How to Keep Employee Theft in Check at Restaurants

Restaurants, whether big or small, suffer from this kind of theft carried out by their own employees. Usually restaurants are such a busy place that it is very difficult to keep track of everything served in the restaurant, which makes the job of inventory management very tedious. Here are some quick tips to make things easier for you as a restaurant manager or owner.

Always ensure that new sale has been carried out by issuing an invoiced against it. Once an order has been placed, no one can edit the sales invoice without the permission of the person in charge of that whole affair. POS (point of sales) devices are a great help and will earn you a lot of savings well above the cost you incurred to get them. The head chef or bartender should not give the delivery of the item asked unless he is presented with the invoice or the ticket for any particular order.

Keep track of your inventory for food. Often the restaurant staff may eat or fish away the food outside the restaurant free or at a very low cost. Theft can also be possible when a truck with delivery of the food items to cook arrives. A lot of employees just get their hands on some of the inventory before it has even entered the inventory system of the restaurant.

Expensive items like alcohol should be kept in lock. Alcohol shouldn't be placed in open and either the bartender, manager or the restaurant owner depending on the size of the restaurant should take care of it. Alcohol is easy to consumer without a trace. Expensive as well as inexpensive alcohol can also be sold to outside customers or vendors by the employees themselves. Locking it up would discourage the employees from doing that.

Keep your credit card machines in order to make sure that all transactions by the customers are recorded. This will help you tally the exact sales at the end of the day and also reduce the chances of credit card malfunction embezzlement cases.

Security cameras in key areas where all the expensive items are kept can greatly help reduce the theft. They not only deter the employees but also help increase the transparency in the working environment of the different areas.

Access to the cash is also a very important decision. Internal audit control procedures should be fool proof and shouldn't allow anyone to mess with the restaurant's money. Only authorized personnel should handle these matters with care and diligence. Regular intermittent audit would also help curb such malpractices.