Rostering software for bistros
A bistro lives inside somebody else’s trade. The bar decides how busy the room is, the kitchen has two peaks and a long quiet middle, and a function can double a Thursday with a week’s notice.
| Who | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ana F.Chef | 11–8 | 11–8 | off | 11–9 | 11–9 | 11–9 |
| Jordan M.Kitchen hand | off | 5–9 | 5–9 | 5–9 | 4–10 | 4–10 |
| Sofia D.Floor | 11–3 | 11–3 | 11–3 | 11–3 | 5–10 | 11–3 |
| Kirra D.Floor | off | off | 5–9 | 5–9 | 5–10 | 5–10 |
| Lucas P.Function | off | off | off | 5–10 | off | off |
Thursday carries the function: an extra chef hand and Lucas on the floor for the room.
What makes a bistro hard to roster
Four things that come up in every one of these weeks, and what happens here instead.
What changes once it is running
What bistros get back, in the terms this trade measures it in.
A week in a bistro
What it is used for in a bistro
Specific things people in this trade do with it, rather than a list of modules.
- Lunch and dinner as two services, with two shifts rather than one long day
- A function on Saturday rostered beside ordinary trade instead of replacing it
- Kitchen and floor on one roster, approved by the duty manager who ran the night
- The estimate read one service at a time, because lunch and dinner are different businesses
- A last table that stays late, counted as the hours the floor actually worked
- Casuals who also work the bar kept as one person across both areas
The Sunday the last table stayed until eleven
A pub bistro, a lunch of ninety and a dinner that should have finished at nine.
| When | What happens | What you do here |
|---|---|---|
| 11:30am | Lunch is busier than the booking sheet suggested. | A casual is added for two hours. The clash check runs before the shift saves. |
| 2:15pm | Lunch finishes and the kitchen goes home until five. | Two shifts in the day for the same chef, and the three hours between are not paid. |
| 8:50pm | One table of twelve is still ordering. | Nobody is sent home on the software’s say so. The roster is a plan, not a lock. |
| 11:05pm | The floor clocks out two hours past the rostered finish. | Two hours over on three people, each recorded against their own shift. |
| Monday 10am | The duty manager who worked Sunday approves the week. | She can approve hours and publish rosters. Billing and the payroll connection are not hers. |
A long Sunday, six hours more than rostered, and every one of them explainable.
The jobs that stop being jobs
Where the hours in a week like this go. No stopwatch: the left column is what the work takes without it, and the right is what is left of the same task.
| The job | Usually | Here |
|---|---|---|
| Rostering two services in one day | One long shift, and an argument about the quiet middle | Two shifts, with the gap left out of the hours |
| Staffing a function without stripping the bistro | Moving people around on paper and hoping the dining room copes | The function as its own venue, with its own crew and its own cost |
| Paying for a night that ran two hours over | A note on a docket, if anybody remembered to write it | The clock out against the rostered finish, on the record that night |
| Letting the duty manager close the week | Handing over a login that also opens the bank details | A manager who approves and publishes, and an owner who keeps the rest |
What the record shows, and what stays yours
Roster Flow keeps the record. Meeting the obligation is still the workplace's job, and these are the parts of it nothing here decides for you.
- Lunch and dinner as separate shifts, with the unpaid gap between them
- Hours worked past a rostered finish, per person, on the night it happened
- Which area each shift belonged to when somebody moved to the bar
- Who approved the week, and at what time
- Every correction and the reason given for it
- What a broken shift attracts under your award or agreement
- Overtime and the penalties that apply after a certain hour
- RSA requirements for anybody who steps behind the bar
- Whether the two hours over are approved as worked
What has to be kept, and for how long, is set out by the Fair Work Ombudsman. Nothing here interprets an award or certifies that a workplace complies with one.
Who is usually on the team
Typically eight to twenty across the kitchen and the floor, sharing staff with the bar, and with a function crew that appears when it is needed.
What drives the wage cost
Weekend evenings and Sunday carry your loadings, and a function adds a short, expensive block. Because the estimate totals per day, the cost of taking the booking is visible before you take it.
Questions people in bistros ask
Can we roster the bistro separately from the bar?
Yes. Each area can be set up as its own venue with its own roster, and staff can be assigned to more than one. Totals roll up across all of them.
What happens when we republish after a change?
People whose shifts are new or changed are notified. Somebody whose shift you removed is not told automatically, so tell them yourself.
Do you work out the Sunday rate?
You set the Sunday loading and who it applies to. Roster Flow applies exactly what you set, as an estimate. The pay run itself stays in your payroll system.
A function is confirmed on Tuesday for Thursday. How fast can the roster change?
Add the shifts, check what the night now costs, and republish. The people whose shifts changed are notified and nobody else is. If somebody picks it up who was not rostered, their clock in is recorded and waits for you to approve it.
The kitchen finishes before the floor does. Do two finish times complicate the timesheet?
No, because each shift carries its own start and finish and is compared to what was actually worked. A kitchen that closes at nine and a floor that goes to eleven are two sets of hours on the same night, each approved on its own merits.
Can the bistro have its own wage total while the site still sees everything?
Yes. Run the bistro as its own venue with its own roster and radius, and the totals add up across the bar, the bistro and everything else, so the duty manager sees their area and the owner sees the site.