Bar/Catering Staff

Bar rotas are notoriously fragile: a single late cancellation cascades into messages to half the team and an evening reshuffle for the manager. Volunteer staff have unpredictable availability and rely on goodwill swaps, while paid staff need accurate hours for payroll.

The practical manifestation is rotas held together by group chat, missed shifts that leave the bar short-staffed, and disputes over who agreed to cover what when memories conflict.

Staff Scheduling publishes the rota in the staff app with self-service swap requests routed to qualified colleagues, manager approval where needed, and automatic notifications when shifts change. Time-Clock captures clock-in and clock-out by mobile or terminal, feeding payroll and time-off tracking without manual entry.

Running out of the popular lager during a tournament is both a revenue loss and a reputational hit — guests notice, members grumble, and the next event suffers. Stock control by spreadsheet or eyeball lags reality by days.

The practical manifestation is reactive ordering at supplier minimums rather than economic reorder points, capital tied up in slow-moving stock, and the bar manager doing weekly counts that should not be necessary in 2026.

Inventory Tracking decrements stock as the POS rings sales, raises low-balance alerts before items hit zero, and assembles supplier order lists by vendor with one-tap submission. Cellar and stockroom apps let staff confirm deliveries against orders, keeping the count accurate without weekly manual counts.

The bar's workload is event-driven: a quiet Wednesday and a tournament Saturday demand entirely different staffing and stock. Without integration to the event calendar, the bar is always reacting — staffing built from last week's pattern rather than this week's actual events.

The practical manifestation is over-staffing on quiet nights, under-staffing on busy ones, and pre-orderable items (food platters, special wines) that nobody knew to prepare.

POS via Square or Stripe Terminal integrates with the Event Calendar so expected attendance drives staffing recommendations and pre-order menus. Members can pre-order food and drink for tournaments through the app, the kitchen sees the queue ahead of time, and the manager rosters to actual demand.