and can run a bar where everyone (from the owners to the barbacks) takes home a good chunk of cash.