Flowchart
The organization of the menu affects all aspects of sales reports. Disorganized menus will result in poor or confusing sales reports. Map out how the menu should be organized; use the same terminology as the paper menu. Example: Appetizers may be called “Starters”.
There are three tiers of organization; Departments, Categories and Subcategories. These tiers are used for organizing the items that you sell through the POS. Departments are the used as the most basic organization method to view "Food" vs "Alcohol" (for example). Categories organize your items on the screens as well as reports to see your "Appetizer" sales vs your "Entree" sales (for example). Subcategories are not required as Departments and Categories, but subcategories may be useful to further organize items within a category, such as "Mixed Drinks A-D", "Mixed Drinks E-G", etc.
Summary of Menu
- The goal is to minimize the number of touches it takes to complete an order
- 14 category buttons fit on the order screen. If you have over 14 categories, a “Display All” button automatically populates on the order screen. Try to consolidate as many sections as you can to prevent additional steps in the order taking process
- 45 menu item buttons fit on each screen. If you have over 45 buttons, a page down arrow will appear on the screen to access remaining items. Subcategories are useful for large categories, as it further organizes a section and helps users quickly find items. For example, the “Beverages” category may be broken down into subcategories for “Beer” and “Wine”
- Before programming menu items, you should already have your printer names, taxes, department names and categories set up in the system. All other components such as timed events, modifiers, price levels and timed events can be completed in any order
How does MicroSale store a menu?
MicroSale is driven from SQL and Access databases. To start a new menu, go to the M$CD Folder and click on Blank Databases. Select the Crmenu.mdb, Menumods.mdb, and Discounts.mdb files. Only copy the Crmenu.mdb, Menumods.mdb, and Discounts.mdb and paste the files into the main Micro$ale folder. If the Crmenu.mdb and/or Menumods.mdb are overwritten before the restaurant starts using the system, the menu cannot be restored. It is beneficial to make multiple backups of your files in order to prevent mistakes or losing your data. Make a “Back Ups” folder on your computer and copy/paste the Crmenu.mdb and Menumods.mdb from the main Micro$ale folder regularly as you build your menu. After the restaurant goes live, backups of each database are created automatically after the nightly closeout.
Screen descriptions and terminology
Shortcut Keyboard Keys
While you can use the onscreen tools, these keyboard shortcuts are useful to speed up data entry.
Control S (CTRL S)
With the curser in the Menu Item Name field (on the Menu Items and Pricing screen), you can press CNTRL S to save the menu item on the screen while keeping all other links on the screen such as kitchen names, modifiers, timed events, etc. This is beneficial for adding similar menu items such as draft beer, sides or mixed drinks.
Insert
When adding modifier names in the modifier setup area, press INSERT on the keyboard to move the modifier name into the modifier list area