Manual processes eliminated, staff costs reduced and customer service improved

Manual processes eliminated, staff costs reduced and customer service improved

UK leisure and corporate hospitality venue, Chester Racecourse, is transforming its business by the acquisition of new technologies to run point-of-sale (PoS), procurement, stock control and cash management.

The business, operated by Chester Race Company Ltd (CRCL), turned to hospitality solutions provider, Agilysys (Europe) Limited, earlier this year. While demonstrably successful, the company could see its growth and profitability potential were being reined in by inefficiencies. It resolved to automate the many processes across the venue that were still manual, and therefore often slow, labour-intensive and inaccurate, and to identify cost savings.

EPoS conversion automates processes

The race course now has a large estate of some 120 electronic points-of-sale (EPoS), running PC-based J2 615 touchscreens from Agilysys’ preferred EPoS hardware partner, J2 Retail Systems. The J2 615 is the first EPoS computer to include a solid state drive (SSD) as standard. As the system also features convection cooling that requires no fan, all moving parts have been eliminated, for improved performance and reliability, according to the provider.

The InfoGenesis POS by Agilysys system manages back-office sales operations and front-of-house in the public and corporate areas: private hospitality boxes and chalets, the seven corporate facilities that can accommodate from 20-700 persons, the four public bars and in the 1539 Restaurant. It also runs PoS at the public food concession stands and in the two onsite gastropubs.

“While the 1539 Restaurant had EPoS, the racecourse, bars and corporate hospitality areas were still using cash registers. Procurement and stock control were driven by manual product counts and stock sheet completion. The end-of-month closedown was particularly laborious, counting stock to extract the information accounts needed to produce management reports. On event days, cash reconciliation was lengthy and sometimes inaccurate,” said Jonathan Davis, head of business services at Chester Racecourse.

Centralised supplier visibility and control

Procurement, inventory and stock control are automated by Eatec by Agilysys, and the Agilysys Cash Manager solution has improved cash reconciliation speeds. “Eatec has been fantastic in managing suppliers and stock,” Davis added. “When our season finished, it was vital to control incoming stock so we weren’t left with a huge surplus. Thanks to the Eatec solution, we did this really well.” The venue is currently putting its food and beverage purchasing out to tender. “Using information from Eatec, we know exactly what we’ve paid and what we want to pay, and how to structure pricing to get our required gross profit. Without Eatec, we couldn’t have done this,” he said.

Davis concluded: “We can now build the business we want because we have the right technology in place. We can introduce efficiencies, reduce costs and lift our sales.

“We’re seeing huge benefits all round. It’s still early days but with the core technologies in place we definitely expect to have brighter figures next season. Things will only get better and better.”