Many KFC restaurants owned by the chain's franchisees are improving their loss prevention programs with DigitalPersona fingerprint biometrics. Two such KFC franchisees, West Quality Food Service, Inc. and KBP Foods, are using DigitalPersona U.are.U Fingerprint Readers, which are now available through the franchise's central purchasing co-op, in restaurants across the Midwest and Southeast. They added the DigitalPersona biometrics to their existing NCR Advanced Restaurant (formerly Compris) point-of-sale (POS) software in order to eliminate the need for personal identification numbers (PINs) and to hold employees as well as managers more accountable. Both franchisees have seen an immediate reduction in payroll fraud and unauthorized transactions, resulting in improved operations and profits.

 

Employees at these KFC restaurants previously used PINs at point-of-sale terminals to access time-and-attendance systems, while managers used PINs to authorize discounts, voids and overrides. Unfortunately, employees were able to share PINs to inappropriately clock one another in, boosting labor costs. Similarly, staff could secretly use managers' PINs to authorize fraudulent transactions, driving up the cost of food. Since integrating DigitalPersona fingerprint biometrics with each store's POS software, the franchisees have significantly raised individual accountability by tying transactions to the specific employee that performed them. Biometrics has proven to be a strong deterrent that has eliminated buddy punching and reduced the number of unauthorized transactions.

 

"When using PINs, it is difficult for a restaurant to quantify the impact of unauthorized transactions," says Mike Servolini, director – south operations at West Quality Food Service. "With the DigitalPersona fingerprint solution, we have been able to track each manager's and employee's actions more closely, and have recognized a near-immediate reduction in food costs. This is directly attributed to the elimination of false voids and overrides."