Each night, sales, labor hours and waste from all five branches of a café chain are combined. At 7 AM the owner and branch managers get one email and WhatsApp summary, with any branch over its labor or waste target flagged at the top.
Typical results
7 AM
Daily summary by email and WhatsApp
5
Branches compared in one message
1 day
To spot a branch over its labor or waste line
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
The owner of a five-branch café chain wants to know each morning how yesterday went, but the numbers sit in three places: the POS, the time-clock app and tablet waste logs. Compiling them by hand takes the operations manager most of a Monday, so the full picture arrives once a week, too late to act on.
Before and after
Hours per week compiling branch reports
−91%Days to spot labor or waste above target
−86%Waste as a share of sales
−29%The automation
Overnight, the automation pulls each branch's sales by item and hour from the POS, labor hours from the time-clock app and waste entries from a kitchen tablet form. At 7 AM the owner and branch managers get one email and WhatsApp summary with sales against the same day last week, labor as a percentage of sales, top and slow items, and waste in value. Any branch above 32% labor or 3% waste is highlighted at the top.
How it works
- 01
Data pulled after close
Sales by item and hour, labor hours and waste entries are collected from all five branches overnight.
- 02
Branch numbers calculated
Sales against the same day last week, labor as a percentage of sales and waste value are worked out per branch.
- 03
Exceptions checked
Branches above 32% labor or 3% waste of sales are flagged and moved to the top of the report.
- 04
7 AM summary sent
The owner and branch managers get one email and a WhatsApp summary, including top and slow items.
- 05
History kept in Sheets
Each day's figures are added to a Google Sheets history for weekly and monthly trends.
Starts from
- POS sales by item and hour
- Time-clock labor hours
- Kitchen waste log
Delivers
- 7 AM email summary
- WhatsApp flash report
- Over-target branch flags
The impact
The owner and managers start every day with the same numbers, and a branch running over its labor or waste line is spotted the next morning instead of at the end of the week. About 5 hours a week of spreadsheet work disappears, and waste typically falls from around 3.5% of sales to 2.5%.
Questions about this automation
What happens if a branch's data is missing in the morning?
If the POS export or the waste form for a branch hasn't arrived by 6 AM, the report still goes out at 7 with that branch marked as incomplete, and the branch manager gets a separate message to submit it. The figures in the shared Google Sheets history are refreshed once the data lands.
Can the targets be different for each branch?
Yes. Labor and waste targets are kept per branch in a settings sheet, so a kiosk with a small team can have a different labor line than a full café. The 32% and 3% defaults apply wherever no branch value is set, and changes take effect in the next morning's report.
Where does the data come from?
It reads from the POS through its reporting API or a scheduled export, from the time-clock app's shift data, and from a Google Forms or tablet waste log. Make combines the data in Google Sheets and sends the email and WhatsApp message. This is a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages.