Convenience store back office: what it does

On this page

1. What a back office is for
2. What it shouldn’t make you do
3. Who uses it, and what each person needs
4. A checklist for judging a back office
5. Test it on one of your own days
6. Where your time should go

Every store has a back office, even if it is a desk drawer full of slips and a spreadsheet on the old PC. What matters is how much of the work it does for you, and how much it hands back.

Below is what a back office is for, what it shouldn’t make you do, and a checklist for judging one.

What a back office is for

At its simplest, the back office takes what happened at the register, the pumps, the lottery terminal and the back door, and turns it into numbers you can trust and act on.

Shift and day close

• Pulls the register’s sales, payments and payouts for the shift
• Takes the cash count, safe drops and over or short
• Records lottery counts, tank readings and anything else your close includes
• Adds the shifts up into the day

Pricebook

• Keeps items, prices, costs, departments and deals in one place
• Sends price changes and new items to the register
• Shows whether the register actually took them

Purchases and invoices

• Records what each vendor delivered and what it cost
• Updates item costs so your margins stay current
• Keeps the invoice with the record

Fuel

• Records deliveries and tank readings
• Works out margin per gallon from what the fuel in the tank really cost

Lottery

• Tracks packs from delivery to settlement
• Counts by ticket number at each shift change

Reports and records

• Day, shift and period reports
• What your accountant needs, without retyping
• A log of who changed what, and when

Alerts and access

• Tells you right away about things you’d want to know, like voids or low fuel
• Lets you decide who can change prices and who can only look

What it shouldn’t make you do

A back office earns its keep by taking work away. These are signs it is handing work back to you:

• Retyping register numbers. If the register has the number, the back office should already have it.
• Entering the same invoice twice, once for costs and again for the books.
• Walking to the register to change a price you already changed in the back office.
• Guessing whether a price reached the register. You should get a clear answer: it went through, it was turned down, or nothing has come back yet.
• Waiting until month end to find a shortage. Over and short, lottery and fuel variance should show up the day they happen.
• Calling support for everyday changes, like adding a cashier, editing a tax rate or changing who can see reports.
• Keeping paper as the only copy. Delivery slips and invoices should be scanned and kept with the record they belong to.
• Doing arithmetic by hand. Tickets sold, gallons received and over or short are math. The software should do it.
• Sitting at the store PC to see how today is going. You should be able to check sales from your phone.

Who uses it, and what each person needs

A back office serves more people than the owner, and each one needs something different from it:

• The owner: sales, margins and alerts on a phone, without waiting for anyone to send a report.
• The manager: a short list of what needs attention after each close, plus the pricebook, orders and invoices.
• The cashier: end-of-shift steps that are short, always in the same order, and hard to skip by accident.
• The accountant: month-end figures that match the bank, printed or exported without anyone retyping them.

If one of those people still keeps a side spreadsheet, the back office isn’t doing that part of the job.

A checklist for judging a back office

1. Your register. Find out which registers it works with and how it connects to yours, including whether it needs a VPN.
2. Your close. It should close shifts the way your store runs them: your number of shifts, your counts, your paperwork.
3. Price changes. It should send prices and deals to your register and show whether the register took each one.
4. Your staff. A cashier should be able to finish the end-of-shift steps without calling you.
5. Fuel. Margins should come from the blended cost of the fuel in the tank, and deliveries should keep their slips.
6. Lottery. It should count by ticket number at each shift and handle activations, swaps and returns.
7. Records. It should show who changed what, and when.
8. Your accountant. See what it can print or export at month end.
9. Your phone. See what you can check and change away from the store.
10. Support. Find out who answers when the close won’t balance late at night, and how you reach them.

Test it on one of your own days

A sales demo shows a clean day. Your store doesn’t have many of those. Pick a real day with a fuel delivery, a price change and a lottery pack that sold out mid-shift. Walk that day through the back office you are judging and count how many times you would have to type something the system should already know.

Then ask a cashier to close a shift with it. If they finish without calling you, that tells you more than the demo did.

Where your time should go

The back office exists so your evenings go to decisions: what to price, what to reorder, which vendor to call, which cashier needs help. If it is eating those evenings with data entry, it is doing the job backwards.

Advantage connects to Verifone Commander and Gilbarco Passport registers. Staff close shifts at the store with a checklist, price changes go to the register from the website, the phone or the store and count as confirmed only when the register replies, and the Events log shows who changed what.