Restaurant Economic Management

Restaurant economic management. Managing a restaurant is difficult and laborious, from many points of view. In fact, it is not just a question of being able to organize every single section of the restaurant well, but it is also and above all necessary to think about the economic management of the restaurant. Managing restaurant costs is in fact one of the most important activities.

Restaurant economic management

Unfortunately, there are many entrepreneurs who do not consider this issue with the right importance. This is why so many restaurants tend to fail. First of all we need to divide the costs of a restaurant. We need to catalog the expenses and also try to reduce them where possible.

Restaurant economic management: how to divide costs

Restaurant economic management

The costs of a restaurant are many. Not only do you have to think about the costs relating to the purchase of raw materials, furniture and any kitchen tools, but you also need to think about what you spend on rent, utilities and maintenance.

It is usually used to divide management costs into two large groups: direct and indirect costs. Then again there are fixed costs and variable costs. The former do not depend on the performance of the venue and its success. We are talking about costs that exist regardless of the turnover of a restaurant. However, variable costs can vary from restaurant to restaurant. These are usually linked to the needs of individual entrepreneurs and restaurateurs who can choose whether to use more or less expensive raw materials than the competition. Therefore the purchase costs for a new blender should be included among the variable costs. In fact, the latter can wear out easily if the turnover is very high.

In general it must be considered that the total costs must be divided into:

• 35% for raw materials
• 50% for labor 
• 15% for expenses 

How to reduce costs?

Restaurant economic management

If you want to try to reduce the overall cost of running a restaurant, you can make some cuts. Obviously you cannot suddenly decide to cut the budget allocated to one activity rather than another. It is necessary to first carry out a careful analysis to understand where it is possible to limit the funds. Maybe there are issues for which you spend much more than expected, or more than is possible. In order to have clear ideas about this type of analysis, it is necessary to understand what your turnover actually is.

Restaurant economic management

Usually the costs relating to raw materials are those that most tend to tip the balance towards a spending surplus. Certainly one of the areas in which it is easier to spend too much is the purchase of raw materials. You certainly cannot run a catering business by offering customers dishes with out-of-season ingredients, so it is clear that spending on raw materials must be carried out with great care.

At the same time, however, it is possible to avoid spending too many economic resources on this type of activity, how? Avoiding waste. In fact, by trying to reduce waste to a minimum it is possible to reduce costs significantly. An excellent idea could be to limit the number of courses offered, trying to concentrate on those most requested by customers.

Some tips to reduce costs

Restaurant economic management

Food cost is another quite important issue to take into account. Proposing dishes at too high a cost could in fact cause serious damage to the economy of your restaurant. In fact, it is important that a good dish is paid the right price. In order to be able to cover the expenses, the dishes must be offered at a reasonable cost. In this sense we certainly do not want to recommend increasing the prices of all products

Another idea to reduce the costs of running a restaurant is to reduce the commission costs of POS and meal vouchers.In fact, the commissions linked to payment with POS can lead to a reduction in earnings of approximately 30% on the final collections.

In short, by keeping an eye on all these aspects it is certainly possible to reduce the economic management costs of a restaurant.

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