Abacus and Sonny’s Tackle Shrink
Aloha Video Surveillance Provides New Views of POS

Shrink is a 27 billion dollar retail headache that is getting worse. With every dollar recovered from shrink, the bottom line receives it as profit. Video surveillance attacks shrink and improves customer service by offering a combination of innovative solutions that reduce shrink and improve customer service—all in one product.

Curtis Ayrey will tell you that security alone is not enough: to be effective, it has to be the right kind of security. A Sonny’s franchisee with five locations, Ayrey’s business has been growing rapidly over the past five years and as he has continued to expand, he has learned a lot of lessons about the “wrong” kind of security.
According to Ayrey, “Analog video systems are difficult and cumbersome to use. They simply aren’t effective. And the number one issue is that the security system has to be connected with the point of sale system to be able to easily measure profitability and specific incidents of loss.”

Rich Peterson, President of Abacus Business Solutions, agrees. “Loss prevention is all about pinpointing areas where a business is most vulnerable and being able to organize visual data to do searches for specific point of sale activities.” As a world leading reseller of the Aloha Point of Sale system, Abacus has a long history of solving the challenges in the hospitality industry. “We’ve evolved with point of sale,” says Peterson. “ At abacus, we manage technology for our customers.”

Keeping an Eye on Sales While…
Ayrey found what he was looking for in Aloha: a flexible video surveillance technology that ties together security and the Aloha point of sale system. “We try to provide an environment where we take temptation away from people and we’re able to do that more easily with Aloha.”
Aloha offers an integrated POS and video solution that joins digital recording with the capturing and data mining of POS transactions. The search tool combines fast and easy search of archived video with the POS operation; each transaction and the accompanying video appear on the same screen. Using up to 36 cameras, data can be scrutinized on up to 60 different items, such as date, time, server, transaction type and amount. Suspicious transactions can be identified for alerts. “For example, we can easily go back and see transactions that may have been conducted improperly,” explains Ayrey. “With Aloha, we can drill down into very specific data, such as voids, the over use of discount keys, or under-ringing.”

…Keeping Customers Happy
Reducing shrinkage is not the only benefit of video surveillance. According to Ayrey, the right security system also enables managers to better understand what’s happening in their specific stores so that problem areas can be easily identified and rectified.

“Sonny’s has standards that our stores must meet in order to ensure the highest levels of customer satisfaction,” states Ayrey. He explains that the security system enables managers to better meet these standards by allowing them to easily monitor everything from the quality of their food to the cleanliness of their employee uniforms.

True Web-based Platform
Aloha is ideal for franchise operators like Ayrey because he can monitor numerous locations in real-time from any Internet connection, a critical feature of the system. Traditionally, interfacing POS data with video has been accomplished via serial communication. This requires third party boxes and cumbersome cabling from each terminal and only provides text insertion. Aloha offers true Web-based surveillance. “It’s not just about loss prevention, although that is important,” states Ayrey. “For example, you can easily view your stores at a specific time to see what the retail environment looks like.”

Space Saver
Aloha video surveillance saves customers in other ways as well: the system can easily store 30 days of video and transactions on the Aloha server itself. This means that additional computers and peripherals aren’t necessary. “Go into any restaurant and look at the office,” explains Peterson. “Every inch is used. And no one wants to take away a table to expand the store’s office.”

For Safety’s Sake Too
As importantly, Aloha gives both employees and managers a greater sense of safety. Non-POS cameras can record continuously or detect specific video motion events: whether monitoring a back door, parking lot, or dining room, instances of theft, harassment or other potentially harmful activities can be more easily mitigated and hopefully avoided. And data is protected through proprietary encoding, ensuring that it meets stringent court requirements during any necessary investigative proceedings.

Payback — It’s All Dollars and Sense
“Loss prevention, by it’s very nature, is at best an educated guess,” states Ayrey. “However, with Aloha, we estimate that the payback will probably occur within a year. When you look at what this means in terms of both cost savings and the potential recovery of lost sales, you can see why this kind of system is key.”

Abacus. You can count on us.