Improving Payment Efficiency for Multichain Restaurants

One of the main reasons why a good restaurant is likely to lose its customers is due to inefficiencies in the payment process. In a fast-paced industry like the restaurant and dining industry, it’s not enough to offer the best food servings. It's arguably more important that you’re efficient in handling payments and moving in the queue as most customers would prefer a fast restaurant over an excellent meal serving. 

However, many multichain restaurants in Nigeria currently grapple with several payment inefficiencies, which result in dissatisfied customers, longer waiting times, and potential revenue loss. 

In this article, we discuss some of the challenges that multichain restaurants face in handling payments as well as solutions to these problems to help improve their payment efficiency. 

Challenges Faced by Multichain Restaurants in Payment Handling  

Multichain restaurants struggle with many payment-handling challenges that affect the quality of their service and can potentially lead to revenue loss for the business. Some of these challenges are discussed below: 

Human Inefficiencies in Payment Processing

Human inefficiencies in payment processes remain one of the biggest challenges that your multichain restaurants are facing, impacting the business’s ability to handle payments smoothly and efficiently. The most common issues come from errors during manual data entry, such as typos or misinterpretations, which result in incorrect transactions.  An error like this can lead to delays in processing payments. The need for manual corrections in such cases will likely create a frustrating situation for the customer and hamper their experience at your restaurant.   
 

Incohesive Payment System Across Branches 

Another significant payment problem for multichain restaurants is an incohesive payment system across the branches. It’s not uncommon for different branches of the same multichain restaurant to use different payment systems and financial processes. While there may be valid reasons for this, such as infrastructural availability and local preferences, however, the lack of integration and standardized process results in inconsistencies in payment handling. This makes it difficult to centralize financial data and results in discrepancies in financial reporting, meaning that your restaurant chain would lack a unified view of its payment transactions and financial performance, hampering the ability of the restaurant chain's management to monitor and analyze payment data. 

Manual Reconciliation Processes 

Reconciliation is one of the most important, yet challenging, parts of handling payment. Doing this manually will almost always result in discrepancies and financial inefficiencies. Unfortunately, the lack of a centralized payment system in your multichain restaurants forces you to record and reconcile payments and transactions manually. This leaves room for human errors in the reports, potential misallocation of resources, and other financial inefficiencies.  The absence of real-time and standardized data also hinders your ability to identify and address payment-related issues promptly, potentially leading to missed opportunities to optimize revenue and cost management.  

How can fast-food restaurants improve payment efficiency?

Inefficiencies in payment handling can be very costly for multichain restaurants, so it’s important to find ways to improve the payment handling process across the board and improve efficiency. Here are a few ways to achieve this: 
 

Implement a closed-loop system 

The closed-loop payment system refers to a self-contained payment ecosystem where the entire payment process, from initiation to settlement, occurs within the boundaries of the restaurant chain. It involves the integration of a seamless and centralized payment infrastructure, allowing for real-time data synchronization across all branches.  Human inefficiencies happen a lot at fast food chains, from the counter to the till and even up to the back-office operations where end-of-day reconciliation is done. To improve payment efficiencies at your fast food restaurants, it is advisable to implement a closed-loop payment system that ensures all payments are done digitally to eliminate human inefficiencies.  

SeerBit’s POS provides a unified and efficient solution that allows fast food chains to digitize all in-person payments, increasing payment efficiency, providing real-time data that gives visibility into money moves within these branches and eliminates human error   

How payments can improve the dining experience at restaurants

Integrate payments into your ERP 

As a fast-food restaurant chain operator, you are most likely already using an ERP to streamline your operations, process orders, and manage your inventory. However, payments are still managed outside of the ERP for many. By integrating your payment solution into your ERP, you have a single point of managing your entire restaurant chain and payment process.  

 When you partner with SeerBit  as your preferred payment provider, you can seamlessly integrate POS solution into your already existing ERP and simplify your operations and eliminate the need for multiple systems  

Learn more about SeerBit X Odoo ERP

Simplify payments reconciliation with Virtual Accounts 

Manually reconciling payments only heightens payment inefficiency within your multichain restaurants. However, you can simplify your payment reconciliation and remove the inefficiencies by using a virtual account solution. This automatically reconciles payments across your branches, optimizing your financial management, and enhancing your payment handling efficiency.  

 With SeerBit’s innovative virtual account solution, every transaction is tracked, and you get real-time insight into payment and financial data at each branch. All payments are also reconciled automatically, saving hours of manual labour, eliminating human errors, and helping you keep track of transactions at different locations.  

Leverage payout for bulk disbursement   

Managing bulk disbursement to vendors and suppliers can be challenging, especially if you’re processing the payment manually. This can result in missed or duplicated payments, among other issues that can affect your operational efficiency.  

With SeerBit payout, you experience a seamless payment process that simplifies financial management for your restaurant chain. The platform streamlines the entire payout workflow, automating the process from invoice reconciliation to fund disbursement. Through SeerBit's robust API integration, your multichain restaurants can initiate mass payouts to vendors and suppliers with just a few clicks, significantly reducing the time and effort required for manual processing. The automation of payout management minimizes the risk of errors, avoids costly discrepancies in payment records, and strengthens relationships with vendors and suppliers. 

Conclusion  

Simplifying payment operations across different branches is important for the operational efficiency of your fast food multichain restaurant. Following the tips discussed in this article results in a more efficient payment handling process across your restaurant chain and eliminates errors and potential revenue loss.