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The "Playing it off" Scam |
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IncorporatedIn this scam, waiters team up to steal by transferring items to each other that are commonly ordered by your customers and reprinting checks. An example of a common item(s) that is used in this scam is beverages. A typical check will have one beverage per customer on it. Waiter 1 can order a beverage on the system, print the check, present the check to the customer and receive payment. Prior to closing the check, waiter 1 creates a separate check by moving the beverage off the current check. Then waiter 1 transfers the new check with beverage to waiter 2. Waiter 1 closes the check minus the beverage and pockets the amount of the beverage. This process only works with cash payments, because the guest does not have to sign a credit card voucher with an appropriate total including beverage. Recommended Aloha system process: Do not allow waiters to transfer tickets from waiter to waiter without manager approval. Aloha provides the ability to prevent Waiter to Waiter transfer in the software. This eliminates Waiters from working together as a team to steal from the establishment. A good and routinely used company policy would be to have the process of transferring items from one server to another incorporate a Manager approval. Managers must approve any transfers between waiters thus eliminating waiter access. In Aloha Manager this access is enabled by the “Manager Transfer Table”. It is defined by job code under access levels.1 Waiter performance measures should be set up on the system. Aloha provides the ability for management to monitor server performance through performance measures. Performance measures allow for tracking of sales targets and comparisons against objectives of each measure. You can define up to 99 performance measures. These measures can be easily viewed on the FOH server sales report or checkout report. It would be recommended to configure a “Sales Category to Guest” or Sales Category to Check” performance measure(s) by waiter job code on the Aloha software. The Sales Category(s) would contain your most routinely ordered or most popular customer items - items that could be easily moved and reprinted from check to check. This way management can spot check any specific percentage discrepancies that look to be out of range. If a certain waiter has a low percentage of sales in this performance measure, then corrective action and monitoring should take place.2 Managers should routinely visually spot check tables and review corresponding waiter checks for accurate items, including order time of items. Managers can easily access any waiter’s check from a FOH terminal and review the check under Financial/View Tables. The manager can then make sure that appropriate beverages or any items that the waiter gets are on the actual check. They can also verify that the items have been rung into the system in an appropriate order time. For example, the current time is 5:00pm and these beverages have been rung in at 11:00am. If the table was not here all afternoon these items could be suspect. This aiter should be monitored.3 The “Manager Required for Multiple Check Reprints” setting can be enabled in cases where warranted. If the establishment feels that waiters may be reprinting checks and passing them off to multiple guests, this setting can be turned on to prevent multiple printings of the same check by the waiter. The waiter would have to get a manager to approve an additional printing of the check in order to reprint this check. This could create operational issues if waiters need to reprint receipts often and should generally only be enabled if theft is suspected. The “Required Category / Category Count” setting can be enabled to prevent checks from being closed without appropriate items. If the establishment feels that waiters may be moving items, such as beverages, and passing them off to multiple guests, the “Category Count” feature in Aloha can be enabled to prevent checks being printed without such items. Category Count or Required Category on a check makes the waiter enter an item such as a beverage or “no beverage” on every check. The waiter would not be able to close a check without the beverage. In association with activating this feature, it would also be good to create a performance measure on the “no beverage” item to check percentage basis between all waiters in the case that one waiter is always entering “no beverage” on the check.4 Monitor check reprints and split checks by waiter in the BOH Aloha Audit Report. Use this report to verify functionality is at acceptable operation levels and that no specific employee falls outside normal processes. Generally the establishment will have a consistent ratio from employee to employee. If an employee falls outside that realm, they may need to be monitored or spot checked.5 1 Reference: Chapter 4 in the Aloha QuickService &
TableService Manuals for Transfer Check Management Excerpted from "How to Burn Down the House: The Infamous Waiter and Bartender's Scam Bible by Two Bourbon Street Waiters" by Peter Francis & R. Chip Deglinkta. © 2003 Promethian Books
Abacus Video Surveillance is exciting because it allows video to be captured side-by-side with Aloha transactions. Abacus 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. The system is ideal for franchise operators because numerous locations can be monitored in real-time from any Internet connection. >> Works Alone
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If you have a question or comment about Aloha Tips and Tricks,please contact Abacus at info@abacuspos.com. |