HAT302 Food & Beverage: Financial Management and Cost Control Report

This report delves into the financial management and cost control practices employed by a food and beverage establishment, specifically McDonald's, through an interview-based investigation. It examines both front-of-house and back-of-house operations, highlighting strategies for cost containment and efficiency. The report analyzes the use of point-of-sale (POS) systems, labor management techniques, and financial reporting processes. Furthermore, it evaluates the effectiveness of financial control methods such as segregation of duties, information security, and audit trails. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of these practices in ensuring the success and profitability of the business, with appendices and references included for comprehensive understanding.

Financial management and cost control 1
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND COST CONTROL PRACTICES
(Name)
Name of professor
Name of institution
Location of institution

Financial management and cost control 2
Introduction
Financial management and cost control practices refer to the measures and precautions that are
undertaken to safeguard the economical use of money in a business entity. McDonald’s
Restaurant is a corporation in the food industry that has established its roots in several places
globally (Kulikova, and Safarova, 2016). The junk business is a huge mockery without the
involvement of McDonald. This is a fast-growing business entity that has a customer satisfaction
of 100%. This is due to the type of service offered in the conglomerate as top notched and
qualitative foods are sold here with its diverse roots in various nations, The food Corporation
provides different types of foods according to the locality of the geographical space. Fast foods
such as sirloin sandwiches and chicken tenders are the common menu affiliates in this food
corporation. With more than 1.5 million folks working here, the service delivery is usually at its
best for the betterment of customer satisfaction(Kulikova, and Safarova, 2016).
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEW FINDINGS
Involves all attempts and procedures in ensuring that the eatery business is economical in its
budgeting whereby it minimizes the costs indulged and maximizes profit earned (Lawal, 2017).
McDonald front house operations involve the locations in the business corporation that are
accessible by the customers In ensuring high-quality service delivery the organization manager
provides proficient productivity to clients in the restrooms, the restaurant bar, and the dining
room. In order to accomplish this, the rooms are skillfully and effectively planned and organized.
More experienced and qualified staff are hired into the cleaning and customer services
(Karmanovaet al, 2016)

Financial management and cost control 3
The staffs employed at McDonald are ever friendly and shrewd critical thinkers. Not only does
experience matter but also the attitude one has towards the customers who come to seek services
from the posh restaurant (Chatterjee, and Lygeros, 2015). The front house of the restaurant is
usually stocked accordingly with the best expertise in that particular field. The first outlook of an
eatery business can either make it or break it. The wait station of McDonald is well stocked to
the best to achieve 100% customer satisfaction rate (Abadie, Diamond, and Hainmueller, 2015).
Front of the house promotions is very key in the conglomerate operations as they attract more
customers This being a successful restaurant McDonald offers dinner specials in after every three
weeks. This act is usually done in an attempt to show appreciation to the customer for their
loyalty. However, Macdonald uses such events to bring more business opportunities in the
business entity. Hence the promotions tend to make the business corporation busier
Managing the front of the house operations
McDonald restaurant has an effective cost control technique. The point of sale systems is highly
integrated. The POS are majorly used in this business corporation in order to ensure that the
charges involved in the selling of drinks and foods are easily traceable. Hence this technique is
efficient for accountability in the sales of the restaurant. This is useful in budgeting and auditing
in the restaurant (Karmanova et al, 2016).
The guest services are automatically updated and enhanced in a digital way such that guests
harmonize a relationship with the restaurateur, this is accomplished through the applications
used. In addition to this, the application has a delivery management with an ID personality
interface that is interfaced (Yazdanian, and Mehrizi-Sani, 2014).

Financial management and cost control 4
Back of House operations
Back of House operations in McDonald restaurant meet the health and safety regulations and
measures at a high level. This is done to ensure guests have a splendid time in the hotel
(Chatterjee, and Lygeros, 2015). Thebacks of the house of operations are usually under the
executive chef who is the key player in the management and delegating roles to house staff. The
executive chef is solely responsive to an update in the hiring process, menuupdate, inventory
management and the stations' management. Here at MacDonald the executive chef designs and
updates the menu if the need to do arises. Housekeeping in McDonald is key in attracting the
guests for another days visit at the entity. The room attendants are usually equipped with
effective skills to work with the general managers in enhancing efficient productivity(Abadie,
Diamond, and Hainmueller, 2015).
Managing the back of operations
The restaurant has technically installed wireless point of sales systems. This is efficient in cost
control as the handheld assistant is a swift digital helper that enables quick sending of orders to
the kitchen. This is effective as it enables easier auditing of the sales volume of the restaurant
and the budgeting is also catered for. The costs of employing more staff are reduced due to the
wireless POS (Li et al, 2016).
The back of operations and labor management, this cost control technique is efficient in ensuring
that the process of hiring staff is traceable, the individual details of staff and all the pertinent
details to the organization manager in McDonald restaurant.
Financial reporting, McDonald restaurant has a primary server into which all the data regarding
the business transactions occur are posted into the database(Matthews, Harel, and Aseltine,

Financial management and cost control 5
2017). These data are useful in enabling the restaurant to make financial reports effectively, wise
financial decisions that may affect the hotel and be making the profit and loss analysis. The
personal digital assistants also enable the restaurant to be time conscious thus saving time for
other operations in the restaurant. This is key in ensuring that time management is prioritized at
its best (Lawal, 2017).
EVALUATION OF THE FINDINGS
Financial control methods used
These are the setup policies and regulations used in managing the finance in McDonald
restaurant. These methods are put in place to ensure that the firm meets its standards (Matthews,
Harel, and Aseltine, 2017). McDonald restaurant has applied several financial control methods:
The segregation of duties. The employed staffs duties are clearly allocated in that it brings out a
difference between the sales department and revenue department. Information security, the
database of the restaurant I constitute in such a way that I limited access to them (Zietlow et al,
2018). Only authorized staffs usually access the finance and document details of the eatery
business. Hereit’s only the executive chef who has the permission to do that. This financial
method is key in ensuring that leakages do not occur at any point in the business endeavors of the
restaurant. Thus, the financial documentation is well protected against possible threats such as
hackers and in office theft.
Audittrials. McDonald has internal auditors who report to the business entity semi-annually.The
professional auditors provide clearly set up records that have all the details pertaining all the
events that occur in the business at any particular time. These records involve all the
documentation that might affect the business in one way or the other. These records are kept for

Financial management and cost control 6
events as the updating of the restaurant's documents, budgeting approvals in the business and for
financial transactions (Li et al, 2016).
Operating Metrics
McDonald restaurant has employed several executive staff whose main role is to be accountable
for the service delivery by maintaining that the services are accurate as per the
customers’expectations. The executive staffs also have to ensure profits are highly achieved.
Thus the employment of the sales manager, chief operating officer, and general manager to act as
executive staffs in charge of ensuring accurate operating metrics (Lawal, 2017).
Appendices
Financial control methods and cost control techniques are superb when applied appropriately in a
business entry such as the hospitality enterprise used above i.e. McDonald restaurant. The
application of such techniques sees the business entity being successful in its operations. The laid
out policies enhance a business operation scale and productivity.

Financial management and cost control 7
References
Abadie, A., Diamond, A., and Hainmueller, J., 2015. Comparative politics and the synthetic
control method. American Journal of Political Science, 59(2), pp.495-510.
Chatterjee, D. and Lygeros, J., 2015. On stability and performance of stochastic predictive
control techniques. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 60(2), pp.509-514.
KARMANOVA, T.E., PODSEVALOVA, E.N., MITYURNIKOVA, L.A., SILAEVA, A.A. and
ATAMANOVA, M.A., 2016. Peculiarities of improving internal financial control in the Russian
corporations. Editorial Board, 11(1), p.39.
Kulikova, L.I. and Safarova, D.R., 2016. Internal control and compliance-control as effective
methods of management, detection, and prevention of financial statement fraud. Academy of
Strategic Management Journal, 15, p.92.
Lawal, B.A., 2017. Effect of Cost Control and Cost Reduction Techniques in Organizational
Performance. World Academy of Science, Engineering, and Technology, International Journal of
Economics and Management Engineering, 4(3).
Li, S., Yang, J., Chen, W.H. and Chen, X., 2016. Disturbance observer-based control: methods
and applications. CRC press.
Matthews, G.J., Harel, O. and Aseltine Jr, R.H., 2017. A review of statistical disclosure control
techniques employed by web-based data query systems. Journal of Public Health Management
and Practice, 23(4), pp.e1-e4.
Osadchy, E.A., and Akhmetshin, E.M., 2015. Development of the financial control system in the
company in crisis. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 6(5), p.390.

Financial management and cost control 8
Yazdanian, M. and Mehrizi-Sani, A., 2014. Distributed control techniques in microgrids. IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid, 5(6), pp.2901-2909.
Zietlow, J., Hankin, J.A., Seidner, A. and O'Brien, T., 2018. Financial management for nonprofit
organizations: Policies and practices. John Wiley & Sons.

Financial management and cost control 9