July/August 2000

e-Enabling the Back Office - System enhancements help restaurants control the 'controllables'
by Julie Ritzer-Ross, contributing editor

THE ADDITION OF INTERNET functionality to restaurant back-office applications is assisting quick-service and table-service operators in keeping more timely and accurate tabs on their food and labor costs.

It's no secret that those two line items have the most significant effect on the bottom lines of operators. For some multi-unit chains, exerting greater control over these two 'controllables' is being aided through the rollout of new, enhanced platforms.

Applebee's International Inc. (Overland Park, KS) represents a case in point. They recently implemented an externally hosted version of EatecNet, an enterprise solution from Eatec Corp. (Emeryville, CA) for more than 250 of its company-owned Applebee's Neighborhood Grill and Bar units.

EatecNet employs a single, centralized database, accessible on-line from each operational site across Applebee's intranet. Standardized inventory, recipe, supplier and supplier pricing tables are maintained centrally; personnel at user sites perform daily store-level operations in real-time fashion by connecting to the system utilizing just a browser. Because there is one unified database, there are no remote systems to maintain and no need to download, upload, replicate or synchronize data.

Purchase order generation, receiving, physical inventory counts and recording of spoilage/loss occurs in-store daily via the Aspeon-hosted solution; sales are automatically posted to EatecNet from Applebee's point-of-sale system. Real-time transaction processing enables management to access up-to-the-minute information, secured by firewalls as well as the use of site addresses and passwords. A broad range of operational and financial reports are available for each store and region and in consolidated form. Information is also exported to the company's financial systems.

"More and more clients have told us that they want an enterprise system to run their restaurants, without having to maintain the software themselves," asserts Peter Marguglio, Eatec's president. "Migrating to an ASP makes perfect sense there."

Eatec also offers a thin client version of EatecNet that runs in a Citrix environment. Other EatecNet users include Houlihan's Restaurants, Amtrak, Madison Square Garden, Universal Studios, Kennedy Space Center and the Hilton-owned Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

This was excerpted from the July/August 2000 issue of Hospitality Technology and may differ in content or context from the originally published article. To see the full text visit www.htmagazine.com.

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