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Kobas: a Glossary of Terms

Within such a large industry, terminology can sometimes be confusing and not so straightforward. These are the definitions that we use throughout our products and services.

Last updated 04 May 2023

Some sections of the Knowledge Base explore terminology in more detail, such as the Cash Log Explained article, for example. If you think we’ve missed something (or got something wrong), please let us know by emailing support@kobas.co.uk.

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Account Hygiene

This refers to making sure that the data in your account is accurate and up to date. In particular, data that is no longer used should be deleted. This will improve performance reduce scope for error.

Actual vs Expected

In both stock and financial areas of Kobas, we refer to "Expected" meaning figures or results Kobas is expecting based on what has been inputted, or "Predicted" meaning figures or results Kobas is expecting based on what a user has inputted as a prediction. We will then compare these figures with "actual" (from Cash Declaration, Stock Check, or Hours Worked) to show you the variance between the two.

Administrator (Staff)

This is a member of staff in the company who has 'Administrator' access to Kobas. This is the highest permission level. Kobas staff will seek the permission of account Administrators to approve additional costs/billing, and some significant changes to the system requested by other staff.

Allergens

This relates solely to the 14 allergens as defined by the FSA, and their subcategories.

API

An application programming interface is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. 

Application (Staff)

In Kobas this will refer to Job Applications or Job Applicants.

Approve Hours

This is the action within Kobas of approving Hours Worked at the end of the week to allow export to payroll.

Audit Log

This refers to Kobas logs of actions taken by users in your account.

Batches

Internally created batches that you keep in stock, but do not buy from a supplier. These can either be created at the venue, or in your organisation’s Central Production Kitchen and delivered to each venue upon creation of an Internal Transfer request. Batches are made from ingredients that you order from external suppliers.

Browser

This is the application you use to access the internet, to get onto your Kobas Cloud account. Kobas is optimised for use on Google Chrome.

Build Items (KDS)

This term is specific to our KDS system. The build item is the Order Item (aka. EPoS Item and Modifiers) split down into component parts. This is to allow it to go to appropriate KDS stations in the cooking/preparation process. For example an Order Item could be Roast Beef; but the Build Items could be Beef, Roast Potatoes and Veg, all being cooked in separate places.

Bulk Upload

Many of our tools within Kobas have inbuilt functionality to take actions in bulk (ie. to more than one item at a time) to save you valuable administrative time. However, the bulk tools in some areas can only be accessed by Kobas staff, who will be always happy to help.

Bump / Bump all (KDS)

This term is specific to our KDS system. This will bump the selection and anything within the selection forward by one state. "Bump all" will move the whole order along a state, regardless which part is selected.

Cache and Cookies

These terms refer to files used by your internet browser, which you will use to access Kobas. A cookie is a file created by a web browser, at the request of a website, that is stored on your computer. These files store information, such as shopping cart contents or authentication data. A cache stores data from the website (such as text or images) so that the web page will load faster if you access them again.

Cash Bags

These are the records of the bags used to bank your cash each day and usually have a unique reference number. This is only relevant for business that are not Cashless.

Cash Logs

This refers to the final revenue declaration for the days' trade and is still the same for venues or organisations that are cash log. It also includes card payments, online transactions and deposits, tips and vouchers.

Categories

Categories are used within Kobas to provide structure to menus and reports, as well as bulk assign properties and actions to groups of items.

Clients

As a customer of Kobas, your organisation is referred to as a Kobas client. 

Client Till

You will likely have several tills in your venue to operate Kobas EPoS. In most set ups, one of the tills will be your server till, and all others will be client tills. This just refers to the fact that the till is not the server (it makes a difference when our teams are helping you). Some venues may have servers on separate computer towers or racks, meaning all of your tills be clients.

Close Session / Till Session

The act of ending one till session and simultaneously beginning the next. Within Kobas till sessions don't need to coincide with a day, sessions could cover a day, part of a day, or multiple days. When a session is closed, the till produces what is known as a Z Report to detail all of the takings and figures from that session.

CIC

We call our online customer portal the "Customer Interaction Centre", or the "CIC" for short. This is an optional add on to your account, and allows your customers to apply for jobs, place orders, see allergen information and access a loyalty account.

Counter (KDS)

The KDS Counter is a feature that displays a banner on the top of a specific station containing up to 4 "counters". The counter could be high volume ingredients, and totals what is required for current orders. For example, if you're on the grill at a burger joint and have burger patties set up as an ingredient you may have 3 Queued, 2 in Pass and an 4 in Grill showing in the counter as 3|2|4.

CSV Export

Many pages from our system, including lists and reports, offer a CSV Export. The term CSV refers to the file type, which is essentially a basic spreadsheet. We use CSV files as these will open in various branded applications such as Microsoft Excel, Mac Numbers, OpenOffice, or Google Sheets. 

Customer

We will refer to your customers, as customers. Whilst you remain our client.

Daily Tasks

These are the logs that must be completed to open the session (Opening Tasks), during the session (in-shift tasks, optional), and to close the session (Closing Tasks) every day. These would usually be the responsibility of the manager or supervisor leading the shift.

Dallas Key

A Dallas Key is a physical method of logging onto EPoS.

Day Off

This is an unpaid day off, in the Kobas system.

Deposits Received, Refunded and Redeemed / Pre-payments

A deposit is a pre-payment for a service or product to be fulfilled at a later date. When the deposit is paid by the customer it is 'received' and when it is used against products or services it's recorded as being 'redeemed'. A deposit can of course be 'refunded' also. Our system allows the taking of deposits attached to a reservation.

Dietary

This refers to whether items are suitable for specific diets such as Vegan, Vegetarian, Kosher, etc. 

Discounts

These refer to an automatic or applied price adjustment that applies to the whole order, as opposed to specific items. We do sometimes use the word Discount as an overarching term for both Discounts and Promotions.

Dockets

This term refers to a printed ticket that displays items that need making, usually by a Kitchen or a Bar. They are sometimes referred to as Checks.

EPoS

Electronic Point of Sale (often referred to tills)

External Delivery (Stock)

The way in which a venue can receive ingredients and items from an external supplier. 

FIFO (First In, First Out)

First In, First Out (FIFO) is a practice where the oldest instance of stock us used before items that have been received more recently. This ensures costs are accounted for in the order they were paid, and takes into consideration fluctuating market prices, giving you more accurate stock usage and holding figures.

Our stock system works on a Last In, Last Out (LILO) basis, where we essentially calculate an average 

Food Halls (MVO)

Here at Kobas we have functionality to support the Food Hall set-up, where the Food Hall operator has separate venues (either self-operated, or contracted out) within one larger venue. We call the technical set up Multi-Venue Ordering, or MVO, and this allows your customers to see all of your open venues, and order various items from different traders/venues in one order.

GDPR

The "General Data Protection Regulations" are key to our work here at Kobas, and the linked article explains how we meet these legislative requirements.

Gift Cards

This is the ability for your customers to purchase a monetary value that can be spent in your company as a gift.

Gratuities

A term used to describe the combined amount of service charge and tips (either from Card, Cash or from Online Orders).

Gross Profit (GP)

Gross Profit is the difference between revenue and costs. The percentage is a representation of profitability, either of individual products or your business as a whole. The formula we use to calculate your gross profit is:

GP% = (Net Margin/Net Selling Price) x 100

Hard Drive

The Hard Drive is the physical disk inside a computer (or your tills) that stores the data and allows the computer processing to take place. Sometimes these fail and need replacing.

Holiday Day

This is a paid day off, in the Kobas system.

Holiday Entitlement

This term means what each employee is entitled to take in paid leave. For regular workers (on Full Time or Part Time contracts or salaried), this is a fairly straight forward arbitrary number. There are more complex calculations around this to be legally compliant for Irregular Hours workers.

Holiday Pay

This term means what rate the employee will be paid for their holiday paid absence. There are complex calculations to use to be legally compliant for workers who have irregular hours or paid different rates.

Hours Worked

In Kobas this term means the hours that a manager has confirmed that a staff member has worked. This is different to the Rota'd hours, and the clock in / out times.

Integrated vs Standalone (Integrations)

These terms refer to separate systems whether they work in an integrated fashion, where they share information automatically; or standalone where they do not share information at all. This is often used when talking about PDQ Card Machines.

Internal Transfer (Stock)

The way in which a venue can request and receive ingredients and products from another venue.

Ingredient (Stock)

An item purchased from a supplier than can be used in EPoS Items (PLUs) or in products that are, in turn, used in EPoS Items.

Internet vs Network

Your local network refers to several devices connected together using Ethernet (network) cables. On your local network there will be a router to manage the connections, and a Server which is the device doing most of the work in the system. You may have switches, which simply act in the same ways a power extension cable does. You Kobas EPoS system simply requires this network to be operational.

Your connection to the internet is where the router is then connected to the internet, via an Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Virgin Media, or BT. Your Kobas EPoS system will work without the internet connection live, but certain elements such as loyalty and reservations will not work.

Irregular Hours Worker

We use this term from Government Guidance to refer to those staff whose contract doesn't state a specific amount of hours. This is also known as Zero Hours Workers, Part-Year Workers, or Casual Staff. 

Lead Type

These are the high-level groups for both Stock and EPoS Items. Kobas will automatically generate you: WetFood, and Controllable. However, these can be edited and added to by Kobas staff on your behalf. Some clients add lead types such as Other or Accommodation.

Line Check

A way to check and record the stock position of a single ingredient, product or category. Whilst line checks are not reflected in the Reports section within Kobas Cloud, you can view historical line check records via the Stock Check page. In addition, line checks compare the number counted with your theoretical holding.

Locale

This refers to the Country or Region your account is set to operate within. For example, accounts in our UK Locale will display £ and show National Instance, but our Ireland Locale accounts will display currency in € and show PSRI.

Loyalty

This refers to the scheme within Kobas that allows customers to register with your scheme, accrue points on their spend, and then receive special discounts when they reach certain thresholds.

Menu

A menu within Kobas refers to the whole set of Menu Pages and PLU's that are available on a till at any given time.

Menu Page

A menu page within Kobas refers to a tab on your till which contains up to 70 PLU's, the menu page forms part of the menu.

MFA

Multi-Factor Authentication is often referred to as MFA or 2FA, two-factor authentication. It provides additional security for your cloud account by requiring a second security check alongside your password.

Modifiers

Modifiers, previously known as PISC's, allow a till operative (within EPoS) or a customer (in the CIC) to add instructions or further products to a base EPoS Item.

MPoS

Mobile Point of Sale - we use this term to cover Virtual EPoS and tablets to use as EPoS.

Net Margin

Net Margin is simply the difference between the costs of your goods and the price at which you sell them. This is therefore the profit that you make on each sale. The formula that we use to calculate this is:

Net Margin = net selling price – net cost

Nutritional

UK Law states that larger companies must display the calorie contents of most food and drink served. Our system allows this to be recorded and displayed along with other nutritional information.

Operations

This term relates to stock management and daily compliance tasks within Kobas.

Orders (Stock)

The process by which a venue can request ingredients, products or items, either from an external supplier or from another venue within the organisation, including Head Office or a central kitchen.

Order (KDS)

An order is generated when items in the EPoS Basket are added to a tab, or payment is completed directly. This is the overarching "Order".

Order Items (KDS)

The order items are the individual EPoS Items sold in the transaction/order. For an example the Order could comprise Roast Beef, Pint of Beer and a Side of Fries.

Other payment types

Most payments will be made using the Cash or Card payment types in venue, Stripe or 'Online Payment' for Online Ordering, and of course Deposit Redemption. However, additional custom payment types can be created by the Support Help Desk to capture payments made through other methods such as Deliverect (or any number of delivery providers), Too Good To Go, Red Letter Days, or any other type you require. 

Payments (gross)

This is the total amount of funds your venue has taken. It includes cash, cards, cheques, deposits, service charge, card tips, money taken for petty cash and any other form of income. This is the number you’re aiming to match during your closing tasks and is one side of the equation that creates your variance.

Payments vs Sales

Sales within Kobas refers to the retail cost of goods or services provided at a specific time, and the corresponding money received is the Payment. Often these will occur on the same day, where payment is received for sales made in the same till session (day). By separating out these concepts, this allows us to accurately reconcile takings where payments don't occur on the same day as the sale, such as pre-payments (deposits) or where tabs are left open and payment taken at a later date. By recording the date the Sale was made still, this allows more accurate analysis of business and operational matters such as the corresponding labour cost.

PDQ

In short, this refers to your card machines. This stands for Pretty Dammed Quick, or Process Data Quickly, depending on what you read.

Permission Levels

Every person who has access to Kobas, either EPoS or Cloud, will require a staff profile. Each profile is assigned to one permission level. Each permission level has various permissions attributed to it, allowing you to ensure staff only have access to the relevant parts of the system, keeping your sensitive data safe, and complying with GDPR.

Price Adjust

This is a feature of our EPoS whereby sufficiently privileged users can change the price of an EPoS Item one-off to be sold.

Price Band

Price Bands apply to a specific venue (or set of venues) at a specific time, and individual PLU's can have a different price at those times. These work well for "Happy Hour" type promotions. They can also be used to allow an organisation to have one menu for multiple venues, but have different prices at each venue.

Promotions

Promotions are a type of automatic or applied discount that apply to specific items.

PLU (EPoS Item)

A PLU (Price Look Up code) is, essentially, the button on your EPoS that adds corresponding items to the basket. These are the items that are available for order and are made up of ingredients and Batches.

Reservations

A reservation is when a customer reserves a table or area within the venue.

Recall (KDS)

This is the reverse of a "bump", where the order item or whole order is brought back one state.

Redeem

Claiming something that has already been paid for or awarded. Within Kobas this is mainly used in connection with Deposits or Vouchers, once redeemed cannot be redeemed any further times.

Remake / Remake and waste (KDS)

This sends the item back to the first state, to be started again. Whether the system wastes a set of ingredients depends on the option selected.

Report Engine

Our Report Engine hosts a set of reports which are scheduled to be emailed to certain people at specific times. We also have some capacity to explore bespoke reporting solutions.

Revenue (gross & net)

Revenue is a function of payments but gives you an indication of how well you traded. It’s made by taking the Gross Payments figure and deducting: service charge, tips and deposits received. There are 2 flavours of revenue, gross and net, where net has any applicable taxes removed – if all your sales incur full rate tax, this is a straightforward calculation, if you have some sales that are tax exempt or on a reduced rate, we will take these into account when generating the net.

Rota

This is where all shifts are assigned for a week in a given venue.

Rota Clone

This is Kobas functionality that allows you to copy one weeks rota to another to save time.

Rota Role

Each shift on a Kobas rota should be assigned a role. This tells the staff member what role they will be taking on that shift, but also ensures the cost of that shift is attributed to the correct Department / Rota Category, to allow better labour financial analysis.

Rota Template

This is Kobas functionality that allows you produce a set of shifts that are the same each week so when you create the rota you can simply assign them to staff members.

Router

The router is a key part of your network set up. In short, the router routes traffic between devices and out into the internet.

Sales Budget vs Prediction

Within Kobas, the Sales Budget is where, usually central functions such as Area Managers or Finance Teams, can upload what they budget individual venues will make that day in Sales. Kobas then allows the operational venue manager, within the rota creator, to add their Sales Prediction for the week. It is the Sales Prediction that is used to calculated the predicted labour wage cost on the rota.

Server

A server is a computer program or device that provides a service to another computer program and its user, also known as the client. Within venues operating Kobas EPoS, the server is usually a till (but can be a computer tower or rack), which communicates with all other client tills, tablets, printers and KDS screens.

Service Charge

A Service Charge within Kobas is a discretionary (ie. optional) charge applied by the EPoS system to a customer’s bill, so they produce an extra charge on the bill that is paid. As they are discretionary (they can be removed if the customer requests it), these are not subject to VAT. Similarly to tips, these are culturally usually expected to be shared between the team in addition to their wages.

Staff

The HR functionality in Kobas works on the basis of each staff member having their own Staff Profile. This is the place for their HR information to be stored, and generates user access to both EPoS and cloud.

State (KDS)

The KDS feature tracks the "state" of a build or build (such as Queued, Prep, etc), that is part of an overall order. This starts with "Queued" and ends with "Complete". You can define and edit the States yourself. 

Station Item Assignment (KDS)

This relates to assigning EPoS Items to one or more KDS Station. For example Food items to Kitchen KDS screens, and Wet items to Bar KDS screens.

Station (KDS)

A Kobas venue may have any number of KDS Stations. These are screens that display KDS. The software will support touch screens, so it would be possible to use an EPoS unit or any touch screen device if desired, though it could be messy. Keyboard and bump bar operation is our preferred hardware solution.

Station State Assignment (KDS)

This relates to which states each KDS Station is going to display. For example the Kitchen Pass may require all states, whereas the screen on the Cook-line may only require Cooking.

Stock Check

The method that allows you to record and report on the current stock position, as well as compare actual stock usage with the theoretical stock usage as recorded on your EPoS.

Stock Usage

The way in which a venue can record usage of stock that has not been processed through the EPoS. For example, in the instance of internal events like a staff Christmas party, or day to day kitchen wastage of perishables.

Supplier (Stock)

The external source of ingredients. An ingredient comes from a supplier with specific supplier requirements, including measure per unit, units per pack and the cost price. 

Supply (Stock)

An instance of an ingredient, from a specific supplier. Multiple supplies, each with their own supply specifications (measure per unit, units per pack, price), from multiple suppliers can be recorded under one ingredient. For example, Coca-Cola in cans, glass bottles and plastic bottles from three different suppliers can be recorded under the ingredient “Coca-Cola”, with all available sizes and other supply-specific information.

Switch

A network switch is less sophisticated than a router, and it's role is to simply allow more connections to the network.

Tab

A tab is a mechanism used by Kobas to keep a record of items served but still to be paid. Tabs can be paid off in full or in part.

Tips

Tips are given over and above the total bill and service charge and never incur tax. KOBAS does not track cash tips via its EPoS system, but they can be entered during the cash declaration stage in the closing tasks.

Total Sales

This figure is the total of all the items you’ve sold over a period, typically a session. This number will be the same as revenue (gross) unless you allow tabs to stay open across a number of sessions, meaning items purchased in session 1 may not be paid for until session 4 etc.

Training Modes

Both EPoS and Cloud have training modes, this is opposed to the live mode which you use to trade-in. Training Mode doesn't record any details or log any transactions, and as such, it won't affect your live data.

Traders

This is relevant to our Food Hall style clients using our Multi-Venue Ordering configuration. We use the term Traders to mean the separate commercial entities trading from within our operation and using Kobas to do that. This is different to a Franchisee.

User

This term has some technical differences to the term Staff, but clients will likely use this term interchangeably. A User is a Staff member with access to your system.

Virtual EPoS

This refers to EPoS which doesn't need a till or a specific iPad to run. It runs using an internet browser on any internet-enabled device. There are limitations to this setup, in that this system can't communicate with any hardware. 

Vouchers

This refers to a specific discount being either loaded onto a loyalty card or a specific code given to a customer to redeem.

Wage Percentage

Wage Percentage (often written Wage% for short) is a term which expresses your labour cost as a percentage of your sales/revenue for any given period. Each operator has different labour-to-cost ratios, and each industry has different ideas about what a “good” labour-to-cost ratio vs. a poor one. The typical range for any industry is 15% to 30%. 

Z-Read vs Cash Log

When you Close Session on your tills (usually at the end of each trading day), your EPoS system will produce a Z-Read (or Z-Report) and open a new session for the next trading day/period. Therefore, the Z-Read is limited to expected figures only based on what has been put through the tills. As such, it is also a snapshot in time.

The expected figures from the Z-Read feed into the Closing Tasks cash log where actual figures are entered from counting cash and checking Z-Reads from other providers such as PDQ's. The Cash Log Report will then show accurate up to date information on your actual revenue and variances against the expected.

We strongly recommend that Z-Reads are not relied upon for financial reporting due to the above reasons. Your Cash Log report is your single source of truth for your financial reconciliation.