1 00:00:00,125 --> 00:00:03,916 The goal of accounting is to make the information useful to the end users. 2 00:00:03,958 --> 00:00:06,000 And so it has to be meaningful to you, right? 3 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:07,666 It doesn't work if you're an ice cream shop 4 00:00:07,666 --> 00:00:11,875 and I put chicken on your peanut, like that's not going to help anyone, right? 5 00:00:11,958 --> 00:00:14,000 Sure about that? 6 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:15,458 You sure about that? 7 00:00:15,458 --> 00:00:18,458 You sure about that? 8 00:00:19,916 --> 00:00:23,000 Welcome to restaurant 365 presents Behind the Numbers, 9 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:26,583 a show where we talk to restaurant owners, operators, chef's kitchen managers, 10 00:00:26,583 --> 00:00:30,625 CFOs, and everyone in between about what makes successful restaurants tick. 11 00:00:30,666 --> 00:00:33,708 Before we get started, a quick reminder just to like and subscribe 12 00:00:33,708 --> 00:00:36,583 to the show where you're watching and please consider leaving a review. 13 00:00:36,583 --> 00:00:39,416 It really does make a difference, and it helps us continue to bring you 14 00:00:39,416 --> 00:00:42,458 these incredible guests and conversations while we grow and support 15 00:00:42,458 --> 00:00:43,666 our restaurant community. 16 00:00:43,666 --> 00:00:46,083 And with that, I'm your host, Marc Cohen, 17 00:00:46,083 --> 00:00:50,000 and I'm Rich Sweeney, and we're here today with Kristin Sandhurst, a partner 18 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:54,583 at Accounting Services and CFO of affiliated companies 19 00:00:54,583 --> 00:00:58,875 that franchise both Taco John's and Slim Chickens across Iowa. 20 00:00:58,958 --> 00:01:02,583 Kristen, that already sounds like a lot, but honestly, I know that that is like 21 00:01:02,625 --> 00:01:05,333 a fraction of all of the things that you do 22 00:01:05,333 --> 00:01:07,375 with all of the different companies and businesses 23 00:01:07,375 --> 00:01:09,208 and everything that you've got your hands in. 24 00:01:09,208 --> 00:01:12,833 It makes my calendar seem tame compared to yours. 25 00:01:12,875 --> 00:01:15,375 But tell us a little bit more about yourself. 26 00:01:15,375 --> 00:01:17,583 Sure. Thanks so much for having me, Mark and Rich. 27 00:01:17,583 --> 00:01:19,333 Super glad to be here today. 28 00:01:19,333 --> 00:01:25,166 So yeah, as Rich said, I'm Kristen, I'm a partner at Idaho Accounting Services. 29 00:01:25,166 --> 00:01:27,916 But we are also we have affiliated entities 30 00:01:27,916 --> 00:01:31,000 where we're franchisees of Taco John's and Slim Chickens. 31 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:35,833 So we currently operate 20 Taco John's restaurants in Iowa. 32 00:01:35,833 --> 00:01:37,958 And then we have three slim chickens. 33 00:01:37,958 --> 00:01:41,708 And we've been in this space a long time. 34 00:01:41,708 --> 00:01:42,750 I work with my dad, 35 00:01:42,750 --> 00:01:45,916 my sister and my brother in law, so very much a family business. 36 00:01:46,041 --> 00:01:50,458 Wow. And we've always talked about doing accounting for other restaurants 37 00:01:50,458 --> 00:01:54,500 because my dad's CPA and so am I, and so is my brother in law, 38 00:01:54,500 --> 00:01:57,125 and we never really had the tech stack to do it 39 00:01:57,125 --> 00:02:01,375 until we made some strategic changes a few years ago, including to restaurant. 40 00:02:01,375 --> 00:02:05,250 365 so about a year ago, we started taking on accounting clients 41 00:02:05,250 --> 00:02:09,041 in the restaurant space, and then a few in some other industries as well. 42 00:02:09,041 --> 00:02:11,000 So that's what we do. 43 00:02:12,875 --> 00:02:16,791 It's just like restaurants where like it's becomes a family affair 44 00:02:16,791 --> 00:02:18,833 and then you think you're going to get away from it 45 00:02:18,833 --> 00:02:20,916 and somehow you get pulled back to it. 46 00:02:20,916 --> 00:02:22,708 So you've got like the best of both worlds. 47 00:02:22,708 --> 00:02:26,458 It's the accounting and the restaurant side kind of I'll smash together. 48 00:02:26,500 --> 00:02:27,041 That's right. 49 00:02:27,041 --> 00:02:30,708 And I've seen Rich's calendar, and I can confirm it is a dumpster fire. 50 00:02:31,375 --> 00:02:32,541 Well, look, Kristen, 51 00:02:32,541 --> 00:02:35,291 we always like to start with sort of a big fundamental question. 52 00:02:35,291 --> 00:02:38,666 And I'm curious for you because you sort of sit on both sides of the house. 53 00:02:38,708 --> 00:02:38,916 Right? 54 00:02:38,916 --> 00:02:41,666 You're doing your in the accounting side, but also you're an operating partner. 55 00:02:41,666 --> 00:02:42,500 So, you know, 56 00:02:42,500 --> 00:02:44,041 what do you think is the most important thing 57 00:02:44,041 --> 00:02:45,833 people in the restaurant should be focusing on right 58 00:02:45,833 --> 00:02:47,791 now, day to day, week to week. 59 00:02:47,791 --> 00:02:49,958 You know, what should they be doing? 60 00:02:49,958 --> 00:02:50,208 Yeah. 61 00:02:50,208 --> 00:02:53,291 So we're in a really interesting time economically. 62 00:02:53,291 --> 00:02:57,458 We have some things going on in the Middle East that are driving up gas prices, 63 00:02:57,458 --> 00:02:58,125 and particularly 64 00:02:58,125 --> 00:03:01,875 over the last year, year and a half, the consumer has become really, 65 00:03:02,416 --> 00:03:05,000 I would say, sensitive to what they're spending their money on. 66 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:09,166 And so for right now, the biggest focus for us in our restaurants is top line, 67 00:03:09,166 --> 00:03:10,708 what are we doing on top line sales? 68 00:03:10,708 --> 00:03:13,500 What are we doing to grow top line sales? 69 00:03:13,500 --> 00:03:17,500 We like to say that to rip off the Bible a little bit. 70 00:03:17,541 --> 00:03:19,500 Sales covers a multitude of sins. 71 00:03:19,500 --> 00:03:21,458 And so when you're 72 00:03:22,625 --> 00:03:24,958 doing, you know, more sales, 73 00:03:24,958 --> 00:03:29,250 labor, food, things like that become a little bit easier to manage. 74 00:03:29,250 --> 00:03:33,083 And we've just seen such a decline in traffic counts. 75 00:03:33,125 --> 00:03:33,458 You know, 76 00:03:33,458 --> 00:03:36,875 and people have tried to make up for that with price and with different things 77 00:03:36,875 --> 00:03:40,833 like that, but really managing that top line as much as you have control over 78 00:03:40,833 --> 00:03:44,416 and trying to grow that in different ways is honestly our biggest focus right now. 79 00:03:45,458 --> 00:03:48,375 I've always said sales fix fixes everything, 80 00:03:48,375 --> 00:03:51,416 but sales cures everything covers a multitude of sins. 81 00:03:51,416 --> 00:03:54,958 I think that's a little that's a that's definitely a little more appropriate. 82 00:03:55,666 --> 00:03:57,500 It's super appropriate for restaurants. 83 00:03:57,500 --> 00:04:01,791 There's always all kinds of sitting that's going on in the restaurant space. 84 00:04:01,833 --> 00:04:02,458 Yeah, it's 85 00:04:02,458 --> 00:04:04,875 I always get nervous when I see somebody chart of accounts come over 86 00:04:04,875 --> 00:04:06,958 and they've got that miscellaneous GL code. 87 00:04:06,958 --> 00:04:08,625 What is that? 88 00:04:08,625 --> 00:04:10,958 And why is there so much in there? 89 00:04:10,958 --> 00:04:12,125 Ask my accountant. 90 00:04:12,125 --> 00:04:16,000 It's the worst account in QuickBooks there ever was created. Yes. 91 00:04:16,125 --> 00:04:18,416 That code always makes me nervous as well. 92 00:04:18,416 --> 00:04:21,041 And typically there's a very large balance in there. 93 00:04:21,041 --> 00:04:23,083 Yes, it's the whole thing to do. 94 00:04:23,083 --> 00:04:24,583 Well, let's talk numbers. Right. 95 00:04:24,583 --> 00:04:25,833 So you are you are. 96 00:04:25,833 --> 00:04:27,500 How many locations do you currently have? 97 00:04:27,500 --> 00:04:29,708 23 that we operate. 98 00:04:29,708 --> 00:04:30,291 Oh wow. Okay. 99 00:04:30,291 --> 00:04:30,666 Awesome. 100 00:04:30,666 --> 00:04:33,166 And it's two concepts. Two concepts. Yep. 101 00:04:33,166 --> 00:04:34,750 So 20 QSR Mexican. 102 00:04:34,750 --> 00:04:36,916 And I'm less involved in that side than I used to be. 103 00:04:36,916 --> 00:04:38,083 And then the three 104 00:04:38,083 --> 00:04:41,625 slim chickens I'm heavily involved in day to day operations of those. 105 00:04:42,041 --> 00:04:45,125 And then you've been using restaurant 365 for how long now? 106 00:04:45,208 --> 00:04:49,791 Oh going on I think this will be three years. 107 00:04:50,291 --> 00:04:53,041 Awesome. Yep. So before that, we came over. 108 00:04:53,041 --> 00:04:57,708 So I know the founders of restaurant 365 started their career life 109 00:04:57,708 --> 00:04:58,916 selling Microsoft Dynamics. 110 00:04:58,916 --> 00:05:02,875 And so we were on Microsoft Dynamics for like 20 plus years and 111 00:05:02,875 --> 00:05:06,958 then came over to our 365 when we decided to get with the 21st century. 112 00:05:06,958 --> 00:05:09,458 So we're alive, I love it. 113 00:05:09,458 --> 00:05:12,250 You're on the same journey, and then you sort of 114 00:05:12,250 --> 00:05:15,458 have your finger on the pulse of SHR chicken. 115 00:05:15,458 --> 00:05:16,916 You were talking. 116 00:05:16,916 --> 00:05:18,583 We were talking just before the show started. 117 00:05:18,583 --> 00:05:21,583 Highest volume chicken concept for chick fil A. 118 00:05:21,625 --> 00:05:24,708 They just came out with their PhD and their top restaurant, 119 00:05:24,708 --> 00:05:29,416 which I believe is in the Miami area, does $20 million in sales on six days a week, 120 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:31,750 six days a week. 121 00:05:31,750 --> 00:05:32,750 That's right. 122 00:05:32,750 --> 00:05:35,750 No Sundays like $64,000 a day. 123 00:05:35,750 --> 00:05:38,208 So when we opened our first Slim Chickens, we did. 124 00:05:38,208 --> 00:05:40,208 Almost 26,000 our first day. 125 00:05:40,208 --> 00:05:42,416 And granted, we are still learning the concept and how it works. 126 00:05:42,416 --> 00:05:46,375 It would be easier to do 26,000 now, but we thought we were not going to make it. 127 00:05:46,375 --> 00:05:49,958 And so I can't imagine doing three times that every every day. 128 00:05:50,333 --> 00:05:51,000 It's ridiculous. 129 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:52,458 Every single we can. 130 00:05:52,458 --> 00:05:55,083 Every time, every time. It's a pleasure. 131 00:05:55,083 --> 00:05:55,458 That's right. 132 00:05:55,458 --> 00:05:59,916 We'd love to be doing $64,000 a day. 133 00:05:59,958 --> 00:06:02,000 That one. Yeah. That would come up all the citizens. 134 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:04,166 That's right, that's right. 135 00:06:04,166 --> 00:06:06,458 And can you imagine how many lemons they have to cut? 136 00:06:06,458 --> 00:06:09,166 Like just the amount of prep they must have to do for that? 137 00:06:10,291 --> 00:06:13,458 See. And I feel like that's one of those things I would cut immediately like that. 138 00:06:13,458 --> 00:06:16,083 And I'm just like, if somebody asks for it, we'll provide it. 139 00:06:16,083 --> 00:06:18,666 But we're not going to put a giant bucket of lemons out in the middle of the rest. 140 00:06:18,666 --> 00:06:22,250 But like in sales, fixes everything $64,000 a day. 141 00:06:22,250 --> 00:06:23,833 We can we can throw some lemons out. 142 00:06:23,833 --> 00:06:24,833 It's not really going to matter. 143 00:06:24,833 --> 00:06:27,500 No, but they have to cut them for the lemonade to. 144 00:06:27,500 --> 00:06:28,458 Oh that's right. 145 00:06:28,458 --> 00:06:31,458 They're all lemonade. I forgot about that. 146 00:06:31,458 --> 00:06:33,000 Yeah, yeah. 147 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:37,000 Well, time job, the lemon at chick fil A, that's my job. 148 00:06:38,750 --> 00:06:41,166 Well, you've sort of been part of this. 149 00:06:41,166 --> 00:06:43,666 It sounds like a bit of a family affair on the accounting side, 150 00:06:43,666 --> 00:06:45,166 but really, from the on the franchising 151 00:06:45,166 --> 00:06:49,041 side, this has been part of your culture since you were a kid, right? 152 00:06:49,083 --> 00:06:51,000 Like, you would you would take family vacations 153 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:53,291 and go to franchising conventions. Isn't that. 154 00:06:53,291 --> 00:06:54,125 That's right. Yeah. 155 00:06:54,125 --> 00:06:54,750 Taco John's 156 00:06:54,750 --> 00:06:58,250 is the very family oriented brand, and my dad has been working 157 00:06:58,250 --> 00:06:59,125 with this particular 158 00:06:59,125 --> 00:07:02,166 franchise group for over 30 years, and he's an owner now and whatnot. 159 00:07:02,166 --> 00:07:04,166 But we would go to Taco 160 00:07:04,166 --> 00:07:08,083 John's convention as our family vacation because it was usually someplace fun. 161 00:07:08,083 --> 00:07:11,916 And the kids were always like, we didn't attend the general sessions, 162 00:07:11,916 --> 00:07:13,708 but were invited to the meals. 163 00:07:13,708 --> 00:07:17,875 And then they always had like a fun night and one time, not kidding you. 164 00:07:17,875 --> 00:07:22,291 In San Antonio, Texas, they had live armadillo roping was the activity 165 00:07:23,916 --> 00:07:26,458 the actual animals in the hotel ballroom? 166 00:07:26,458 --> 00:07:30,041 I'm still not sure how that was a thing, but that was, I think you could do. 167 00:07:30,208 --> 00:07:31,416 I don't think you could do that today. 168 00:07:31,416 --> 00:07:34,416 No, probably not, but. 169 00:07:37,416 --> 00:07:37,875 Sorry. 170 00:07:37,875 --> 00:07:41,416 Just in my mind I'm pointing out the cartoon of that in the ballroom. 171 00:07:41,458 --> 00:07:44,833 Yes, it's exactly how you're imagining it went. 172 00:07:46,041 --> 00:07:47,166 That's awesome. 173 00:07:47,166 --> 00:07:47,833 So you were 174 00:07:47,833 --> 00:07:51,083 you were involved in the family business at a at a relatively young age. 175 00:07:51,375 --> 00:07:51,833 Yeah. 176 00:07:51,833 --> 00:07:54,833 So I remember in high school, my dad took me with him 177 00:07:54,833 --> 00:07:57,916 one time, and we did restaurateurs and went around to all the restaurants. 178 00:07:57,916 --> 00:08:02,041 And I was kind of business minded, I guess I would say, 179 00:08:02,083 --> 00:08:05,458 like he taught me Microsoft Excel when I was like 6 or 7, you know? 180 00:08:05,500 --> 00:08:07,708 So we've been going at it for a long time. 181 00:08:07,708 --> 00:08:09,291 But but yeah. 182 00:08:09,291 --> 00:08:11,666 Then after college, I started my career in public accounting, 183 00:08:11,666 --> 00:08:13,000 did that for a couple of years, 184 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:16,000 then came back and worked for the Taco John's for a while, 185 00:08:16,125 --> 00:08:19,458 took a little bit of a hiatus at a publicly traded bank, 186 00:08:19,500 --> 00:08:22,666 and then came back when we started getting into this little chicken. So, 187 00:08:24,041 --> 00:08:24,791 okay, 188 00:08:24,791 --> 00:08:28,583 so really just truly a family affair of like starting with it, 189 00:08:28,583 --> 00:08:32,333 moving up through it, that's that's cool to kind of see, like I grew up, 190 00:08:32,375 --> 00:08:33,750 my dad was a restaurant manager. 191 00:08:33,750 --> 00:08:37,708 He used to like take me to the restaurants and we would like kind of, you know, 192 00:08:37,750 --> 00:08:39,833 I would laugh. He would do like line checks. 193 00:08:39,833 --> 00:08:41,375 And I didn't know what a line check was. 194 00:08:41,375 --> 00:08:44,000 I just knew we got to go down the line and like, try stuff. 195 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:46,166 And I just thought that was the coolest thing ever. 196 00:08:46,166 --> 00:08:47,000 You know, growing up 197 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:50,666 hearing about pals and audit reports without fully understanding what it was 198 00:08:50,666 --> 00:08:53,958 definitely made it click later on in life and it just sticks with you. 199 00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:54,375 And kind of 200 00:08:54,375 --> 00:08:58,125 a weird, different way that only happens when you grow up in this industry. 201 00:08:58,166 --> 00:09:00,000 Yeah, and I kind of grew up on the office side. 202 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:03,750 You know, I wasn't necessarily like making tacos or whatever, but, 203 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:06,958 you know, was definitely exposed to it pretty much all my grown up years. 204 00:09:06,958 --> 00:09:08,750 And it does kind of get in your blood. So 205 00:09:10,625 --> 00:09:12,041 it is definitely in the blood. 206 00:09:12,041 --> 00:09:16,083 And it's funny to me that you got the accounting bug early and you ended up 207 00:09:16,083 --> 00:09:19,541 going into like corporate accounting right on like more of a finance. 208 00:09:19,541 --> 00:09:22,750 And did you ended up gravitating back towards the restaurants? 209 00:09:22,750 --> 00:09:24,833 Was that just just a dynamic move? 210 00:09:24,833 --> 00:09:25,916 Was that just a lateral? 211 00:09:25,916 --> 00:09:28,333 What sort of made that cause that shift for you? 212 00:09:28,333 --> 00:09:28,541 Yeah. 213 00:09:28,541 --> 00:09:29,666 So I went into auditing 214 00:09:29,666 --> 00:09:34,750 and I was living in the Twin Cities, and I'm the oldest of my three sisters. 215 00:09:34,750 --> 00:09:37,625 And so I just felt like I was missing out on them growing up. 216 00:09:37,625 --> 00:09:40,000 They were still in high school playing sports and all of that. 217 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:45,375 And so then an opportunity came up to work in the Taco John's office. 218 00:09:45,375 --> 00:09:48,875 And so I decided to take that and come back and be closer to family. 219 00:09:48,875 --> 00:09:51,708 So that was really kind of what drove it. So 220 00:09:52,833 --> 00:09:55,791 and it sounds like there's a little bit of CPA in the blood for everybody. 221 00:09:55,791 --> 00:09:59,041 You mentioned half your family's involved now in the county of things. 222 00:09:59,083 --> 00:10:03,000 So I'm curious when when you came back, what was the state 223 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:05,041 of the accounting office at that point? 224 00:10:05,041 --> 00:10:07,375 Was there a tech stack at all? Was what was it? 225 00:10:07,375 --> 00:10:09,625 Was it shoeboxes of invoices and receipts? 226 00:10:09,625 --> 00:10:10,583 Where were. Yeah. 227 00:10:10,583 --> 00:10:12,250 Oh, well, you're giving me too much credit. 228 00:10:12,250 --> 00:10:13,750 All that credit goes to my dad. 229 00:10:13,750 --> 00:10:17,208 So he's been very technologically advanced since the beginning. 230 00:10:17,208 --> 00:10:20,583 So when he came on working for this franchise group, you know, 231 00:10:20,625 --> 00:10:24,750 they've been in business for 50 years and he's been with them 31. 232 00:10:24,750 --> 00:10:27,833 And so he put in place Microsoft Dynamics. 233 00:10:27,833 --> 00:10:29,583 He cleaned up all the whole shoeboxes. 234 00:10:29,583 --> 00:10:32,416 So they had a lot of really great systems in place when I was there. 235 00:10:32,416 --> 00:10:35,208 But it was still, you know, the 20 tens. 236 00:10:35,208 --> 00:10:37,083 And so there weren't the, 237 00:10:37,083 --> 00:10:39,708 the things like there were now, but they were pretty sophisticated. 238 00:10:39,708 --> 00:10:44,291 We imported almost everything via some type of automation or whatever, 239 00:10:44,333 --> 00:10:49,875 and we would use macros to like macro things into the accounting system. 240 00:10:49,875 --> 00:10:51,000 And so yeah, 241 00:10:52,666 --> 00:10:53,958 that was kind of amazing. 242 00:10:53,958 --> 00:10:56,583 Old school days, I guess. 243 00:10:56,583 --> 00:10:58,958 And so how, how how did what 244 00:10:58,958 --> 00:11:03,041 led you to restaurant 365 and ultimately starting your own accounting firm? 245 00:11:03,083 --> 00:11:04,041 Like what? 246 00:11:04,041 --> 00:11:06,333 What's the order of operation here? Which came first? 247 00:11:06,333 --> 00:11:10,666 Well, you know, I said I worked with my brother in law and his wife. 248 00:11:10,666 --> 00:11:11,958 My sister had a baby. 249 00:11:11,958 --> 00:11:15,375 And so he went on paternity leave, and I got to do his job for two weeks. 250 00:11:15,375 --> 00:11:17,208 And I was like, I cannot handle this. 251 00:11:17,208 --> 00:11:20,125 Like, this is way too manual. 252 00:11:20,125 --> 00:11:23,916 And I had told my team I was like, we're going to look at a GL conversion, 253 00:11:23,916 --> 00:11:26,291 but we probably won't look at it for a year or two. And I was like, yep. 254 00:11:26,291 --> 00:11:27,916 Never mind, we're doing it now. 255 00:11:27,916 --> 00:11:31,791 This is just not we can't do this anymore. 256 00:11:31,791 --> 00:11:33,666 We need to get with the program. 257 00:11:33,666 --> 00:11:37,750 And so we started looking at things and because at that point in time 258 00:11:37,750 --> 00:11:42,708 we also did payroll like full on, like in-house payroll, like, 259 00:11:42,750 --> 00:11:47,583 and we used another piece of software just like sort of help file the taxes. 260 00:11:47,583 --> 00:11:50,333 But like we calculated everything. 261 00:11:50,333 --> 00:11:52,500 And so we're like, well, we have to get the payroll 262 00:11:52,500 --> 00:11:53,958 out of the ledger first, because if 263 00:11:53,958 --> 00:11:57,666 we get the payroll out of dynamics, then we can move the GL to something else. 264 00:11:57,708 --> 00:12:01,750 And so we moved all of the payroll and HR stuff out to pay. 265 00:12:02,166 --> 00:12:05,625 And some of that came with our slim chickens as well, because they used 266 00:12:05,625 --> 00:12:08,791 an electronic RA system. 267 00:12:08,791 --> 00:12:11,458 And I tried it out our first year in insulins, 268 00:12:11,458 --> 00:12:14,291 and I didn't love it, but I was like, we have to do this. 269 00:12:14,291 --> 00:12:17,916 Like we're just pushing way too much paper on our Taco John's business. 270 00:12:18,125 --> 00:12:22,875 And so we went out and we found Pelosi, which we used for both brands. 271 00:12:23,125 --> 00:12:26,000 And if you want to search, you can find our case study, 272 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:28,041 because they came and did a little video and everything. 273 00:12:29,166 --> 00:12:34,166 But so that really modernized our HR and payroll experience. 274 00:12:34,166 --> 00:12:35,791 And so then once we got that out of the GL, 275 00:12:35,791 --> 00:12:37,500 then we were free to move the GL. 276 00:12:37,500 --> 00:12:41,416 And my dad had heard of restaurant 365 and we started looking and we kind of 277 00:12:41,458 --> 00:12:43,208 did a full blown RFP process. 278 00:12:43,208 --> 00:12:44,833 We had a requirements matrix. 279 00:12:44,833 --> 00:12:46,625 We had the vendors 280 00:12:46,625 --> 00:12:50,750 fill out things, give us demos, and we just really liked the product. 281 00:12:50,791 --> 00:12:55,833 And you know, I'm a big believer that if I demo a product, 282 00:12:55,833 --> 00:12:58,791 I need to be able to understand, like how it's going to work on the back end. 283 00:12:58,791 --> 00:13:01,791 So there's things I've said no to where I just don't get it. 284 00:13:01,791 --> 00:13:02,958 Like I don't get how it works. 285 00:13:02,958 --> 00:13:05,750 Like I don't see how we could use this. 286 00:13:05,750 --> 00:13:06,541 And so we say no. 287 00:13:06,541 --> 00:13:07,375 And that was kind of 288 00:13:07,375 --> 00:13:12,000 we looked at dynamics Business Central and that was just so wide open, like 289 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:14,708 you could make it anything you wanted, which is probably great. 290 00:13:14,708 --> 00:13:18,500 But it was like, I don't even know where we're going to start on this. 291 00:13:18,500 --> 00:13:22,000 And then we also looked at sage intact, and I'm so thankful we said no to that, 292 00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:25,916 because I have a client now who uses that and terrible interface. 293 00:13:25,916 --> 00:13:31,500 And so our 365, we liked the grids like don't ever get rid of the grids. 294 00:13:31,500 --> 00:13:34,583 If any product engineers are watching this please listening product. 295 00:13:34,625 --> 00:13:37,375 Did you hear that? And it's just so easy to use. 296 00:13:37,375 --> 00:13:40,625 And so then I asked my team kind of like postmortem. 297 00:13:40,625 --> 00:13:42,875 Six months later, I'm like, are you glad we did this? 298 00:13:42,875 --> 00:13:43,833 I know it was painful. 299 00:13:43,833 --> 00:13:46,583 And they're like, you cannot take this away from me. 300 00:13:46,583 --> 00:13:48,416 Like they love it so much. 301 00:13:48,416 --> 00:13:51,416 And it has just improved our workflow tremendously. 302 00:13:51,625 --> 00:13:55,333 We had someone retire in kind of our HR 303 00:13:55,375 --> 00:13:58,333 admin function, and we ended up just not replacing her role 304 00:13:58,333 --> 00:14:02,333 because we had gained a lot of efficiencies between Pulaski and our 365. 305 00:14:02,333 --> 00:14:05,333 And so it's been a tremendous move for our company. 306 00:14:05,333 --> 00:14:06,666 Huge. Yeah. 307 00:14:06,666 --> 00:14:09,500 I feel like I'm hearing another case study that needs to come out from our 308 00:14:09,500 --> 00:14:10,250 side now. 309 00:14:11,791 --> 00:14:12,333 It's perfect. 310 00:14:12,333 --> 00:14:14,958 It's it's in progress. 311 00:14:14,958 --> 00:14:17,791 So so what did that then lead to? 312 00:14:17,791 --> 00:14:20,291 The founding of the accounting firm of Dada. 313 00:14:20,291 --> 00:14:22,458 Like what's the Genesis story there? Yeah. 314 00:14:22,458 --> 00:14:24,958 So then the last thing we did is we went cloud servers. 315 00:14:24,958 --> 00:14:27,625 So we got everything off of the servers that we had in the building 316 00:14:27,625 --> 00:14:29,791 when everything into SharePoint and OneDrive. 317 00:14:29,791 --> 00:14:30,708 And so then we're like, okay, 318 00:14:30,708 --> 00:14:34,583 we have the tech stack where we can efficiently support other businesses. 319 00:14:34,583 --> 00:14:37,583 And so we started 320 00:14:37,625 --> 00:14:41,041 with just really low barriers to entry. 321 00:14:41,041 --> 00:14:43,666 We started making some digital products for restaurant owners. 322 00:14:43,666 --> 00:14:47,250 And I sent one of them to someone I had met like 12 years ago 323 00:14:47,250 --> 00:14:50,250 in a networking group for the local chamber 324 00:14:50,625 --> 00:14:54,166 who runs an ice cream shop, now in Sioux Falls, where I live. 325 00:14:54,166 --> 00:14:58,208 And she was like, well, yeah, tell me more about this. 326 00:14:58,208 --> 00:14:59,458 But also, can we meet? 327 00:14:59,458 --> 00:15:02,916 Like, I don't really have a ton of other resources in the community 328 00:15:02,958 --> 00:15:06,583 who operate restaurants, especially others who are female. 329 00:15:06,625 --> 00:15:09,458 Like, can we just talk? And so we just got together and we talked. 330 00:15:09,458 --> 00:15:12,500 We talked about her business, how it was going. 331 00:15:12,750 --> 00:15:15,666 You know, she needed some help on labor and things like that. 332 00:15:15,666 --> 00:15:18,833 They had an in-house office person who was doing their books 333 00:15:18,833 --> 00:15:20,166 but were having some problems. 334 00:15:20,166 --> 00:15:23,291 And I was like, well, would you just let us try to do it for you? 335 00:15:23,333 --> 00:15:25,083 Like, can we just try this out? 336 00:15:25,083 --> 00:15:26,416 And she said, yes. 337 00:15:26,416 --> 00:15:27,541 And that has been the gateway 338 00:15:27,541 --> 00:15:29,916 to a lot of other things they've referred to as other work. 339 00:15:29,916 --> 00:15:32,000 I mean, they've been a tremendous client of ours. 340 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:35,208 But and with that, we took on their books, but then we've also done 341 00:15:35,208 --> 00:15:36,583 some consulting with them. 342 00:15:36,583 --> 00:15:38,833 They had never taken inventory before. 343 00:15:38,833 --> 00:15:43,416 So I went into the restaurant with her, and we basically looked 344 00:15:43,416 --> 00:15:46,791 at every single skew of which there were many, and we figured out 345 00:15:46,791 --> 00:15:50,375 pack sizes and that for all of them and got them taking inventory. 346 00:15:50,375 --> 00:15:51,833 And they improved their cost of goods 347 00:15:51,833 --> 00:15:54,916 by 300 basis points in the first year that we worked with them. 348 00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:58,666 And so, yeah, just by having awareness case study right there. 349 00:15:58,750 --> 00:15:59,708 Right. Exactly. 350 00:15:59,708 --> 00:16:00,333 Yeah. 351 00:16:00,333 --> 00:16:03,458 So just by having, you know, getting her people aware of it, 352 00:16:03,458 --> 00:16:07,041 getting them counting and tracking so product doesn't just disappear 353 00:16:07,083 --> 00:16:10,750 knowing that there's accountability over the costs and that, you know, 354 00:16:10,791 --> 00:16:12,541 someone was watching those numbers 355 00:16:12,541 --> 00:16:15,791 and they did work on some portioning and some things like that with that. 356 00:16:15,791 --> 00:16:19,583 But you know, so that helped them out quite a bit. 357 00:16:19,583 --> 00:16:21,333 And then yeah, it's just grown from there. 358 00:16:21,333 --> 00:16:24,375 So we're still small, we're still growing and kind of, you know, 359 00:16:24,416 --> 00:16:25,666 getting into it. But 360 00:16:26,708 --> 00:16:29,541 it's been going well. So 361 00:16:29,541 --> 00:16:30,541 small but mighty. 362 00:16:30,541 --> 00:16:32,583 That's right. 363 00:16:32,583 --> 00:16:35,250 But leveraging technology to make it scalable right. 364 00:16:35,250 --> 00:16:36,541 So you know, you 365 00:16:36,541 --> 00:16:37,375 you're able to 366 00:16:37,375 --> 00:16:40,791 bring on more business without bringing in a bunch of extra bodies right. 367 00:16:41,125 --> 00:16:43,125 And I love this idea that you came in and sort of 368 00:16:43,125 --> 00:16:46,250 blew up the accounting solution pretty much immediately. 369 00:16:47,041 --> 00:16:50,000 And now they they're like, you're not taking it out of our cold dead hand. 370 00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:50,875 Like they love it. 371 00:16:50,875 --> 00:16:52,916 It's like fewer clicks, it's more automations. 372 00:16:52,916 --> 00:16:54,500 It's making their lives easier. 373 00:16:54,500 --> 00:16:57,333 Yes. The the fear it clicks alone is a huge thing. 374 00:16:57,333 --> 00:17:01,625 And just even like, oh, in dynamics, if you messed up an AP transaction, 375 00:17:01,625 --> 00:17:02,583 you would have to avoid it. 376 00:17:02,583 --> 00:17:04,958 And then if you did your voice wrong, then you'd have to avoid your void 377 00:17:04,958 --> 00:17:07,708 and pretty much have like 28 voids of the same transaction. 378 00:17:07,708 --> 00:17:09,708 You just made a mess of the gel, you know? 379 00:17:09,708 --> 00:17:11,708 And like obviously some people get nervous, 380 00:17:11,708 --> 00:17:13,666 like, oh, you can edit or delete transactions. 381 00:17:13,666 --> 00:17:14,875 Like you can restrict that. 382 00:17:14,875 --> 00:17:16,875 So only certain people can do it. Right. 383 00:17:16,875 --> 00:17:22,000 But just the fact that you can raise that, you can if you need to, so that you can, 384 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:26,166 you know, just like not make a mess of your deal by voiding everything. 385 00:17:26,166 --> 00:17:28,000 And yeah, it's been it's been great. 386 00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:31,791 And then we really also over the last year I've been getting into a 387 00:17:31,791 --> 00:17:34,291 lot more automations. And so we've been using 388 00:17:35,583 --> 00:17:38,416 just really as AI became more popular, 389 00:17:38,416 --> 00:17:41,708 not so much using AI for the automation itself, but 390 00:17:41,750 --> 00:17:45,625 like I would talk to ChatGPT and have it help me build the automation, 391 00:17:45,625 --> 00:17:50,166 including adding steps in the code, which I don't know how to code, but. 392 00:17:50,166 --> 00:17:53,583 So you don't need to know code now. 393 00:17:53,625 --> 00:17:54,291 That's right. 394 00:17:54,291 --> 00:17:57,833 And so we use some workflow automation tools. 395 00:17:57,833 --> 00:18:01,500 So for example, one of our point of sale systems, 396 00:18:01,875 --> 00:18:05,333 the way our franchise or has it set up is it combines third 397 00:18:05,333 --> 00:18:09,208 party delivery and first party orders into the same channel bucket. 398 00:18:09,208 --> 00:18:12,000 And we want them broken out on our penal. 399 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:15,291 And we've asked them to do it on their end, but they don't want to 400 00:18:15,333 --> 00:18:16,041 for whatever reason. 401 00:18:16,041 --> 00:18:18,708 They have other reasons and they're like, no, we're not going to do that. 402 00:18:18,708 --> 00:18:20,750 We just want you to 5%. 403 00:18:20,750 --> 00:18:22,250 Yeah. 404 00:18:22,250 --> 00:18:29,875 And so we call the API into the POS and then basically have it 405 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:34,166 this automation tool, it's called Natan, but we have them, it splits out the entry, 406 00:18:34,166 --> 00:18:37,125 but then it can drop it to the R3 65 FTP site. 407 00:18:37,125 --> 00:18:40,125 So every day that entry just gets recorded automatically. 408 00:18:40,416 --> 00:18:44,458 So having you know, R3 65 has an FTP site, which works great. 409 00:18:44,500 --> 00:18:48,000 They also have some pretty good like API, 410 00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:51,083 OAuth type connections or OData connections rather. 411 00:18:51,083 --> 00:18:53,375 And so we try to use those wherever we can. 412 00:18:54,875 --> 00:18:55,916 I feel like that was the 413 00:18:55,916 --> 00:18:59,625 greatest acronym salad that I've heard, 414 00:19:00,041 --> 00:19:03,125 just piecing everything together in the best possible way. 415 00:19:03,125 --> 00:19:06,541 But like just connecting all of those different systems 416 00:19:06,916 --> 00:19:08,416 in a way that's being automated. 417 00:19:08,416 --> 00:19:10,625 And like you said, you're not a developer. 418 00:19:10,625 --> 00:19:12,041 You're not writing the code. So. 419 00:19:12,041 --> 00:19:12,250 Right. 420 00:19:12,250 --> 00:19:16,458 It's we talk about a lot of the show, how AI has been having such an impact, 421 00:19:16,458 --> 00:19:18,208 especially in the restaurant space, 422 00:19:18,208 --> 00:19:21,541 because restaurants were the last ones to kind of adopt technology. 423 00:19:21,541 --> 00:19:23,500 And now just hearing that is awesome to see, 424 00:19:23,500 --> 00:19:27,250 like how that's having such a big impact on the way that you guys are doing things, 425 00:19:27,250 --> 00:19:30,250 especially in order to get you the information that you want to see 426 00:19:30,250 --> 00:19:34,000 for your reporting in a way that, you know, shocker, that a franchise 427 00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:36,750 or was not going to change their system to give you what you need, 428 00:19:36,750 --> 00:19:40,166 but you just found a way to work around it and still get to the end result, 429 00:19:40,166 --> 00:19:40,875 I love it. 430 00:19:40,875 --> 00:19:43,333 Yeah, well, and I'll do a shameless plug here. 431 00:19:43,333 --> 00:19:46,666 So I'm going on a webinar with Kevin at the end of the month. 432 00:19:46,666 --> 00:19:48,583 So April 27th I believe is the day. 433 00:19:48,583 --> 00:19:50,250 And we are going to be talking about AI. 434 00:19:50,250 --> 00:19:52,708 So you'll hear more of some of that story there. 435 00:19:52,708 --> 00:19:56,083 But for anyone who's watching this and isn't sure where to start and I 436 00:19:56,125 --> 00:20:00,333 yes, had acronym word salad like I literally started with ChatGPT. 437 00:20:00,416 --> 00:20:02,500 What is an API like? 438 00:20:02,500 --> 00:20:06,791 I don't know what this means that like like how do I, you know, it was like 439 00:20:06,791 --> 00:20:10,916 the equivalent of being like press start, click all programs like. 440 00:20:10,958 --> 00:20:12,375 And so I was like, what does this mean? 441 00:20:12,375 --> 00:20:15,250 And it would give me some answers. And I'm like, I don't get it. 442 00:20:15,250 --> 00:20:16,458 Break it down further. 443 00:20:16,458 --> 00:20:19,083 Like give me the exact portions. 444 00:20:19,083 --> 00:20:23,500 No, no, not even 12, five, five. So 445 00:20:25,250 --> 00:20:26,875 that's the great part with AI now right. 446 00:20:26,875 --> 00:20:31,958 Like you can for me, like if my other half is, is a developer and fully understands 447 00:20:31,958 --> 00:20:35,250 all of the acronyms and how they and like, can write it all from scratch, 448 00:20:35,291 --> 00:20:38,958 I've had to go into like Claude and ChatGPT and just be like, 449 00:20:39,208 --> 00:20:42,166 explain to me how to use you, you know, 450 00:20:42,166 --> 00:20:45,583 as an AI like to get the most out of it and like, break it down. 451 00:20:45,625 --> 00:20:49,708 Like, I barely know how to use a computer and I'm more tech literate than that. 452 00:20:49,708 --> 00:20:52,583 But just being able to to have the systems and the tools 453 00:20:52,583 --> 00:20:55,666 to teach you the best way to do it and adapt to how you've learned 454 00:20:55,666 --> 00:21:00,000 things is been exponential in my learning of all of these tools. 455 00:21:00,458 --> 00:21:01,291 Yeah for sure. 456 00:21:01,291 --> 00:21:04,291 Yeah, it's it's not a search engine. Right. 457 00:21:04,333 --> 00:21:06,916 That's I think that's the first mistake most people make with it. 458 00:21:06,916 --> 00:21:08,083 And to your point, Rich, 459 00:21:08,083 --> 00:21:11,833 like if you want to learn how to get better at it, just ask it like, 460 00:21:11,875 --> 00:21:16,250 hey, give me a 12 week crash course on AI that's spends, 461 00:21:16,291 --> 00:21:19,583 you know, 20 minutes a week and it'll it'll build it for you. 462 00:21:19,625 --> 00:21:21,000 Like it'll build you a curriculum. 463 00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:22,583 It'll do all of those things for you. 464 00:21:22,583 --> 00:21:27,208 But and Kristen, you obviously are self-admitted data nerd. 465 00:21:27,208 --> 00:21:31,375 It sounds like you've been in the end of the data since you were six, 466 00:21:31,500 --> 00:21:36,416 but you're also you're what we call an R3 65 solutions partner, right? 467 00:21:36,458 --> 00:21:39,208 And so you're engaged with a lot of our clients. 468 00:21:39,208 --> 00:21:40,083 But the thing I love 469 00:21:40,083 --> 00:21:43,166 about what you're doing is you're not just a CPA, right? 470 00:21:43,166 --> 00:21:43,500 You are. 471 00:21:43,500 --> 00:21:46,500 You are definitely applying a consultative level of, 472 00:21:47,166 --> 00:21:49,958 you know, deliverable to your clients. 473 00:21:49,958 --> 00:21:51,583 We're not just delivering a pal, 474 00:21:51,583 --> 00:21:55,541 which ultimately is the deliverable for your team, but you're teaching them 475 00:21:55,541 --> 00:21:58,041 how to do you know, how to be more efficient, right? 476 00:21:58,041 --> 00:21:59,125 How to do things better. 477 00:21:59,125 --> 00:22:01,375 Can you talk a little bit more about sort of that approach? 478 00:22:01,375 --> 00:22:02,875 Does that just come naturally? 479 00:22:02,875 --> 00:22:03,375 Yeah. 480 00:22:03,375 --> 00:22:06,625 So our goal as an accounting firm and as a solutions partner 481 00:22:06,625 --> 00:22:10,416 of 365 is, is really, like you said, to partner with our clients. 482 00:22:10,458 --> 00:22:12,708 Like we don't ever want a relationship where it's like, 483 00:22:12,708 --> 00:22:13,958 oh, you send us your stuff 484 00:22:13,958 --> 00:22:17,708 and 15 days later we give you a peanut and we say, here it is. 485 00:22:18,291 --> 00:22:23,791 You know, and like or however many days, you know, but and so we're really trying 486 00:22:23,791 --> 00:22:27,916 to give our clients operational insights and help them with their businesses. 487 00:22:27,916 --> 00:22:30,458 And so that comes in a number of different ways. 488 00:22:30,458 --> 00:22:33,791 We depending on the plan that you're on with us, 489 00:22:33,791 --> 00:22:36,833 a lot of times we'll send them a video recording going through there 490 00:22:37,333 --> 00:22:41,291 and saying, you know, hey, we're noticing this. 491 00:22:41,291 --> 00:22:45,208 And one of the things we're huge believers in is having an organized chart 492 00:22:45,250 --> 00:22:45,833 of accounts. 493 00:22:45,833 --> 00:22:49,416 And so I'm going to maybe take some pot shots here at some people. 494 00:22:49,416 --> 00:22:53,125 But we we're like, 495 00:22:53,708 --> 00:22:56,791 if you just alphabetize your controllable section, 496 00:22:56,791 --> 00:23:02,000 which is very common, here's looking at you standard NRA chart of accounts. 497 00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:05,333 But if it's just in alphabetical order, 498 00:23:05,958 --> 00:23:11,333 then you have maintenance in the EMS and you have repairs in the Rs. 499 00:23:11,333 --> 00:23:15,125 And now my HVAC guy came and he serviced my building, 500 00:23:15,125 --> 00:23:19,041 which is a maintenance plan, but he found something wrong, 501 00:23:19,041 --> 00:23:20,958 so he had to do a repair. 502 00:23:20,958 --> 00:23:24,291 So do I need to split that invoice up or what am I doing here? 503 00:23:24,375 --> 00:23:26,083 And it just becomes unusable. 504 00:23:26,083 --> 00:23:27,875 But if you group those together 505 00:23:27,875 --> 00:23:30,208 into a section that's called repairs and maintenance. 506 00:23:30,208 --> 00:23:33,000 Now I can tell you just based on history. 507 00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,375 So we used to run benchmarking studies in Taco John's. 508 00:23:35,375 --> 00:23:39,208 My dad started that years and years ago, and I've done them in Slim Chickens 509 00:23:39,250 --> 00:23:39,958 as well. 510 00:23:39,958 --> 00:23:43,541 But you know, if you're building is newer, you should be under 2% 511 00:23:43,541 --> 00:23:44,583 for repairs and maintenance. 512 00:23:44,583 --> 00:23:48,333 If you're kind of a middle aged building, you know, 2 to 3% is normal. 513 00:23:48,333 --> 00:23:53,166 And so it really gives you we can give you that granularity as you 514 00:23:53,166 --> 00:23:54,500 look at your pal, you know, like 515 00:23:54,500 --> 00:23:58,458 supplies, 1.25% or better is what you need to be targeting for supplies. 516 00:23:58,666 --> 00:24:00,708 You know, cost of goods, labor. 517 00:24:00,708 --> 00:24:04,583 You need to be sub 60% prime cost if you want to have any chance 518 00:24:04,583 --> 00:24:08,083 of making money on the bottom line.z And so just because we've looked at all 519 00:24:08,083 --> 00:24:10,041 this data over the years, 520 00:24:10,041 --> 00:24:12,416 we're really big believers of teaching our clients 521 00:24:12,416 --> 00:24:14,541 that so that they can run their business better, 522 00:24:14,541 --> 00:24:18,791 organizing their PNL in such a way so that it's readable and understandable. 523 00:24:18,791 --> 00:24:22,375 And you can gather those insights, because if it's just all in one bucket, 524 00:24:22,375 --> 00:24:26,875 then it just becomes a backward looking tool that's not useful for anything. 525 00:24:27,375 --> 00:24:27,666 Right? 526 00:24:27,666 --> 00:24:31,333 But if you have it organized and sectioned off, then you can, 527 00:24:32,125 --> 00:24:35,250 you know, call those answers and analysis from it. 528 00:24:35,250 --> 00:24:39,041 And I can go back to my operations guy and say, hey, here's supplies are running 529 00:24:39,083 --> 00:24:42,083 too high at such and such Slim Chicken's location. 530 00:24:42,083 --> 00:24:43,500 And then he might say, well, why? 531 00:24:43,500 --> 00:24:45,791 And I say, well, it's in this jail account. 532 00:24:45,791 --> 00:24:47,208 And that's primarily gloves. 533 00:24:47,208 --> 00:24:49,666 So who's just burning through the gloves in the restaurant 534 00:24:49,666 --> 00:24:52,583 and really trying to tie it back to real life, right. 535 00:24:52,583 --> 00:24:54,625 Yeah. Like it has to matter in real life. 536 00:24:54,625 --> 00:24:58,333 Otherwise you're just a data cruncher and don't cares about that. 537 00:24:58,333 --> 00:25:01,916 And so we really try to let real life and real operations 538 00:25:01,916 --> 00:25:05,166 drive how we do our accounting and how we service our clients. 539 00:25:06,666 --> 00:25:08,000 I love 540 00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:12,000 that as the former operator who, like at first couldn't understand, 541 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,541 like why credits and debits were important and like, 542 00:25:14,541 --> 00:25:17,166 you know, just tell me what the bottom line number is, right? 543 00:25:17,166 --> 00:25:18,541 That's all I have to care about. 544 00:25:18,541 --> 00:25:22,333 And then finally, especially as I was using the software as a customer, 545 00:25:22,416 --> 00:25:25,166 you know, kind of learning how to drill into the numbers 546 00:25:25,166 --> 00:25:26,916 and really see where, where did that come from. 547 00:25:26,916 --> 00:25:29,500 And then how is that having an impact on the cost? 548 00:25:29,500 --> 00:25:31,291 Let me be able to use that to teach other folks. 549 00:25:31,291 --> 00:25:33,666 Like, you know, the first time I looked at a pal, 550 00:25:33,666 --> 00:25:35,166 I had no idea what any of it meant. 551 00:25:35,166 --> 00:25:37,791 And I just somebody was talking about Ram. 552 00:25:37,791 --> 00:25:38,625 And I'm thinking, well, 553 00:25:38,625 --> 00:25:41,666 I have a vendor called Ram and I'm looking for that on the pal. 554 00:25:41,666 --> 00:25:43,875 And I was like, oh, repairs and maintenance. Okay. 555 00:25:43,875 --> 00:25:47,083 But being able to, like you said, find find where that cost is 556 00:25:47,083 --> 00:25:50,208 kind of creeping up and then where we need to benchmark it and say, 557 00:25:50,250 --> 00:25:51,250 all right, here's where we got to go. 558 00:25:51,250 --> 00:25:53,166 And then drill down and figure out where is that problem. 559 00:25:53,166 --> 00:25:55,791 And it turns out it's me. I'm the problem. 560 00:25:55,791 --> 00:25:59,250 I use way too many gloves, you know, just some of those types of things. 561 00:25:59,250 --> 00:26:01,333 So I think it's awesome the way that you can kind of tape 562 00:26:01,333 --> 00:26:04,541 that financial aspect and tie it back to the operation, 563 00:26:04,541 --> 00:26:07,791 really give them some some meat on the bone to understand it better. 564 00:26:07,875 --> 00:26:08,083 Yeah. 565 00:26:08,083 --> 00:26:12,000 Well, when we look at like our accounting team structure and things like that 566 00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,375 and it's like, well, most of them are way more than accountants. 567 00:26:14,375 --> 00:26:17,375 Like, you know, they've learned over the years to 568 00:26:17,500 --> 00:26:20,541 I can't tell you how many leaks we've found from the financial statements 569 00:26:20,541 --> 00:26:23,541 because they're like, hey, the water bill at this location is high. 570 00:26:23,541 --> 00:26:26,166 And they reach out to the GM, and then the GM is like, you know what? 571 00:26:26,166 --> 00:26:28,125 I went and checked and the toilets been leaking. 572 00:26:28,125 --> 00:26:30,333 I'll get a plumber out, you know, and so like 573 00:26:30,333 --> 00:26:34,166 but we found that from the side, not from anyone noticing that 574 00:26:34,208 --> 00:26:35,833 it was just running all the time. 575 00:26:35,833 --> 00:26:39,208 And so yeah, we tried to do that for our internal 576 00:26:39,208 --> 00:26:42,208 financials and businesses and for our clients as well. 577 00:26:42,833 --> 00:26:47,333 I thought you were making a financial metaphor that the water was in the know. 578 00:26:47,375 --> 00:26:50,625 No, an actual actual driving up. Yeah. 579 00:26:50,791 --> 00:26:53,708 An actual water utility or like that's awesome. 580 00:26:53,708 --> 00:26:54,750 You know, we had these 581 00:26:54,750 --> 00:26:58,708 we have these sinks in our slum chickens and they take a while to fill up. 582 00:26:58,708 --> 00:27:01,000 It's like a three comp sink, but it's a power soaked sink. 583 00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:02,958 So it basically has like a Jacuzzi in it. 584 00:27:02,958 --> 00:27:04,000 That's what we call it. 585 00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:08,041 And but I'm like, why is the water bill at this location so high? 586 00:27:08,041 --> 00:27:09,041 We'll come to find out. 587 00:27:09,041 --> 00:27:12,791 They would turn the water on to fill it up and then forget 588 00:27:12,791 --> 00:27:15,791 that they had it on, and then it would all of a sudden be going over. 589 00:27:15,958 --> 00:27:18,083 And so they did that like three times in a month. 590 00:27:18,083 --> 00:27:21,750 And then, you know, it's like, well, let's try to stop that, please. 591 00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,000 Numbers don't lie I love it. Absolutely. 592 00:27:25,291 --> 00:27:26,958 And so I'm curious 593 00:27:27,916 --> 00:27:28,875 we were talking about AI 594 00:27:28,875 --> 00:27:32,666 like where are you sort of applying that internally in your day to day. 595 00:27:32,708 --> 00:27:35,291 Like I'm seeing people use it for reconciliation. 596 00:27:35,291 --> 00:27:38,375 I'm seeing people use it for data, you know, transformations. 597 00:27:38,416 --> 00:27:43,000 Like what sort of additional automations have you found from an accounting level 598 00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:44,291 with AI? 599 00:27:44,291 --> 00:27:44,541 Yeah. 600 00:27:44,541 --> 00:27:49,083 So we've I started honestly, my journey with AI a couple of years ago. 601 00:27:49,083 --> 00:27:52,750 I went to the R3 65 conference in Nashville, and there was a speaker 602 00:27:52,750 --> 00:27:55,791 there, Chris, I not remembering his last name, 603 00:27:55,791 --> 00:27:59,625 but he spoke on AI and he said, just keynote. 604 00:27:59,666 --> 00:28:02,291 Yes, yes, just start using it for legal. 605 00:28:02,291 --> 00:28:06,291 And so I started just using it for legal, like it would draft me like, 606 00:28:06,333 --> 00:28:10,250 oh, I needed a catering agreement for a local high school for their concessions, 607 00:28:10,291 --> 00:28:13,291 you know, so dropped me a little two page agreement and then, 608 00:28:13,500 --> 00:28:14,791 you know, smaller things like that. 609 00:28:14,791 --> 00:28:16,583 I felt comfortable just sending on our own. 610 00:28:16,583 --> 00:28:20,458 Otherwise I would have it be like a first drafter and then send it to our attorney. 611 00:28:20,458 --> 00:28:24,708 And then he would essentially, you know, give me feedback on it and whatever. 612 00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,750 But then, yeah, so we've expanded into the accounting side 613 00:28:28,750 --> 00:28:33,666 and so somewhat for reconciliations, a lot of it for building automations 614 00:28:33,666 --> 00:28:36,208 like that, where it's more of a we don't necessarily have 615 00:28:36,208 --> 00:28:40,875 AI in the automation itself, but we use AI to help set up the automation. 616 00:28:40,875 --> 00:28:45,166 So we have a fair number of workflows that just run in the background 617 00:28:45,166 --> 00:28:49,250 every day to either push push data from our back office 618 00:28:49,250 --> 00:28:52,250 or POS into our 365 619 00:28:52,375 --> 00:28:56,083 and then, yeah, just trying to keep using it. 620 00:28:56,083 --> 00:29:00,583 So recently Claude came out with Coworker on Windows, which is a new thing, 621 00:29:00,583 --> 00:29:05,000 and so it can actually work in a folder versus before they had limits 622 00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:08,916 on, for example, how many files you could attach in the chat with an AI. 623 00:29:08,958 --> 00:29:09,333 Right? 624 00:29:09,333 --> 00:29:13,083 Well, so I had 70 PDF files that were not even saved 625 00:29:13,083 --> 00:29:16,166 down there, like scanned in that I had to go through for something. 626 00:29:16,291 --> 00:29:20,916 And so I had cohort go through it and log all of the data in a spreadsheet. 627 00:29:20,916 --> 00:29:22,458 And so it would just sit there and, you know, 628 00:29:22,458 --> 00:29:25,708 open them up in the background and log the data and go on to the next one. 629 00:29:25,708 --> 00:29:27,750 And it did a beautiful job. And so 630 00:29:28,791 --> 00:29:31,458 just trying to leverage it where we can. 631 00:29:31,458 --> 00:29:31,833 All right. 632 00:29:31,833 --> 00:29:33,750 Because who wants to do that. Right. 633 00:29:33,750 --> 00:29:36,750 Well to sit down and go through 70 PDFs 634 00:29:36,750 --> 00:29:39,791 and yeah, they're like, you know, AI is coming for somebody job. 635 00:29:39,791 --> 00:29:41,541 I'm like, it's not coming for anybody's job. 636 00:29:41,541 --> 00:29:42,791 Nobody wants to do that. 637 00:29:42,791 --> 00:29:43,583 To your point, Mark. 638 00:29:43,583 --> 00:29:46,541 Like, I got better things to do. 639 00:29:46,541 --> 00:29:49,000 And I have this conversation with people all the time. 640 00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:50,833 I don't think we need to think about in terms of replacing. 641 00:29:50,833 --> 00:29:53,041 Think about it in terms of replacing tasks. Right. 642 00:29:53,041 --> 00:29:57,083 Ultimately, the end goal here is more output with less input. 643 00:29:57,291 --> 00:29:57,833 That's it. 644 00:29:57,833 --> 00:29:59,375 It's productivity 645 00:29:59,375 --> 00:30:03,375 multiplied like that's the way you need to be looking at it and using it. 646 00:30:03,375 --> 00:30:05,416 Yeah I think it's task replacement. 647 00:30:05,416 --> 00:30:06,625 It's not job replacement. 648 00:30:06,625 --> 00:30:09,041 And yeah, nobody wants to do that job. 649 00:30:09,041 --> 00:30:13,250 You tie it back to the stuff, you know, again taking it back to operations. 650 00:30:13,291 --> 00:30:16,041 Right. Like you can sit there and slice something. 651 00:30:16,041 --> 00:30:19,208 You know, you can slice a meat by hand and that's going to take you X 652 00:30:19,250 --> 00:30:22,166 amount of time. Or you can use an electric slicer. 653 00:30:22,166 --> 00:30:23,833 And that's going to cut down the time. 654 00:30:23,833 --> 00:30:26,166 You're not getting rid of the person who has to do the work. 655 00:30:26,166 --> 00:30:27,833 Somebody still needs to be there for that. 656 00:30:27,833 --> 00:30:31,250 Or you step it up another level and you get an automated electric slicer 657 00:30:31,250 --> 00:30:32,125 that can do a lot of that. 658 00:30:32,125 --> 00:30:32,750 So now you're 659 00:30:32,750 --> 00:30:36,666 just monitoring what it's doing, but you're increasing your productivity. 660 00:30:36,666 --> 00:30:38,291 It's the same thing with AI. 661 00:30:38,291 --> 00:30:42,083 You're giving it some of those tasks that nobody wants to do and spend so much 662 00:30:42,083 --> 00:30:44,333 time doing. Yeah, exactly. 663 00:30:45,500 --> 00:30:47,041 Have you had any misses with AI? 664 00:30:47,041 --> 00:30:49,958 Any time you thought, hey, this is going to be the solution? 665 00:30:49,958 --> 00:30:53,125 And it just was like, no, this is not what I thought it was going to be. 666 00:30:54,833 --> 00:30:55,916 I would say probably not. 667 00:30:55,916 --> 00:30:57,000 Complete misses. 668 00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,833 I mean, there's times where I'm like, especially if I'm building 669 00:31:00,833 --> 00:31:05,000 an automation or something like that, it will give me here's some code to use. 670 00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:06,541 And then I'll put it in like, 671 00:31:06,541 --> 00:31:10,208 yeah, that didn't work at all, or it didn't behave as intended. 672 00:31:10,375 --> 00:31:10,666 Right. 673 00:31:10,666 --> 00:31:13,666 But I think the key is you just have to go back then to Claude or 674 00:31:13,666 --> 00:31:17,083 go back to ChatGPT or whatever you're using and say, like, that didn't work. 675 00:31:17,083 --> 00:31:18,458 Here's what it did. 676 00:31:18,458 --> 00:31:20,875 It didn't do what we had talked about it doing. 677 00:31:20,875 --> 00:31:22,500 Like, can you please fix it? 678 00:31:22,500 --> 00:31:26,708 And so, yeah, lately I said, I have a client on Sage and Tact. 679 00:31:26,750 --> 00:31:30,125 The user interface is difficult at best in some of the screens. 680 00:31:30,125 --> 00:31:34,875 And so I just started up a chat with Claude coworker in this instance, 681 00:31:34,875 --> 00:31:39,291 and pointed it to an empty folder and said, like, what can we build with this? 682 00:31:39,291 --> 00:31:41,000 Could we build a Chrome extension? 683 00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,083 I'm in an automation community for accountants. 684 00:31:43,083 --> 00:31:45,000 It's called Automation Town. 685 00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,916 It does cost to be a part of its $50 a month, 686 00:31:47,916 --> 00:31:51,250 but it is so worth it because I learned so much from the people in there. 687 00:31:51,250 --> 00:31:54,000 And someone had been talking about a Chrome extension. 688 00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,000 And so I was like, Claude, can we build a Chrome extension 689 00:31:57,208 --> 00:32:00,208 to make this easier to use? 690 00:32:00,416 --> 00:32:02,000 And so so we did. 691 00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:05,250 So now it does silly things for me, like 692 00:32:06,250 --> 00:32:08,125 check boxes on the pay bills screen 693 00:32:08,125 --> 00:32:10,791 automatically, instead of them having to be manually checked. 694 00:32:10,791 --> 00:32:12,958 Like I just paste in a list of the invoice numbers 695 00:32:12,958 --> 00:32:15,583 that need to be paid and it will check the boxes or 696 00:32:15,583 --> 00:32:17,000 and so I'm building that to my team. 697 00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:18,666 Can can use it right. 698 00:32:18,666 --> 00:32:22,375 Then they can deploy that because like I mean a lot how it works 699 00:32:22,375 --> 00:32:24,291 a lot of times is if we take on a new client, like, 700 00:32:24,291 --> 00:32:25,916 I'll help set up the processes 701 00:32:25,916 --> 00:32:28,000 and then hand it off for someone to do on the regular. 702 00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:31,166 And so this was a newer client and I was trying to figure out the process. 703 00:32:31,166 --> 00:32:34,083 And so yeah, I built this beautiful little tool 704 00:32:34,083 --> 00:32:37,958 and it just bolts on and just makes the user experience better. 705 00:32:37,958 --> 00:32:38,708 So we've been using 706 00:32:38,708 --> 00:32:43,166 AI and applications like that just to help make things easier to use. 707 00:32:43,666 --> 00:32:45,375 That's fantastic. 708 00:32:45,375 --> 00:32:48,333 And I feel like you've mentioned the power of networking twice now. 709 00:32:48,333 --> 00:32:50,708 And I think that that's something I don't think we talk about a lot. 710 00:32:50,708 --> 00:32:53,458 Like our community is vast, right. 711 00:32:53,458 --> 00:32:55,583 And, you know, finding I think there's 712 00:32:55,583 --> 00:32:57,541 there's something to be said about that local community 713 00:32:57,541 --> 00:33:01,000 that you've definitely tapped into, right, with your with your core 714 00:33:01,125 --> 00:33:01,791 accounting group. 715 00:33:01,791 --> 00:33:06,666 But then that global community, whether it's via LinkedIn or forums or R3 716 00:33:06,708 --> 00:33:10,583 65 on our events, like, you know, getting tapped into the community 717 00:33:10,583 --> 00:33:14,041 that's going to help you level up is so critical, 718 00:33:14,083 --> 00:33:17,458 not just as a restaurant operator, but as right now, I would say a technology 719 00:33:17,666 --> 00:33:20,583 like as an AI adopter, like there are so many for 720 00:33:20,583 --> 00:33:23,458 there are so many places to go see what other people are doing 721 00:33:23,458 --> 00:33:27,625 and how they're using tools like R3 65 or clod or GPT. 722 00:33:27,833 --> 00:33:30,250 If you're not doing that, do it. 723 00:33:30,250 --> 00:33:31,375 It is. 724 00:33:31,375 --> 00:33:32,875 It is a game changer. 725 00:33:32,875 --> 00:33:33,125 Yeah. 726 00:33:33,125 --> 00:33:36,000 And a plug for the R3 65 events to I know they're going 727 00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,250 I think two different structure this year, but I've gotten tremendous value 728 00:33:39,250 --> 00:33:43,583 from those just from connecting with other operators but also with R3 65 staff. 729 00:33:43,583 --> 00:33:46,458 Because like if you have a very specific problem, 730 00:33:46,458 --> 00:33:50,875 like when we first started with R3 65, our sales rep said, hey, 731 00:33:50,875 --> 00:33:54,875 you should come to this one day event in Chicago, like I'll get you tickets. 732 00:33:54,875 --> 00:33:55,625 And so we did. 733 00:33:55,625 --> 00:33:58,583 And then we were having a specific issue with reporting, 734 00:33:58,583 --> 00:34:00,791 and we booked a little appointment at the Solutions bar. 735 00:34:00,791 --> 00:34:02,208 And Mark, you helped us. 736 00:34:02,208 --> 00:34:05,958 And that was a that was like a great thing, you know. 737 00:34:05,958 --> 00:34:08,250 But then you have those connections because then, you know, 738 00:34:08,250 --> 00:34:10,875 certain people I've met at those conferences who are R3 739 00:34:10,875 --> 00:34:13,916 65 team members, I've reached out to later and said, hey, 740 00:34:13,916 --> 00:34:16,166 do you know anyone who could help me with this issue? 741 00:34:16,166 --> 00:34:17,000 Yeah, you know, more 742 00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:20,083 that broader things that are just beyond like a support ticket, 743 00:34:20,125 --> 00:34:24,416 like I'm trying to conceptually understand how we could make this thing work. 744 00:34:24,416 --> 00:34:27,125 And so and that's been a great benefit. 745 00:34:27,125 --> 00:34:28,916 So definitely lean into that. 746 00:34:28,916 --> 00:34:29,125 You know, 747 00:34:29,125 --> 00:34:33,166 R3 65 community, if you're a client, if you're not a client, you should be one. 748 00:34:33,291 --> 00:34:34,375 So there you go. 749 00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:37,791 Shameless plug. 750 00:34:37,791 --> 00:34:39,416 Thank you 751 00:34:39,416 --> 00:34:40,083 for you. All right. 752 00:34:40,083 --> 00:34:40,875 We are shifting. 753 00:34:40,875 --> 00:34:43,583 So we're going to be we're doing a single event now. 754 00:34:43,583 --> 00:34:45,750 It's a big annual sort of national conference. 755 00:34:45,750 --> 00:34:47,041 It's transform. 756 00:34:47,041 --> 00:34:49,708 It'll be in November in Scottsdale. 757 00:34:49,708 --> 00:34:51,958 I'm sure you'll probably be there on a panel. 758 00:34:51,958 --> 00:34:54,958 I bought my ticket if you haven't been asked to be asked, 759 00:34:56,041 --> 00:34:58,375 but but that's sort of our theme for the years transformation. 760 00:34:58,375 --> 00:35:02,458 So I'm curious as we look forward, what what's what's transforming for 761 00:35:02,791 --> 00:35:06,583 the Slim Chickens maybe, or for a dotto, like what's on the horizon? 762 00:35:06,958 --> 00:35:10,375 I think it is a lot of that just continued application of AI 763 00:35:10,375 --> 00:35:12,416 in our business, and how we can leverage that to 764 00:35:12,416 --> 00:35:15,541 be more efficient and just really serve our clients. 765 00:35:15,583 --> 00:35:15,833 You know, 766 00:35:15,833 --> 00:35:19,250 I think the commonality between our restaurants that we operate 767 00:35:19,250 --> 00:35:22,958 and our accounting business is we may be using AI in the background, 768 00:35:22,958 --> 00:35:27,333 but our guests interaction, our client interaction is still very much a person. 769 00:35:27,375 --> 00:35:31,875 We tried AI in the drive through at both of our concepts, two different providers. 770 00:35:31,916 --> 00:35:37,708 It was actually it was quite good, like it was excellent, but yes, hated it. 771 00:35:37,708 --> 00:35:41,041 And surprisingly enough, our staff hated it. 772 00:35:41,250 --> 00:35:45,500 Like I put it in because I was like, I have this location. 773 00:35:45,500 --> 00:35:47,708 It's very hard to staff. 774 00:35:47,708 --> 00:35:51,666 It was like, let's try the AI because, you know, Suzy calls off for work. 775 00:35:51,666 --> 00:35:52,875 You can just turn the AI on 776 00:35:52,875 --> 00:35:55,875 and you have another body and you're not working shorthanded. 777 00:35:55,958 --> 00:35:57,458 But they didn't like it 778 00:35:57,458 --> 00:36:00,500 because I think they liked interacting with those regular people. 779 00:36:00,500 --> 00:36:05,250 And then the other thing it came down to was the order injection. 780 00:36:05,291 --> 00:36:07,208 The timing of it wasn't as fast 781 00:36:07,208 --> 00:36:10,250 as somebody listening over the headset and keep punching it in, like. 782 00:36:10,333 --> 00:36:14,083 And so it was just how the data connected to the point of sale 783 00:36:15,291 --> 00:36:16,291 on one of the concepts. 784 00:36:16,291 --> 00:36:20,125 But so anyway, we've decided kind of that our philosophy and 785 00:36:20,125 --> 00:36:23,500 I've seen this from other people as well, but is used by in the back of house 786 00:36:23,500 --> 00:36:27,541 and in the office, keep the front of house with that human interaction. 787 00:36:28,541 --> 00:36:29,458 Well said. 788 00:36:29,458 --> 00:36:32,166 Yeah, yeah, there is a little bit of that uncanny valley 789 00:36:32,166 --> 00:36:35,166 when it comes to some of these solutions where you're like, is 790 00:36:35,166 --> 00:36:37,541 that is that a real thing? Is that not really. 791 00:36:37,541 --> 00:36:39,750 You know, in the minute your brain starts to do that, 792 00:36:39,750 --> 00:36:41,041 you're you're disengaged, right? 793 00:36:41,041 --> 00:36:43,958 The experience has been totally cut off. 794 00:36:43,958 --> 00:36:46,208 Yeah. 795 00:36:46,208 --> 00:36:47,208 So I'm curious. 796 00:36:47,208 --> 00:36:50,375 It's the obviously, you know, the busy time of the year, 797 00:36:50,375 --> 00:36:54,166 busiest time of the year, I would imagine for accounting world. 798 00:36:54,166 --> 00:36:57,291 I got to ask, are 799 00:36:57,291 --> 00:37:01,333 you like team coffee or team energy drink when you've got like busyness going on? 800 00:37:01,375 --> 00:37:05,250 You've got deadlines trying to crank things through coffee all the way. 801 00:37:07,583 --> 00:37:08,375 Hotter, iced. 802 00:37:08,375 --> 00:37:10,750 This is controversial for me. Yeah. 803 00:37:10,750 --> 00:37:12,083 Okay. Okay, okay. 804 00:37:12,083 --> 00:37:13,958 I'm more of an iced coffee guy, but it's okay. 805 00:37:13,958 --> 00:37:16,958 We can still coexist. So. 806 00:37:20,750 --> 00:37:22,458 I'll bring you. 807 00:37:22,458 --> 00:37:24,208 Yeah. Go ahead. Rich, go, go. 808 00:37:24,208 --> 00:37:27,208 Oh, I was going to say just kind of like, from your perspective, 809 00:37:27,208 --> 00:37:28,958 especially, like, you know, on the accounting side, 810 00:37:28,958 --> 00:37:31,875 but being able to relate it back to operations. 811 00:37:31,875 --> 00:37:35,791 Where do you think most restaurants lose money without even realizing it? 812 00:37:36,500 --> 00:37:38,125 Oh, that's a tough one. 813 00:37:38,125 --> 00:37:39,666 Water leaks. 814 00:37:39,666 --> 00:37:39,916 Yeah. 815 00:37:39,916 --> 00:37:42,916 Water leaks overflowing the sink. 816 00:37:43,583 --> 00:37:47,416 Probably in food costs if they're not taking good inventory 817 00:37:47,666 --> 00:37:51,500 just because it's really, really easy to like, waste off. 818 00:37:51,541 --> 00:37:53,000 And if you're not, 819 00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,875 if you're not tracking your waste, if you're not fanatical 820 00:37:55,875 --> 00:37:59,000 about your portion sizes, if you're not taking your inventory 821 00:37:59,083 --> 00:38:01,791 like you can bleed money out the back door without even realizing it. 822 00:38:01,791 --> 00:38:04,958 If you fries in somebody's mouth, a meal in the garbage, 823 00:38:05,166 --> 00:38:08,583 a meal out the drive thru window to somebody is spread 824 00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:13,541 mint made products like I mean the ways to bleed money on food 825 00:38:13,541 --> 00:38:16,791 are so many that if you just 826 00:38:16,791 --> 00:38:20,375 if you don't have a good system for tracking it, it's problematic. 827 00:38:20,375 --> 00:38:22,541 So that's why, you know, like one of our other clients 828 00:38:22,541 --> 00:38:26,166 that we brought on there on toast for their POS, and then we got them 829 00:38:26,166 --> 00:38:30,958 going on our 365 inventory, just like, you know, they're a homegrown concept. 830 00:38:30,958 --> 00:38:34,833 So they don't necessarily have theoretical or recipes or things built out 831 00:38:34,875 --> 00:38:35,916 yet as they grow. 832 00:38:35,916 --> 00:38:37,083 That's on the roadmap. 833 00:38:37,083 --> 00:38:40,291 But let's just start counting inventory at least, right. 834 00:38:40,333 --> 00:38:43,500 So we can know what's coming in and coming out. 835 00:38:43,500 --> 00:38:46,000 And if you don't do that, if you don't count inventory, 836 00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:47,500 then your Cogs is a roller coaster. 837 00:38:47,500 --> 00:38:49,333 And it's just based on the timing of purchases. 838 00:38:49,333 --> 00:38:51,625 And that's not really valuable to anyone. 839 00:38:51,625 --> 00:38:55,416 And so I guess I would say food costs because probably the easiest bleeder 840 00:38:57,291 --> 00:39:00,291 and that is a roller coaster ride I don't want to be on. 841 00:39:00,375 --> 00:39:02,125 Right. 842 00:39:02,125 --> 00:39:04,916 Well, but it's funny, you bring up a point that I always like 843 00:39:04,916 --> 00:39:08,958 to drive home with the Ave, like people are so focused on the A, the 844 00:39:08,958 --> 00:39:12,791 A without the T still a valuable piece of your puzzle, right? 845 00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:15,833 You're still getting that journey of what did I start with? 846 00:39:15,833 --> 00:39:18,791 What did I buy? What did I use? Where did it go? 847 00:39:18,791 --> 00:39:21,875 The theoretical is going to help you figure out what went wrong, 848 00:39:21,875 --> 00:39:25,166 but, you know, get the actual stood up as soon as possible. 849 00:39:25,208 --> 00:39:26,916 Because to your point, 850 00:39:26,916 --> 00:39:29,041 you were talking about a client at the beginning of the good 851 00:39:29,041 --> 00:39:30,375 300 basis points, right? 852 00:39:30,375 --> 00:39:33,750 Like just counting something can move the needle tremendously. 853 00:39:33,791 --> 00:39:33,958 Yeah. 854 00:39:33,958 --> 00:39:37,250 And that client doesn't have theoretical I mean, so we just did the actual 855 00:39:37,458 --> 00:39:38,833 they got the A yeah. 856 00:39:38,833 --> 00:39:39,458 They got the A. 857 00:39:39,458 --> 00:39:42,875 They'll get to the the A is just as important. 858 00:39:42,916 --> 00:39:43,791 That's right. 859 00:39:47,500 --> 00:39:48,625 I'm always kind of curious 860 00:39:48,625 --> 00:39:51,625 to like for in that case with that client, 861 00:39:51,708 --> 00:39:54,958 was it something where they just didn't see the before you got involved. 862 00:39:54,958 --> 00:39:57,375 They just didn't see the value in counting inventory 863 00:39:57,375 --> 00:39:59,458 or because we talked to folks all the time, 864 00:39:59,458 --> 00:40:02,666 they're just like, I don't see the point or, you know, my labor is so expensive. 865 00:40:02,666 --> 00:40:04,791 I've got to pay somebody to do that. 866 00:40:04,791 --> 00:40:08,208 Like when you've encountered those types of objections, like, 867 00:40:08,250 --> 00:40:09,791 how do you kind of handle that 868 00:40:09,791 --> 00:40:13,500 to get people to understand, like inventory is that important? 869 00:40:13,666 --> 00:40:14,125 Yeah. 870 00:40:14,125 --> 00:40:18,250 So in the case of that very first client, they are a franchisee, 871 00:40:18,250 --> 00:40:19,750 but it's a local concept. 872 00:40:19,750 --> 00:40:22,541 And so they just don't even really have the system for it. 873 00:40:22,541 --> 00:40:26,708 And the franchisor doesn't have the systems. 874 00:40:26,791 --> 00:40:29,208 There's just a few number of units. 875 00:40:29,208 --> 00:40:33,500 And so it was more like a we just don't even know where to start. 876 00:40:33,541 --> 00:40:37,375 Like, yeah, we think we should probably do this, but how do we even start. 877 00:40:37,416 --> 00:40:40,583 And so that was where like, well, it's totally overwhelming. 878 00:40:40,583 --> 00:40:41,833 You know, we'll come in 879 00:40:41,833 --> 00:40:44,000 and we're just going to go through all of your products 880 00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:45,583 and we're going to get units of measure, 881 00:40:45,583 --> 00:40:47,500 you know, like how does it come in the back door. 882 00:40:47,500 --> 00:40:49,833 What's the case size. How does it break down into pack size. 883 00:40:49,833 --> 00:40:52,083 Because if you don't have units of measure you can't count it. Right. 884 00:40:52,083 --> 00:40:55,083 And that's fundamental to any inventory setup is 885 00:40:55,125 --> 00:40:56,750 what is the unit of measure structure. 886 00:40:56,750 --> 00:41:01,250 And so I think just having someone there to walk them through it and explain 887 00:41:01,291 --> 00:41:02,500 like what does it mean. 888 00:41:02,500 --> 00:41:06,208 You know, and and then their case to then sometimes it's like, 889 00:41:06,208 --> 00:41:10,833 well it comes in a pack of 400, but we split it up into bags of three, 890 00:41:10,875 --> 00:41:11,791 you know, 100 each. 891 00:41:11,791 --> 00:41:16,000 And so which is fine, but just having all of that documented 892 00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:18,250 so that then when they do their count, you know, it's like, well, 893 00:41:18,250 --> 00:41:21,250 this doesn't have to take 12 hours to count your inventory. 894 00:41:21,250 --> 00:41:24,250 We can organize, help you organize your store. 895 00:41:24,250 --> 00:41:26,125 We can get all these pack sizes sorted. 896 00:41:26,125 --> 00:41:29,791 And then you can say, okay, yep, I have three bags and I know they're 100 each. 897 00:41:29,833 --> 00:41:30,875 Like boom, done. 898 00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,291 But first we're going to organize your chart of accounts. 899 00:41:35,291 --> 00:41:36,333 Step one one. 900 00:41:36,333 --> 00:41:39,625 And that is it's not just food cost. 901 00:41:39,666 --> 00:41:40,541 It's dairy. 902 00:41:40,541 --> 00:41:41,666 It's produce. It's grocery. 903 00:41:41,666 --> 00:41:43,541 It's all the things we need to track. 904 00:41:43,541 --> 00:41:45,750 And then a client like that, that was the very first meeting 905 00:41:45,750 --> 00:41:47,333 we had with them after they signed on 906 00:41:47,333 --> 00:41:49,833 is let's talk about your business and understand it. 907 00:41:49,833 --> 00:41:52,458 What are your major categories in your cost of goods? 908 00:41:52,458 --> 00:41:54,541 We're going to reorganize your chart of accounts. 909 00:41:54,541 --> 00:41:57,291 And then what other things matter to you. 910 00:41:57,291 --> 00:42:00,041 Because if it's not, you know, 911 00:42:00,041 --> 00:42:03,500 accounting 101, they teach you in the first day like there's data 912 00:42:03,500 --> 00:42:07,458 and then there's information and data with meaning attached to it is information. 913 00:42:07,458 --> 00:42:08,791 Information is useful. 914 00:42:08,791 --> 00:42:09,791 Data is not. 915 00:42:09,791 --> 00:42:10,958 And so 916 00:42:10,958 --> 00:42:12,208 and then the other thing is 917 00:42:12,208 --> 00:42:16,000 the goal of accounting is to make the information useful to the end users. 918 00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,000 And so it has to be meaningful to you. Right. 919 00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:19,750 It doesn't work if you're an ice cream shop. 920 00:42:19,750 --> 00:42:23,875 And I put chicken on your pal like that's not going to help anyone, right? 921 00:42:23,916 --> 00:42:27,000 And so make making it so they can understand it. 922 00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:30,791 And so they can use it like that's you know, that's our main goal I guess. 923 00:42:31,666 --> 00:42:32,166 Yeah. 924 00:42:32,166 --> 00:42:35,041 I mean that's the that's that holistic 925 00:42:35,041 --> 00:42:38,208 sort of consult of approach is not everybody's doing that. 926 00:42:38,208 --> 00:42:39,791 So that's, that's awesome that that's 927 00:42:39,791 --> 00:42:43,083 that's the foundation of what you're sort of building which is, which is fantastic. 928 00:42:43,166 --> 00:42:44,791 Well, look, 929 00:42:44,791 --> 00:42:47,875 we always like to sort of wrap these things up with a bit of a hot take. 930 00:42:47,916 --> 00:42:51,916 And I feel like you definitely have a few anything about the industry. 931 00:42:51,916 --> 00:42:53,708 And this could be accounting specific. 932 00:42:53,708 --> 00:42:55,583 I know we've already talked about Chart of Accounts, 933 00:42:55,583 --> 00:42:57,250 but something about the industry you love, 934 00:42:57,250 --> 00:43:00,208 you hate, you want to see come back or go away. 935 00:43:00,208 --> 00:43:02,916 So you're a hot take on the state of affairs right now. 936 00:43:02,916 --> 00:43:06,166 Oh I would say I'm not a fan. 937 00:43:06,208 --> 00:43:08,125 So we have kiosks in some of our restaurants 938 00:43:08,125 --> 00:43:10,416 and I like them. But I've been adamant with my team 939 00:43:10,416 --> 00:43:12,291 that they still have to have a person out there. 940 00:43:12,291 --> 00:43:15,875 I don't like the whole, like, unattended dining room in QSR. 941 00:43:16,583 --> 00:43:19,583 Like there's a couple of certain concepts where it's like, 942 00:43:19,791 --> 00:43:22,916 if you need something, you're basically hollering back into the kitchen 943 00:43:22,958 --> 00:43:26,333 like, hey, you can someone help, you know, not a fan. 944 00:43:26,375 --> 00:43:30,166 Like when I go to Home Depot and I stand there and I just I'm waiting 945 00:43:30,500 --> 00:43:33,291 like somebody asked me if I need something, please, please. 946 00:43:33,291 --> 00:43:33,875 Right. 947 00:43:33,875 --> 00:43:38,000 So not a fan of, like, completely unattended dining rooms, like, 948 00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:41,125 we got to have a little bit of the human, like, have a little floater out there, 949 00:43:42,041 --> 00:43:43,041 you know. 950 00:43:43,041 --> 00:43:44,000 Absolutely. 951 00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:45,833 Let people do things more for themselves. 952 00:43:45,833 --> 00:43:48,500 Because we talked about this recently where, you know, everyone's 953 00:43:48,500 --> 00:43:52,333 getting so used to using the kiosks to kind of do some things on their own. 954 00:43:52,333 --> 00:43:55,750 But yeah, everybody we've talked to you that's seen a lot of success 955 00:43:55,750 --> 00:43:59,833 with the kiosks specifically talks about they still have somebody involved. 956 00:43:59,875 --> 00:44:01,833 They still have people that are there to answer. 957 00:44:01,833 --> 00:44:05,291 If I'm a first time guest, you know, like answer those questions, guide them 958 00:44:05,291 --> 00:44:09,500 through the process, make recommendations, and then as they get comfortable, 959 00:44:09,500 --> 00:44:12,500 then it becomes something that becomes more second nature for them, for sure. 960 00:44:12,500 --> 00:44:15,041 And like I don't have any issue using the kiosk 961 00:44:15,041 --> 00:44:17,916 like I like ordering on it, but it's like, oh, you forgot my ranch. 962 00:44:17,916 --> 00:44:21,333 Well, now there's no one there to even ask. 963 00:44:21,333 --> 00:44:23,375 So you literally are like hollering back in the kitchen. 964 00:44:23,375 --> 00:44:25,166 And I never want that to happen at our restaurants. 965 00:44:25,166 --> 00:44:29,458 And I'm sure there are times when it does, but we really try to keep someone 966 00:44:29,500 --> 00:44:30,791 out front for that reason. 967 00:44:32,666 --> 00:44:33,916 Few and far between. 968 00:44:33,916 --> 00:44:35,750 It happens, but we try to minimize it. 969 00:44:35,750 --> 00:44:36,458 That's right, I like it. 970 00:44:36,458 --> 00:44:39,083 That's right people first. 971 00:44:39,083 --> 00:44:41,666 That's always that's that seems to be the ongoing theme here. 972 00:44:41,666 --> 00:44:44,916 We love to talk technology and AI and all the fun things that are happening, 973 00:44:44,916 --> 00:44:48,958 but people first still seems to be the the agenda. 974 00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:51,875 Yeah, you got it. Just good hospitality. 975 00:44:51,875 --> 00:44:54,291 It's always going to be people first no matter what we do. 976 00:44:54,291 --> 00:44:56,000 That's right. 977 00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:56,500 Cool. 978 00:44:56,500 --> 00:44:58,916 Well, Kristen, thank you so much for joining us today. 979 00:44:58,916 --> 00:45:01,000 For everybody listening and checking out the podcast. 980 00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:05,166 You can find Kristen and data accounting services all over LinkedIn. 981 00:45:05,166 --> 00:45:08,375 And next time you're in Iowa, check out one of their slim 982 00:45:08,375 --> 00:45:10,583 chickens or one of their Taco John's locations. 983 00:45:10,583 --> 00:45:11,333 Yeah. Thanks, Rich. 984 00:45:11,333 --> 00:45:13,208 And yeah, recommend. 985 00:45:13,208 --> 00:45:14,541 Chris is a great follow on LinkedIn. 986 00:45:14,541 --> 00:45:16,875 She's always posting very interesting use cases 987 00:45:16,875 --> 00:45:20,416 and keeping everybody updated on what she's doing in Claude and AI. 988 00:45:20,416 --> 00:45:24,041 And if you haven't connected or you're not networking yet, start there. 989 00:45:24,083 --> 00:45:26,375 I guarantee it's a good follow. 990 00:45:26,375 --> 00:45:27,750 And of course, thank you for joining us. 991 00:45:27,750 --> 00:45:30,625 We hope you have a great day, a great shift and a profitable. 992 00:45:30,625 --> 00:45:32,291 Well, it is Friday, so hopefully you're having 993 00:45:32,291 --> 00:45:34,291 a profitable Friday wherever you are. 994 00:45:34,291 --> 00:45:38,250 But don't forget don't forget like and subscribe to the show everywhere. 995 00:45:38,250 --> 00:45:41,541 It's no small ass, but it really makes a difference and we appreciate it. 996 00:45:41,541 --> 00:45:45,916 And of course you can find restaurant 365 on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, 997 00:45:45,958 --> 00:45:47,375 TikTok coming soon. 998 00:45:47,375 --> 00:45:51,500 You can also follow us on all the social medias Instagram, Facebook and 999 00:45:51,541 --> 00:45:53,166 of course, at restaurant 365. 1000 00:45:54,166 --> 00:45:57,000 Kristen, thanks so much for spending some time with us, sharing your insights 1001 00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:01,083 and looking forward to you doing $64,000 a day very soon. 1002 00:46:01,083 --> 00:46:03,666 Well, thanks so much for having me. It was great to be here.