A restaurant generates data every time a check is paid: what was sold, at what time, in which outlet, by whom and for how much. The POS stores it, but its reports usually stop at the end-of-day close. Power BI for restaurants means taking that data into a dashboard that updates itself and answers the questions that really matter.
What Power BI is
Power BI is Microsoft’s Business Intelligence tool. It connects to different sources (the POS, Excel, accounting), brings them together in a single data model and shows the results in interactive reports you can open on your computer or phone. It does not replace the POS: it adds the analysis the POS does not do.
Questions it answers in a restaurant
- Are we selling more or less than last year, on the same day of the week?
- Are sales down because fewer people come in, or because each guest spends less?
- At what times are sales concentrated, and is staffing right?
- Which dishes carry the business, and which take up space on the menu without contributing?
- Which outlet is falling behind the rest of the group, and why?
- Are there cash discrepancies that keep repeating in one outlet or shift?
What data it needs
With the check detail from the POS (date, time, outlet, product, quantity and amount) most of the analysis can already be built. Add the cash close and the budget, and you can also track discrepancies and the gap against targets.
What changes day to day
The main difference is time and consistency. Instead of exporting POS reports and combining them by hand in Excel, management and every manager open the same dashboard in the morning and work with the same figures. Year-on-year comparisons, product rankings and cash alerts are already calculated.
Keymets F&B
At Keymets we have turned this approach into a product for restaurants and hospitality groups: sales by outlet and time slot, product ranking, Pareto and cash discrepancies, plus a page that sums up the key takeaways of the period. See how it works in Keymets F&B, or start with how to calculate and improve the average check.