DTT Screen Shot

DTT Surveillance, a DDIFO Sponsor  and a provider of surveillance technology, managed services and loss prevention solutions for the restaurant industry, added more than 1,300 subscribers in the McDonald’s restaurant chain in 2011.

Rick Crady, McDonald’s owner/operator, said the DTT SmartAudit system unveiled fraudulent activity at the register when it was first installed.

“The amount of money we saved easily paid for our system and quickly convinced us to install DTT at all our stores. We soon caught theft at other stores and found that employees had stolen quite a large sum of money – much more than enough to pay for the systems,” Crady said.

DTT, which was founded in 1999, has installed more than 27,000 systems at various restaurants.

“Our long term partnership with the McDonald’s enterprise reinforces DTT’s marketplace value for hospitality locations. By focusing on those critical inspection areas for restaurant operations, we answer vital questions related to who, how, when and what occurs on a daily basis with video validation,” added Thomas Moran, EVP, DTT.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, DTT also provides Digital Video Surveillance solutions to brands such as Subway, Dairy Queen, Burger King, D unkin’ Brands, Taco Bell, KFC, Auntie Anne’s, Potbelly Sandwich Works and Pinkberry.

QSR Web

ION-IQ System

Established in 1971, HME has a history of continuous innovation, including being the first to introduce the wireless drive-thru headset to the QSR industry. Following in that tradition, HME launched its groundbreaking ION IQ digital drive-thru headset system in February of this year. The system is designed to improve the drive-thru experience for both customers and employees with five cutting-edge sound technologies that reduce noise and increase clarity in headsets and speakers.

ION IQ also features a message center that allows you and your managers to customize alerts, reminders and greetings. Headset alerts and reminders can focus staff on issues of food safety, store security, key tasks and more. The customer greeter can deliver varying messages related to things like the time of day, store specials or new product promotions. What’s more, the entire system is remotely accessible, meaning you can modify the base station settings from anywhere.

HME’s ZOOM drive-thru timer system is another key component to increasing accuracy and speed of service. Its multi-colored graphical dashboard display makes it easy to see your operations performance in real time. The display shows how many cars are in the drive-thru and the cars change colors to indicate how quickly (or slowly) customers are being served. You and your staff can immediately identify bottlenecks and take action. The display also can be customized to show comparisons of actual service times to goal times.

Zoom Screenshot

With ZOOM’s fully customizable and remotely accessible graphical reports, you can easily see and evaluate performance issues and tie issues to specific day parts, shifts, day of the week, etc. Like ION IQ, you don’t need to be in the shop to access the system: Wherever you’ve got an Internet connection, you’ve got access. And if you’re shop has a System 30 Timer, HME’s DASH upgrade uses your existing system to provide the features of ZOOM at a fraction of the price.

Together with its top-notch products, HME prides itself on outstanding service. Most problems can be fixed over the phone with HME’s technical support specialists. If a part requires a physical repair, HME can advance ship a refurbished replacement to you so there is no down time. You can also opt in to an Equipment Maintenance Agreement (EMA), which covers your entire system–headsets, belt-pacs, base station, speakers and battery chargers–for a low monthly fee. The EMA also covers other brands like Panasonic and 3M.

VP of Marketing & New Business Development Daren Haas describes HME’s competitive edge this way, “Our advantage is that we are entirely focused on drive-thru restaurants. Our 30-plus years in the QSR industry makes us a leader in drive-thru solutions, always providing innovative solutions and cutting-edge technology to our customers. And since we manufacture, sell, market, design and support all of our products, customers can rely on us for all of their drive-thru needs.”

For more information and to find out about special pricing packages, contact HME Dunkin’ Donuts Account Representative Lisa Jokinen at 858-535-6085 or ljokinen@hme.com.

But it’s serious business for Barbara Lansberry, an operations manager for Dunkin’ Donuts in its South Florida district. “It’s a fun place and it’s a fun brand,” said Lansberry, who started with the company 16 years ago on the administrative side.

In her job to ensure that company standards and best practices are implemented, Lansberry is on the road from southern Broward County to central Palm Beach County visiting up to 52 franchises. She develops strong relationships with franchisees, store managers and employees. She spends time assisting them in the launch of new marketing programs, store openings and training.

Lansberry stays current with industry trends through webinars, e-learning, meetings with guest speakers and workshops. Along with other operations managers in South Florida and nationwide, the team shares issues, tips and advice so they can assist franchisees to ensure quality of products and service.

Though the economy has presented obvious challenges, it has also provided new franchisees from various industries. “They’ve had career changes from real estate, law and their own family businesses,” said Lansberry.

When people are looking for ways to work for themselves, or entrepreneurial opportunities, they look at franchise operations like Dunkin Donuts, said Lansberry. “They buy a franchise because it’s an established business and the ground rules have been set.”

Lansberry reviews business plans and maps out strategies with store owners. “We work as a team to run a successful restaurant,” she said.

One of her job perks, said Lansberry, is getting to meet so many different employees and their diverse customers. “We continue to grow with our customers through change,” she said, noting the company recently added bagels, flatbread sandwiches and wraps to its offerings.

Still some things never change.

Lansberry does have a menu favorite: a jelly-filled donut; and hot coffee with milk and two sugars. And make that to go – because she’s on the road to visit other franchisees and store managers.

Taking notes

Barbara Lansberry says she learns from franchisees because many of them come from business backgrounds.”It’s all about give and take and listening,” she said.

Let your bosses know you’re interested in developing your skills and advancing in the company, said Lansberry. “Building a career through Dunkin Donuts was not a difficult process,” she said. But Lansberry emphasized the importance of showing pride in your job and in the company.

Sun Sentinel

Steve Schottenfeld, of TraceTech Solutions

In January, 2010, a Michigan man was sentenced to one year in prison after he and his wife (a bookkeeper for a McDonald’s franchise owner) admitted to stealing $441,672.75 from the business. Over a nine-month period she wrote 42 unauthorized checks to herself and her husband.

As a franchisee it’s not hard to imagine that “this could have been you”.  Fraud is a fact of business life, and if you’re not paying much attention to it your business could be losing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.  This article will discuss several aspects of small-business fraud: the extent of the problem, some “red flags” that may indicate that someone is stealing your money, techniques that you can use to prevent many common small-business frauds and how to go about detecting an on-going theft.

Small-Business Fraud

Most likely you’ve probably been in business for a while and you’ve read or heard all the fraud stories.  But as far as you’re concerned your organization has fraud under control, right?  That’s what every owner/operator thinks!  The statistics tell a completely different story, though.

• Across the U.S., the average small business loses 7% of its annual revenue to fraud.  The sad part is that since fraud is concealed theft, business owners have no idea that they’re being robbed.
• The employees who are doing most of the stealing aren’t the ones behind the counter.  The most “dangerous” group of small-business fraudsters are, in fact, a business’ most trusted employees: its managers, supervisors, bookkeepers, accounting clerks, payroll and benefits coordinators, etc.
• The average fraud scheme goes undetected for over two years.  That’s a long time – time enough for a fraudster to gamble away a lot of your money, take expensive vacations or pay off lots of personal debts.

Red Flags

Fraud is concealed theft, so there’s a good chance that if a fraudster is stealing your money you won’t notice it.  However, a few red flags may indicate that you’re being victimized.  Keep an eye out for these signs:

1. Unexpected and/or unexplained cash flow problems. You should have a good handle on your cash flow.  If something just doesn’t seem right it just might be because an employee is embezzling your cash.
2. Employees living beyond their means
   Employees who live it up in style may have a legitimate way of supporting that style.  But then again, the money may be coming from you – and not in the form of a paycheck, either!
3. Employees who don’t take vacations

Fraudsters often leave “traces” of their theft in the business’ records such as its books, bank statements, payroll files and vendor files.  Many fraudsters shun vacations to prevent other employees from finding those traces.  So while you may applaud the devoted employee who never takes a vacation, you should also be aware that they could be trying to hide something.

Note that the existence of a red flag in your organization doesn’t necessarily imply that you’re being victimized, any more than the absence of red flags indicates that you’re not being victimized.  Red flags, however, should raise your fraud alert level.  We’ll discuss what that means shortly.

Reducing Your Fraud Risk

There are two ways to reduce your fraud risk: taking fraud prevention measures and taking fraud detection measures.  There’s no such thing as “one-stop shopping” here.  Different measures will target different fraud schemes.  For example, the following three types of small business fraud schemes can result in some of the largest losses:

• check tampering schemes
• fraudulent invoicing schemes
• payroll fraud schemes

So the measures that you take should be directed at these schemes.  In the rest of this article we’ll suggest small measures that you can take to prevent and/or detect some popular variations of these schemes.  But the list is only a start.

Check-Tampering Prevention and Detection Measures

Check tampering schemes are the most popular small-business type of fraud scheme.  Check tampering occurs when an employee either prepares a fraudulent check for their own benefit or converts a check intended for someone else into one they can control.  The example in the first paragraph of this article is a very popular variation: the employee simply writes checks to themselves (or “Cash”, or a relative, or an accomplice, etc.).  You might wonder “how can they get away with that”?  Well, it’s instructive to consider how they conceal such a theft, often for many years:

1. they usually forge the signature, so the owner  never sees the check
2. they typically enter the check into the books as being paid to another party such as a legitimate vendor.  To someone looking at the books or reports, the entry seems to be perfectly normal.

Now that you have some background, you’ll see why the following measures can prevent and/or detect many common check-tampering schemes:

1.  If your organization has two or more employees in the accounting department, the employee responsible for reconciling the monthly bank statement should not have the authority to write checks
2. Have monthly bank statements delivered unopened to you.  When you receive a bank statement examine the payee on every cashed check and every electronic disbursement.  Investigate “unusual” payees.

Simply following these two procedures will cost you about fifteen minutes per month.  But they could save your business thousands of dollars.

Fraudulent-Invoicing Prevention and Detection Measures

A manager for an Illinois manufacturer recently pleaded guilty to setting up two bogus companies and invoicing his employer for services that were never rendered.  By the time the scheme was uncovered, the manager had stolen $1,500,000 from the company.

Shell company schemes are very popular because everything looks legitimate from all angles: invoices look legitimate (even though they were printed on the employee’s home computer) and real payments were made against those phony invoices.  But here are some simple measures that can prevent and detect many fraudulent invoicing schemes:

1. If your organization has two or more employees in the accounting department, the employee responsible for entering new vendors into the accounting database should not have invoice-approval authority
2.  Prior to entering a new vendor into the database, your bookkeeper should call the vendor to make certain that the vendor exists
   Neither major measure will likely place a big time burden on either you or your staff.

Payroll Fraud Prevention and Detection Measures

A benefits and payroll coordinator for a Sudbury, MA garden center was recently found guilty of putting two “ghost” employees on payroll and collecting their pay  After five years she had stolen $290,000 from the company.

The popularity of payroll fraud schemes is surprising.  Payroll frauds are easily-detected because the evidence is so obvious – it just needs to be looked at!  Here are two simple measures that can detect many common payroll fraud schemes:

1. Have your business’ payroll reports reviewed regularly – by someone other than the one who entered the payroll data!
2. Take a few minutes to examine each year-end payroll report.  Specifically look for:
   a. employees whose compensation is out of line with your expectations — including terminated employees!
   b. employees that you don’t know
   c. employees with little or no withholding or tax deductions

Summary

Fraud should not be taken lightly.  Many small business owners have unknowingly been taken for a lot of money, and many never recovered from the loss.  Because business owners can’t “see” fraud, they underestimate their risk and consider fraud losses to be a cost of doing business.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Owners can take many simple measures to reduce their fraud risk.  The sheer number and variety of schemes is enormous, so getting external help is normal.  For preventative measures, your accountant should be your primary source for fraud-reduction measures specific to your organization.  And on the detection side,  affordable fraud detection services that sniff out many common fraud schemes are now available.

Click on Photo to See All Photos of Royston/Dunkin' Donuts Cabinetry

Frank Callis of Royston, LLC took a big risk while speaking to a group of franchisees at DDIFO’s member meeting in September.  The theme of the meeting was cost-cutting and improving the bottom line, and while the speakers who preceded him stayed on point citing several short-term money saving examples, Frank took a different tact. He boldly suggested franchisees take a longer view of their cabinetry purchase and invest more upfront in Royston’s modular metal cabinetry. 

The savings, he noted, would be realized over time and in reduced costs for future remodels. While Callis may have seen a raised eyebrow or two from the audience that day, anyone with a remodel on the horizon should give his proposition serious consideration.

Royston became a DDIFO Associate Member in June and is proud to offer modular metal cabinetry as an alternative to typical wood millwork which has the potential to buckle, warp, swell or rot from moisture and general wear and tear. Royston’s products are designed to be durable, flexible, resistant to moisture-damage and coffee stains and reconfigurable, which can provide significant cost savings over time.

Royston cabinetry, while affordably priced upfront, brings the owners true savings over the lifetime of the product.  “When it comes time to remodel your store due to changes in operations or a new image refresh,” says Bonnie Padgett, Marketing Manager for Royston, “You can easily cut your reinvestment costs in half or more due to the modular nature of our equipment.  In fact, I recently helped a customer remodel his store after 10 years of using Royston cabinets.  With only a couple new cabinet modules and a few new sections of countertop, we were able to give him a completely new look and layout at less than a sixth of the cost of replacing his entire lineup.  And these cabinets that he kept were 10 years old – they still look and perform just like brand new cabinets!  I don’t know a single millwork cabinet, regardless of quality or manufacturer, that doesn’t need to be replaced after a decade of heavy use.”

While Royston is a relatively new approved vendor for Dunkin’ Brands, they are no stranger to the QSR and convenience store world, having partnered with a variety of retailers over the last 40+ years, including 7-Eleven,  Jack in the Box, Little Caesars, McDonald’s, Chevron and Blimpie. They have also done work for Wal-Mart and Target.

As a vertically integrated supplier, Royston offers cabinetry and shelving manufacturing capabilities, in-house countertop fabrication, delivery, and installation services, and prides itself on the full-service provided to Dunkin’ franchisees. Once a quote is received from Dunkin’ Brands, the franchisee is emailed video links to view product options, and assigned a dedicated customer service representative. Royston’s team of design technicians then prepares drawings to include Dunkin’ Brand’s requirements and reviews for customer flow, operations needs and equipment placement.

Royston has developed a dedicated website just for Dunkin franchisees:  www.roystonfordunkin.com, which includes photos, videos, roduct information, store layouts and testimonials.

To learn more about Royston’s cabinetry and countertop options, visit their website, or call Reeder Burch at (800)-334-1766, extension 3150.