Sales forecasting can help restaurant
better determine the business outlook. Although sales forecasts are probably
predictions of possible sales, many restaurant owners can use sales forecasts
to better anticipate needs and order products. Forecasting is very important in
restaurant operation. It is to project sales and costs for short-term and
long-term base on the historical data. Some forecasting is also used in
scheduling employees, planning food orders, corresponding with marketing
efforts.
(a) Occupancy Statistics
Cover + a guest
Number of turns= Number of covers/ number
of seats
(b) Average restaurant check
= Food and Beverage Sales/ Number of Covers
(c) Adjustment method
It involves taking some prior interval as a
base period and adjusting it with a certain number determined by management.
For example, the percentage of general inflation in the economy is used as the
adjustment factor. When introducing a new food product, a company might use the
percentage of additional sales expected from a new food product as the basis of
the adjustment factor.
(d) Moving average method
The average of the past four accounting
periods is selected as the basis for forecasting. The length of the accounting
period can be varied base on the restaurant need. Revenues for May were
projected by taking the average of the preceding four months, and then compared
the actual revenues of that month.
(e) Forecasting of food
Forecasting can place in purchasing orders
for food, paper, supplies etc. For example, it can estimate the necessary
purchase quantities of various food-related items.
-Use forecasting methods to determine
forecasted sales.
-Calculate the quantity of food needed.
-To determine the amount of food needed,
the ‘yield’ factor for each food item is known, is the amount of sales yielded
by a unit of food. It could be sales per pound in the case of meats, or sales
per bag of apples, etc.
-Yield is calculated by dividing the total
sales for (say) the past week by the amount of the product used. All inventory
units are changed to purchase units before ordering.
(f) Forecasting menu items
A restaurateur must know the percentage of
each menu item compared with the total number of items sold.
-Taking the average number of menu items
sold for the past four weeks and dividing it by the average number of specific
menu items sold during that period.
-Estimating the number of guests expected
for a specific day.
-Multiplying the total number of guests
expected with the percentage index.
For Stable Business - Using Existing
Business Calculations
Some customers will return to the same restaurant
constantly. Restaurants that have these repeat customers can use retention
statistics to forecast the possibility and frequency of their visit. To do this
forecast, restaurants must identify those customers, record their visits and analyze
the patterns. If restaurant discovers the patterns, for example, some frequent
customers often visit more during winter; owners can forecast the number of
customers and prepare the ingredients.
For Growth Business - Using Growth
Indications
Restaurants often use growth statistics to
better forecast the future sales. To use growth statistics, restaurant owner
must record the sales and calculate the sales growth during a period. When restaurant
owner discovers a relatively consistent pattern of growth, the owner can use this
as a standard and assume the same growth for next month or several months.
For New Business - Using Trends Research
Restaurant owner just entering the market with
no historical data to do their forecasting can use trend data to forecast the
potential sales. The method for forecasting sales with no previous sales data
is to base on the performance of similar businesses which sell similar
products. Restaurant can visit the competitors, talk to their salespersons and
customers and use this census data to find out how many people are the
potential customers and do the sales forecasts. Finally, owner can gather a
more reliable sales figure.
For Seasonal Impact: Using Seasonal History
Because season has an impact on consumers'
appetites, the sales of restaurants are often fluctuated as the season shifts. For
instance, some restaurants may lose some customers when weather comes warmer as
many consumers will trend to dieting. By reviewing sales data from the same
season in the previous year, restaurants can better forecast weather-related
sales shifts.
There is no single method to forecast business.
It can be creative and customized. In fact, we can do a simple calculation to
figure a day's sale by using spreadsheet and formulas. We can also represent
the forecast graphically with tools. We might draw a chart to help visualizing the
numbers flow. We can base on these data to forecast the next week or month
sale. Actually, we will review these numbers and tune them against reality.
Therefore, we do not need to guess 100% correct for the long term. We just
start with a reasonable guess and then keep revising.
References
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Res-Sec/Sales-Forecasting.html
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