R&R Bagels Delights Customers and Manages Operations with iPad

Since opening in July of 2016, R&R Bagels has become somewhat of an institution in Central Hong Kong, offering gourmet bagel sandwiches and coffee to the bustling community for both breakfast and lunch.

Before opening their restaurant, R&R’s founders painstakingly combed the planet for the best coffee, tea, ingredients and flavor combinations which they eventually incorporated into their menu and award-winning bagel sandwiches.

As any restaurateur knows, however, great food and drinks are only part of what makes a restaurant stand out from the competition.  Without excellent customer service and a well-managed back office, even the best food will not guarantee success.

R&R’s founders decided to leverage powerful new technology on iPad and MacBook to interface with customers and manage operations, and the restaurant has been an undeniable success.

R&R Bagels Deploys Eats365’s iPad Point of Sale

The nerve center of any successful restaurant is the point of sale (POS) system.  Through the POS, wait staff take orders, collect payment, and note specific customer requests.  The POS then routes information to the cooks and baristas to prepare exactly what customers ordered in as little time as possible.

Traditional POS systems run on bulky, confusing, and often expensive hardware which can only be used for a single purpose: as a POS. R&R’s founders, faced with limited space inside their new restaurant, knew they needed to maximize every square inch of available room.  And as any entrepreneur knows, any opportunity to save money is welcome.

R&R’s founders decided to deploy the powerful iPad POS system from Eats365.

Less Space for the POS Leaves More Space for What Matters.

Thanks to iPad’s thin profile, Eats365’s POS system takes up far less space than a traditional POS system, allowing R&R Bagels to maximize counter space to display products, menus, and even promotional items.

“I think iPad is convenient, especially because it’s small and takes up less space than a large computer-based POS system.  The interface is very user-friendly, much more than a computer system.”

— Leo Wong, Restaurant Manager, R&R Bagels

Forget Extensive Training. Eats365’s iPad POS is Intuitive.

Unlike confusing traditional POS systems, Eats365’s iPad POS is remarkably easy to use – even for new employees.  New users can almost immediately take orders with the intuitive interface, and once they gain experience, they can customize the system to save time.

Settings are also easily configured through Eats365’s systems preferences menu.  Staff can now make time-saving adjustments to the POS system without having to enlist the help of a specialist.

Eats365’s Intuitive Layout Leads to Quick Customer Order Acceptance.

R&R Bagels’ staff enjoy the intuitive layout offered by Eats365’s system.  Eats365 employs a cutting-edge color coding system in its interface, allowing employees to easily locate food and beverages with common configurations.  For example, staff can easily locate a particular bagel sandwich on the system’s main screen, and then pre-assigned colors help the staff note whether the sandwich will be vegan, or perhaps the breakfast or lunch version.

A POS is No Longer Just a POS.

R&R’s Restaurant Manager appreciates the iPad POS system’s multifunction capabilities.  When there are no customers waiting to order, he can easily pull up real-time reports from Eats365 summarizing data from that day’s business.  If a customer approaches the order counter while he’s reviewing a report, the manager can simply tap on the Eats365 logo at the top of the screen to immediately jump to the main POS screen.

“it’s nice to be able to do more than one thing on a POS tablet.  We have an option to download other apps if we need to, and we couldn’t do that with a custom-built tablet or a traditional computer POS system.  And it looks cool.”

— Rob Barratt, Co-Founder, R&R Bagels

R&R Bagels can also perform other tasks simultaneously from the same iPad used for the POS with no loss in functionality or speed.  For example, R&R Bagels plays music from its iPad POS throughout each day’s opening hours.

“Generally, iPad has been a great experience. I can control so  many things while using it. before, I couldn’t play music through my POS. I had to have a separate music device with a wire to speakers.  Now, we can use our POS to play music using bluetooth to connect to our speakers.  it makes life much easier and saves lots of money.”

— Leo Wong, Restaurant Manager, R&R Bagels

R&R Bagels Enlists Cornerstone Management Group to Manage Back Office Processes.

Unbeknownst to most diners, restaurants are incredibly complex businesses to operate.  A typical restaurant must generally deal with well over a dozen different suppliers, as well as service providers, landlords, and others, while also ensuring employees are paid on time.  Because customers expect their orders to be correct and served quickly, especially in busy Central Hong Kong, R&R Bagels must reach quickly if any problem arises.

R&R Bagels’ founders considered hiring a full-time accountant to handle the restaurant’s financial affairs, but they eventually decided to employ the services of Cornerstone Management Group – a technology-focused accounting firm and Gold Partner of Xero – the developer behind the popular online accounting software designed for small business.

A One-Stop Shop for Accounting Management

R&R Bagels relies on Cornerstone to manage much of the tedious, complicated processes which take place behind the scenes.  With Cornerstone’s expertise, R&R Bagels’ staff can focus on the restaurant while leaving the management of invoices, supplier payments, accounting, and even staff payroll to the experts.

Powerful Reports from Xero Aid Management Decisions.

At the end of each month, Cornerstone downloads a detailed report from Eats365’s iPad POS system and loads data into Xero’s accounting system. The powerful system maintains an up-to-date snapshot of R&R Bagels’ accounts, and R&R Bagels’ management can access powerful data and reports from Xero’s web portal from anywhere in the world, any time day.

R&R Bagels’ Founders rely on reports from Xero for a clear view of the restaurant’s performance month-to-month.  This use this information to make important decisions, such as whether to offer more of what customers find most appealing.

“Since we started working with Cornerstone, we have been able to make decisions about our business much faster and with more confidence.  Without this software and without the ability to pinpoint where we are spending our money and what sales we are making, it would be very difficult to grow our business as we intend to do.”

— Rob Barratt, Co-Founder, R&R Bagels

Cornerstone Manages Invoices and Payments with Ease.

Each time R&R Bagels’ management deals with a supplier, it uploads the supplier’s invoice to Cornerstone through a cloud-based system.  Cornerstone categorizes each invoice for input into Xero, and sends periodic invoice summaries to R&R Bagels’ management for payment approval.  After approving each invoice for payment through Cornerstone’s cloud-based platform, Cornerstone pays the supplier, usually with a secure and convenient e-check.

Cornerstone Provides Valuable Guidance.

Neither of R&R Bagels’ founders is an accountant, so it is no surprise that they often have accounting-related questions.  R&R Bagels’ cofounders often rely on Cornerstone’s experience and expertise to answer their questions.

“We have lots of questions, and we aren’t afraid to ask.  Cornerstone always comes back with an answer, and they are available to chat with us about our questions.”

— Rob Barratt, Co-Founder, R&R Bagels

R&R Bagels’ founders and managers are overall quite pleased at the services and expertise Cornerstone Management Group offers.  As Rob Barratt, R&R Bagels’ Co-founder put it, “having partners like Cornerstone and Xero has been nothing but beneficial for us.”

About Eats365

Eats365, a Hong Kong-based technology company, offers a wide range of award-winning solutions for full service and quick service restaurants of all types and sizes, including POS and mPOS systems, eMenus, eSignage, self-order kiosks, queue/waitlist kiosks, powerful reports, and more.

To learn more about Eats365 and how its iOS solutions can help your restaurant, click here.

About Cornerstone Management Group

Cornerstone Management Group is a technology-focused accounting firm.  As a Xero Gold Partner, Cornerstone encourages and help Hong Kong startups and SMEs get their financial accounts onto Xero and helps minimize back-office efforts via cloud solutions.

As an accounting firm, Cornerstone offers virtual bookkeeping services, business advisory services, and budgeting and financial planning advice based on analyses of management reports.

Although Cornerstone’s focus on accounting services for SME’s encompasses a range of industries, the firm has significant experience and expertise with the hospitality industry.  Cornerstone offers a range of business advisory services,

To learn more about Cornerstone Management Group, click here.

To learn more about Xero, click here.