In an effort to serve our customers and provide ease of configuring BPA, we have released updated manuals for BPA Restaurant Professional and BPA Delivery Professional. Whether you are a current BPA customer or new to BPA, please take a moment to look over these new manuals.

BPA Restaurant Professional Manual

http://www.businessoftware.com/DemoDownload/Restaurant/rest_man.pdf

BPA Restaurant Delivery Professional Manual

http://www.businessoftware.com/DemoDownload/Delivery/pizza_man.pdf

BPA has recently made changes to the software to accommodate the complex overtime calculations that are often found in a restaurant environment. Restaurant environments often have employees working multiple jobs at different pay rates. Any overtime the employee accrues is to be split proportionally depending on how many hours they have worked under each job code. Different states also have different overtime requirements which BPA now supports. With the support of these functions we have found that often times restaurants do not have their employee rates set up properly for overtime. This guide will help you make sure your employee records are set up correctly as well as allow you to take advantage of new overtime support in BPA.

Define Employee Records

To make sure your employee records are defined correctly go to Restaurant System > Manager Functions > Define Employees. Select Modify and select an employee record. Verify that the employee has an hourly rate in the box labeled Hourly Rate 1 as well as Over Time Rate 1. If the employee works more than one job, click in the box labeled Job Code 1 and press F8 on your keyboard. Select the appropriate job code. Do the same for Job Code 2. Define Hourly Rate 2 and Over Time Rate 2. Follow the same procedures for Job Code 3 if it applies. Overtime rates should be defined for all employees whether or not you expect them to work overtime. Select Save when you are finished. Follow these procedures to verify all employee records are up to date.

Define Overtime Parameters

The BPA software now allows you to specify the number of hours an employee may work during a day or week before they fall into overtime. In order for overtime to be calculated correctly you will also need to specify the starting day and time of your work week. Do the following to set these parameters:

1. 1) Go to Restaurant System > Manager Functions > Misc Definitions and select the Business System tab on the left.
2. 2) Under the Time Clock heading select the starting day of your work week.
3. 3) Enter the starting time of your work day. This is the time from which the software will calculate your weekly and daily overtime. If your starting day is Sunday and your starting time is 3:00 am your weekly overtime will be calculated from Sunday at 3:00 am to the following Sunday at 2:59:59 am.
4. 4) Enter number of hours at which weekly and daily overtime are awarded. Federal guidelines are based on a 40 hour week and no daily overtime. Check with your state to find out what your local regulations require. Note: Currently the BPA software does not support double time calculations.

Print Time Clock Report

The new overtime calculations are now reflected on the time clock report. In addition, a summary report option has been added to the time clock report which allows you to print only employee totals by week. The time clock report may be run by going to Restaurant System > Server Clock In Clock Out > Print Clock Report.

BPA now includes functionality to track employee charges. This employee charge functionality may be used to track employee meals or product that an employee is purchasing. A report can be run to show the employee charges so they may be deducted from the employee’s paycheck. To implement this functionality you will want take the following steps:

Enable Employee Charges

To enable employee charges go to Restaurant System > Manager Functions > Misc Definitions and click on the Manager tab on the left side. There are two options you will need to select. Check the boxes labeled Enable on account restaurant sales and Enable employee charges.

Closing Restaurant Orders as Employee Charges

Once you have enabled employee charges you will be able to close restaurant orders as an employee charge. To close out a sales as an employee charge follow these steps:

1) Select the Close Table button.

2) Select the On Account button on the right.

3) Click Employee Charge.

4) Enter the employee number or use the pick button to choose from a list of employees.

5) Select OK and then Close Guest.

Tracking Employee Charges

In order to track employee charges in the system you must post your table sales on a regular basis. Employee charges will not show up on the Employee Charge Report until they are posted. To post sales go to Restaurant System > End Of Day Processing > Post Table Sales.

To track employee charges go to Restaurant System > Manger Functions > Employee Charges. Select the Employee Charge Report. Here you may print all outstanding charges or charges during a certain date range which may coincide with your payroll. You can also choose to run the report for all employees or just a specific employee. This report can be provided to your payroll company or accountant for payroll deduction(s).

Marking Charges as Paid

To properly track employee charges they will need to be marked as paid. To mark employee charges as paid go to Restaurant Sales > Manager Functions > Employee Charges and select Mark Charges as Paid. Here you will see all the outstanding employee charges. You can select individual orders by simply placing a “Y” in the Pay Now column or you may use the Select All option to mark all invoices as paid. In addition you can filter the orders by employee number or date range. To mark all invoices for a pay period as paid, enter the start date and end date of the pay period and click Apply and then Select All. Once you have selected the orders to mark as paid, click Mark Selected Charges as Paid. You will then be asked if you would like to print a report showing the orders that were marked as paid.

At Business Software Solutions we are continually seeking feedback from our customers for ways to improve our software. As a result of customer feedback we are introducing scheduled orders to the software. Now orders may be placed in advance and assigned a date and time. You may specify how long before the order’s scheduled time it will become active. Once activated, orders will automatically print to the kitchen. Kitchen tickets clearly indicate the order is a scheduled order as well as the time for which the order is scheduled. Servers may easily see when scheduled orders are pending. Please contact Business Software Solution for additional information and update instructions to take advantage of this new feature.

Additional Features for BPA Restaurant Delivery

In addition to scheduled orders, we have made some changes to the Delivery Software. Not only can you see scheduled orders that are pending, we have also made changes to the orders list in order to give you more information about open orders. You can now see the order type. Order types are color coded and information is organized in a clear fashion. This information automatically refreshes when orders are entered from different stations. All this adds up to faster ordering and fewer mistakes.

The Payroll Tax Update for 2013 is now available

Customers who do not process payroll through Business Plus Accounting can disregard this update.

The IRS has released updated payroll tax rates for 2013. The updated tax tables are now available for Business Plus Accounting customers.

How to obtain the Payroll Tax Update for 2013

The tax table update is $75. To receive the updated files, please contact our sales department via e-mail at sales@businessoftware.com or call 801-336-3303.

Social Security Payroll Tax Rates: The social security tax rate for all employees has now reverted to 6.2%. You can set this rate in Business Plus Accounting from the "change Federal Tax Limits" option in Payroll. You can get more information from our Updating BPA Payroll Tax Information blog post. This change should be implemented immediately.

Each year Business Software Solutions releases an update to the federal tax tables for our payroll module. This update will ensure that your FICA tax tables are set up correctly. In addition to updating the FICA tables, there are additional federal rates that may need to be changed manually. This year the employee contribution to social security will be increasing from 4.2% to 6.2%. Be sure to update this rate before you run payroll for the new year. To change this rate, do the following:

1. 1. Open the BPA software and go to Business System>Payroll
2. 2. Click Change Federal Tax Limits
3. 3. Ensure all rates are updated to the follow: SS Wage Limit – 113700.00, SS Employee Rate – 6.2, SS Employer Rate – 6.2, Medicare Wage Limit – 9999999.99, Medicare Tax Rate – 1.45, FUTA Wage Limit – 7000.00, FUTA Tax Rate – 6.000.

1. 4. Once you have updated the rates simply select F3 to exit.

We also suggest that you check your SUTA tax rates by clicking Change State Tax Limits. Check with your state to enter the correct value here.

Please note that these rates may change at any time due to new federal legislation. Please check IRS Publication 15for updated rate information.

If your BPA POS system seems to be slowing down after several weeks or months of use there are a couple of functions in the software designed to run to keep the system operating at the speed you expect.

Posting Sales

Posting your table sales should be a part of your end-of-the-day routine. If you have not been posting your sales up to this point now is a great time to start. Posting moves all of your sale information into the Business System as well as marks temporary records for deletion. These records will actually get deleted in a later step. To post table sales follow these steps:

1. 1) Go to Restaurant System>End of Day Processing
2. 2) Click Post Table Sales
3. 3) You will see a prompt informing you that this should be something you do each day. Select Yes to continue.

1. 4) When the system has completed the posting processes you will be asked if you would like to print a posting report. The posting report will list every transaction that was posted and group them according to server.

If you post at the end of each day the posting process will only take a couple of minutes. However, if posting has not been a part of your normal procedures for several months or longer the posting process can take several hours. We strongly suggest that you start this process at the end of the night.

Packing Data Files

Packing database files is a software maintenance process that should be run at least once a week. If you notice your system slowing down during the week or you know that you do a high volume of sales, you may want to run this function more often. Packing simply removes any temporary information in the system and archives old sales information. To pack database files, do the following:

1. 1) Exit the BPA software on all client computers and select Exit Now.
2. 2) From the main server computer, exit the software. Choose the option to backup and exit. This will create a backup of BPA and then pack the data files. If you would like to pack files without creating a backup you may also select the Files menu at the top of your screen and select Pack Data Files.

By running these functions on a regular basis you can keep your BPA system operating at the speed you expect.

No matter how seasoned your staff is, there is always room for improvement and additional training.  It is often difficult to find ways to implement this training in your regular restaurant operations.  Committing resources to training, choosing employees to do training, and making sure that training is a regular part of your restaurant operation takes a lot of effort, but is a key component to the success of your restaurant.  Here are 4 great tips for implementing additional, effective training for your restaurant staff.

4 Ways to Improve Restaurant Training