Improvements in speed, service, and accuracy drive the new version SpeedLine 5.8. With more control over the ordering process, a range of new upselling tools, and customer-facing displays that improve accuracy and customer satisfaction, SpeedLine 5.8 puts more sales and profit-building capabilities at your fingertips.

Wiley Borg, Training Specialist

Planning for Profit, Part 1: Forecasting

You use SpeedLine every day to take orders—but did you know that SpeedLine stores a complete record of all your sales data? Learn how to tap into this stored data to forecast sales for prep and labor planning, or to compare this year's sales to last year’s. Using Forecasting is easy.

Pizza Marketplace published an article on sales forecasting several months back that featured an interview with SpeedLine customer Marico Thomas, owner of The Upper Crust Gourmet Pizza, a delivery chain in Bermuda. Here is a taste of what Marico had to say:

Marico Thomas is a dedicated data wonk who has learned the value of squeezing every drop of relevant information out of his POS system. As the owner of The Upper Crust Gourmet & Pizza, he uses it to track traffic trends and predict sales with confidence. That information provides him a daily road map that shows him where to go and what to do in leading his five operations.

(Note: Marico has since expanded his restaurant company to more than a dozen locations.)

"By looking at my sales reports for the last six weeks, it projects what my sales are going to be," said Thomas, whose company is on the island of Bermuda. "It compares that projection to what my target is and shows me any variances. It gives me a firm feel for where I am and where I should be."

How does forecasting help? Read the full article, "Financial Management: A pizzeria’s crystal ball," here.

The last issue of SpeedLine News & Advice featured a profile of Capital Pizza Huts. VP of field technology David Henderson explained the benefits of forecasting for Capital in another Pizza Marketplace article:

"Having that kind of history available and the planning tools to use it gives our managers a lot of information to make good decisions.... I can see what business was like on this same day last year, and it'll let me look at all the days and weeks around this same day."

Read the rest of the article, "A Goldmine of History," here.

Ready to try it for yourself? Here’s how:

1. Learn how to set up sales forecasting
2. View your sales forecast
3. What do the numbers mean?

Coming up next issue: Planning for Profit, Part 2—Learn how you can use your sales forecast to reduce labor costs.