5 places where a café loses money every day

1. An enquiry arrives without an owner

A banquet question stays in a private inbox, a table booking sits in comments and a callback request reaches a busy administrator. With scattered channels, it is difficult to see who is responding or how far an enquiry has progressed.

Bring enquiries into one list with contact details, the request, arrival time, an owner and a status. A Telegram notification helps staff notice a new enquiry; an activity history helps confirm that a conversation actually happened.

2. Purchasing relies on intuition

Buying from memory can leave stock out of step with demand: some items run out at busy times while others are written off. Start by understanding sales before adding complexity to purchasing.

Review sales by weekday and category alongside stock levels and write-offs. A dashboard using till data can reveal patterns, but its conclusions depend on the completeness of the underlying records.

3. Shifts are closed in a notebook

Handwritten records make it harder to reconcile the till, payments and stock. When discrepancies are discovered late, reconstructing the transaction and its cause becomes more difficult.

Connecting the till and accounting system lets staff compare data when closing a shift. Decide which discrepancies need investigation and who owns that task: an alert is useful when somebody acts on it.

4. Contact with a guest ends after the visit

Without a visit history, each returning guest starts from scratch. A small CRM helps retain contact details with the guest’s consent, along with enquiries and visits.

A simple reason to return, such as a reward, reminder or relevant offer, can be delivered through a bot. Start with a clear scheme and check whether it generates repeat visits, rather than merely more messages.

5. The owner sees problems too late

A monthly report provides perspective, but may arrive too late to spot changing occupancy or revenue. A short regular summary narrows the gap between an event and a decision.

Choose a few indicators: revenue, receipt count, unfinished enquiries and deviations. Include the reporting period and data source. A Telegram summary should reveal where to investigate without calling every employee.

Choose one starting point

Avoid starting with the entire café. Review a recent week: missed enquiries, written-off stock and discrepancies traced manually. Choose a recurring problem with an identifiable business cost.

• Record the baseline using your own data.
• Assign an owner to the new process.
• Launch one workflow and check it during a working shift.
• Compare the result and decide what to add next.