Your business is generating data every day. Are you using it?

Every transaction your business processes is a data point. Your card terminal, your bank account, your accounting software – together they offer a complete overview of your operation. Most F&B operators collect all this data yet use little of it. Here’s how to change that.

Cast your mind back to last Thursday, Friday or Saturday, likely your busiest service days of the week. Every table turned, every drink ordered and every card transaction recorded, timestamped and sitting in your payment system right now as hard data. The question is, what do you do with this goldmine of information? 

Mark Hughes, director of growth at payments provider CreatePay, has spent years seeing hospitality businesses overlook their data, despite the critical role it plays in success. “I think too many business owners think data is a scary word. It’s not. It’s just numbers.” Hughes is encouraged, however, by the uptick in operators asking for live transactional data compared to five years ago.  

The other major stepping stone to success, Hughes explains, is knowing how to read and use your data – how to take a record from the past and convert that into planning for the future: “What did my day do? How did that compare to last week? Now what do I need to plan for next week based on what I'm seeing?” 

Recent Zempler Bank research found that 41% of small F&B businesses point to seasonal trends, major events and operational efficiencies as the biggest opportunities to grow their businesses over the next 12 months. The data to capitalise on all of these is already there for the taking.

What data to look for and where to find it 

Aaron Resch, Managing Director of Eposability & Hops, which provides inventory management and financial control systems to F&B operators, explains that every F&B business running a modern Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS), payroll and stock system is already generating the three data points that define its financial health: labour, revenue, and food and drink margin. 

Knowing this data exists and knowing when to review is fundamental to success. Aim for weekly rather than monthly reviews to avoid missing opportunities. As Resch notes, “If a business gets to the end of the month and payroll time and all of a sudden it’s at 40% labour costs when the target was 30%, it’s too late to do anything about it.”  

The EPOS records every sale. The stock system tracks margins in real time. The rota and payroll system shows labour costs. Connecting these into a single weekly view through accounting software or a simple management report turns what Hughes calls "backward-focused data" into something "forward-focused" you can act on.  

Accounting software like Xero, QuickBooks and Sage connects directly to bank transaction data through open banking, automating the reconciliation that would otherwise take hours of manual effort after a long shift. 

How to use data for decision-making 

One practical shift Hughes recommends is lasering in on your break-even day data. Knowing which days cover your fixed costs and which don’t will fundamentally change the decisions you make, from where to concentrate promotions and when to bring in extra staff to which quieter days to treat as controllable cost rather than foregone revenue. 

CreatePay’s live transactional data shows that Thursday to Saturday trading drives the majority of revenue for most F&B businesses. This pattern holds consistently across the year and although volumes may shift from season to season, the proportional shape doesn’t.  

Operators who understand that shape can plan into it rather than react to it. A sporting event on a sunny bank holiday can represent 5% of an operator’s entire annual revenue in a single day. A wet February weekday, by contrast, can reduce card transaction volume by double digits. These are predictable patterns operators can and should use to prepare for surprises rather than absorb them as they appear. 

Jalal Uddin, CSO of online ordering platform OrderE and Smart POS system OrderVox, serves 1,000+ independent hospitality businesses and points to operators underusing their customer database to capitalise on opportunities. 

Operators know and focus on their busiest days, yet often do little to address the Mondays and Tuesdays where trade drops to a fraction of weekend volumes. Their ordering platform’s database gives them the audience to change that (while of course paying strict attention to data protection laws and preferences). These are customers who’ve already ordered, whose preferences are known and who can be easily reached. 

“Targeting existing customers with a 10% or 15% discount pushed by SMS or email on a quiet Tuesday costs little but can really change the day’s revenue,” explains Uddin. “Businesses who aren’t utilising their existing customer database are missing lots of revenue from these customers.” 

How to build long-term data discipline 

The most common financial habit Hughes identifies among struggling F&B operators is reviewing performance at the end of the month. Speaking to his contacts running pubs and restaurants, he asks if they sit down on a Sunday and look at how their week went. The answer is often no. “We wait until the end of the month,” they tell him. “By then, it’s too late,” he tells us. 

In Hughes’s experience, more businesses that succeed have the discipline to review their numbers weekly. Some do it daily. They know their break-even points, which service period drove the most volume, and which promotions really paid off. By habitualising that cadence of up-to-date knowledge, they can make more consistent, more informed decisions. 

One of the biggest barriers to building data discipline is trust in technology. Open banking is underused because many operators don’t yet have the confidence to connect their transaction data to third-party platforms. That hesitation is understandable, but by leaning into the technology, it empowers you with a constant, easy-access real-time data source that makes habit forming far easier.  

And as Hughes explains, “The businesses that are succeeding are the ones using data to guide decisions rather than gut feeling or instinct”. Successful operators treat data as important as the food coming out of their kitchen and give it the same regular attention. For those who check it as an afterthought, it’s already too late to do anything with it. 

It’s also important to note that any data you collect must comply with data protection laws. This means being transparent about how data is used, keeping it secure, and only collecting information that is necessary for legitimate business purposes. 

Zempler Bank works with hospitality businesses across the UK. We support restaurants, cafés, pubs, food trucks and more. Our business accounts come with built‑in tools to help you stay on top of cashflow – from £0 per month

Check our accounts.

Put it into practice

👉 Review your numbers weekly, know your break-even days and plan your staffing and promotions around it.

👉 Your historical data tells you what to expect and when. Use it to look forward rather than back.

👉 Connect your accounting software to your bank via Open Banking. The manual reconciliation is costing you time you don’t have.

👉 If you’re not using the transaction data your card terminal already generates, start there. It’s already yours and it’s invaluable.