A full room is not the same as a good week.
Covers, footfall and transaction counts all went up. Whether the week was worth having depends on the mix, the labour hours behind it and who paid full price - three numbers that live in three different places.
Three questions a venue rarely gets a straight answer to.
Every one of them needs the till, the rota and the promotion to be read together.
Did that promotion bring anyone new?
Or did it hand a discount to the regulars who were coming anyway, on the nights that were already full?
What did this shift actually cost to serve?
Labour hours against revenue by daypart, not by week - the average hides the two sessions where it goes wrong.
Which lines are carrying the margin?
The best sellers and the best earners are rarely the same list, and the menu or planogram usually reflects the first one.
Covers up 12%. Takings flat.
Three readings that each look like good news, or at worst neutral.
Illustrative example
- Point of sale
Midweek covers up 12%, spend per head down 14%
Looks like the promotion worked.
- Promotion
61% of discount codes redeemed by existing loyalty members
Looks like good engagement.
- Rota
Weekend full-price covers down 6%, hours unchanged
Looks like a quiet weekend.
The midweek offer moved your existing customers off Saturday and onto Wednesday, at a discount. You are paying to serve the same people on a cheaper night while the full-price sitting empties. Restrict the code to lapsed and new customers and the midweek gain stops being funded by the weekend.
The till alone says the promotion worked. It only stops looking like a win when the loyalty data and the weekend rota are read beside it.
What Aptic reads in a venue.
Read-only by default, and nothing changes in any of them without your approval.
- Point of sale: transactions, mix, dayparts, discounts
- Rota and payroll: hours by session against the revenue they served
- Bookings, loyalty and reviews: who came, who came back, what they said
- Purchasing and stock: cost per line, waste, supplier price movement
Who looks at what first.
All six offices read your business. In retail and hospitality, these three set the agenda.
Operations
Labour against revenue by session, service times, and the specific hours where the model breaks.
Marketing
Whether a promotion brought new custom or discounted the custom you already had.
Finance
Margin by line and by daypart, and what waste and supplier price moves are doing to it.
What the first thirty days produce.
- 01
A daypart-level read of the week
Revenue, labour and margin by session, so the two sessions that lose money stop being averaged away by the five that do not.
- 02
An honest verdict on your promotions
Incremental custom versus discounted regulars, per offer, with the weekend effect included rather than ignored.
- 03
A menu or range list ranked by contribution
What each line earns after cost and waste, next to what it sells - which is usually a different order entirely.
Find out which of your busy nights are worth having.
Aptic is in private beta. Tell us what you run and what you have connected, and we will tell you honestly whether it is a fit.