50 Ways to Lose Money in a Restaurant

1. Combining smaller checks with large parties thus getting paid twice for the same tab
2. Charging other customers’ credit cards for cash sales and pocketing the cash
3. Not charging for chargeable extras
4. Buddy clocking
5. Not recording comps to get bigger tips
6. Milking the Clock
7. Under-purchasing
8. Overproduction of prepared goods
9. Over-pouring to get a bigger tips
10. Over-purchasing
11. Kitchen preparation mistakes
12. Server ordering mistakes
13. Serving free drinks, salads, or desserts to get a bigger tips
14. Under-pouring to build a bank of liquor and pocketing the sales from that bank
15. Bringing in their own liquor and pocketing the sales from those bottles
16. Keeping manual tabs, then not entering all the sales from those tabs, keeping the difference
17. Cooks giving free items to servers to sell and split the profits
18. Faking breakage and spillage sheets and pocketing the sales from those “broken” and “spilled” items
19. Snacking, nibbling, and drinking – personal consumption
20. Ordering an item, getting paid, then transferring that item to another table in the computer (floating beverage scam)
21. Diluting liquor with water or cheaper liquor and pocketing the additional sales from that bottle
22. Comping or discounting food and drinks to friends or family (and their friends)
23. Ringing in beer bottles as draft beer because kegs are harder to control
24. Ringing normal sales at happy hour prices and pocketing the difference
25. Faking normal sales as “walk-outs” and pocketing the difference
26. Serving premium drinks or mixed drinks and ringing them as well drinks and keeping the difference
27. Serving imported and microbrew draft beers and ringing them in as domestic draft beers
28. Serving premium wines and ringing in a house wines and pocketing the difference
29. Preparing the drink wrong, replacing it, and then selling it to someone else without ringing it in
30. Ringing in regular sales under “special promotion” items and pocketing the difference.
31. Over-portioning
32. Under portioning
33. Low yields – waste
34. Signing for goods that were not delivered
35. Spoilage
36. Short weights
37. Theft by delivery drivers
38. Accepting damaged goods
39. Stealth pricing – prices rising slowly until you notice
40. Accepting a padded order
41. Employees damaging goods so that they can take the “damaged” goods home
42. Selling miscellaneous or “open food” at discounted prices
43. Turning in their own discount coupons and keeping the cash
44. Giving friends or family employee only discounts
45. Server and manager deleting items after collecting for full check
46. Using Mgr ID #’s to perform voids and returns on cash checks
47. Putting product into garbage cans and then removing those items from the dumpster at a later time
48. Adding drinks not delivered to large parties knowing they wont be able to protest exact # of drinks ordered
49. Changing the tip amount on the credit card authorization slip
50. Reversing the sales tax status on Bar Tabs and pocketing the sales tax