Your meat supplier raises the price, and on Wednesday you find out from the invoice. You know that a portion sold at one price now works out expensive. You decide to change the price as early as today. And this is where the real question starts: how many places do you have to think of?

Most owners blame the tool. "The menu is in Word, so it’s hard." Then they move to another tool and it is slow again. The cause is rarely the tool. The cause is that the price of one dish does not sit in one place.

Where the price actually sits

Take one dish, for example a salad or a main course with a side dish. Go round as a guest and write down every place where its price can be seen:

  • the printed menu on the table, laminated or in a folder;
  • a menu file (PDF or photo) that is sent on request or uploaded somewhere;
  • a post on Facebook or in the venue’s Google profile, with the menu as a photo;
  • the board by the entrance or at the bar, if it is written by hand;
  • the till or the software through which the receipt is issued;
  • the page on a delivery platform, if you sell there too;
  • your own website, if it has a page with prices.

In most venues this means several places. Each of them is a separate copy with its own owner: some you change yourself, some the waiter, some the designer, some the platform.

What makes a change slow

The time is not lost in writing the new price itself. It is lost in three other places.

First, waiting on other people. If the layout is with a designer and the printing is at a print shop, one change means two phone calls and a day or two of waiting. Until then, guests see the old price.

Second, the multiplier. If there are five copies, the change is five small tasks. Even if each one is easy, the chance of missing one grows with every change.

Third, the forgotten copies. They do not slow the change down, but they make it incomplete. A guest who sees last year’s price on Facebook does not know that the menu has changed. They simply see a mismatch and remember it.

So do not ask "which tool is the fastest", but "how many copies do I have and who holds them".

When a change is quick

A change is quick when:

  • there is one main place that the others are read from, not rewritten;
  • you can change it yourself, without waiting for anyone;
  • the change is visible straight away, or after one choice of yours to publish it;
  • the copies in external channels are links to the main one, not separate photos.

It is slow when the menu is on paper, at a print shop, or when every price has to be transferred by hand to several places.

A 15-minute check

Do it once, with your phone in hand.

  1. Open the venue’s website, Facebook page and Google profile. Look for the menu. Write down where there is a price.
  2. Ask the team: where else is a price written? The board, the till, a notebook by the bar.
  3. Decide on the main place. This is the place you correct first and that everything else follows.
  4. Next to every other place, write "manual" or "link". The manual ones are the risk.
  5. Announce a rule. For example: a price is changed first in the main place, then in the manual copies, on the same day, by one designated person.

You do not have to do everything at once. It is enough to know how many manual copies there are.

Seasonal and supply changes: an example of the order

Example scenario (no real data). A venue rearranges its summer menu and raises three prices because of new supply terms. If the menu is only on paper, the three changes mean a new layout, a new print run and new laminated copies, and until then the old one stays on the tables. If the main one is in one place and the owner changes it, the change is three fields and one choice to publish. What is left is to update the till and the board, which are separate systems anyway.

Note what does not change: the till stays separate. Even the best menu does not change the price on the receipt for you. But when you know that this is the only manual copy, it is one, not five.

What not to promise yourself

Do not expect a better tool to remove the work. It removes only the waiting and some of the copies. The discipline of changing a price in a set place and in a set order remains yours.

Do not change prices "on the fly", in only one of the channels. That way, within two weeks you will have three different prices for one dish and will no longer know which is the correct one.

Where ISKA Menu fits

If you are choosing a main place for the menu, ISKA Menu is one of the options. The menu is edited from the portal and from a phone, changes stay as a draft until you publish them, and the link to the menu remains the same. The guest opens it in a browser, without an app. This way, a price changed once is visible at the same address, and nothing new has to be printed for the tables if you use a QR code. The QR code is in the Plus plan, and the free plan has no QR.

ISKA Menu is not a point-of-sale system and does not change the prices on the receipt. It is the place the guest sees, not the one through which guests are charged.

In the end

Look back over the last three price changes at your venue. For each one, write down how many places you changed and how long it took. If the answer is "five places and two days", do not look for a nicer tool. Reduce the manual copies to one main place and two or three links.