Donde Ventura Chimi started its journey 23 years ago. A merchant dedicated to different activities, he took the risk of managing a fast-food restaurant and dedicated himself with discipline to his business. With it, he raised his three children, and now they are in the business as well. Today, we spoke with one of them, Jose, the restaurant manager.

What is the type of business you run, and how long ago did you start?

The business has a history of more than 20 years. It is fast food, hamburgers, fries etc. It is a family business that started with my parents, and then all the children took a place in the business. We all help and are involved in it. My dad was involved in other businesses, but the old owner offered him to manage the restaurant, and he took the risk, so with the help of some acquaintances, they encouraged him to take over the business. Thus, Donde Ventura Chimi was born on December 8, 2001, 23 years ago

How has the trajectory of the business been? Do you remember any difficulties that you have gone through?

As a family business, my parents are the ones who prepare the products; when I grew up, I took on the role of managing sales. It is a small but stable and very productive business. It has been evolving slowly but steadily. We used to be outside in a little cart on a corner. Then we moved to a storefront, and now we have a physical store in our region. Concerning any difficulty we faced in this trajectory, it would only be the pandemic because my dad, “come rain or shine,” always fulfills the business schedules and always goes out to make sales. 

When did you decide to implement new tools in the business? 

After the pandemic, we started with digital sales, social networks, and WhatsApp sales. We were hesitant to open sales during the pandemic, as this was the first time we had worked with any delivery tool before, but we insisted on starting with WhatsApp sales, shockingly after two weeks, all the sales flow was by WhatsApp. Then, we began to open gradually, and at that moment, we saw the need to formalize the menu for the catalog and add images. Then, I started looking for a POS system to manage inventories and reports. That's how I came to Loyverse. 

How did you manage the business before, and how did you find Loyverse?

As I became more involved in the business, I saw the need to change the way we handled orders. To place orders, we used a paper notebook. There was no order of arrival, and there was disorganization in the kitchen when receiving the orders. The calculation of the item’s stock was also done manually. 

When I found your system, I hesitated to say it was compatible with restaurants. I was looking for some hardware for the business, and in multiple instances, the devices advertised that they were compatible with Loyverse. Then, out of curiosity, I searched for more information about your system. I found some restaurant software, but only Loyverse had everything in the same place: the receipt printing, the kitchen screen, and we needed a system compatible with our Android device to make the sales. 

How was the process of choosing Loyverse as your POS?

After I found it, I thought or a long time I thought, what was the catch? They offer me kitchen display, multiple POS, Back Office, Employee Management, and Customer Display. I downloaded the app, created my account, and did everything for free, I found out it was true what you indicated on your pricing page, all those tools were free and I would only have to pay if I wanted to add employees. 

Loyverse communicates with the kitchen screens, it does everything. For me, it was a challenge, to find out where it was going to fail me, and I found nothing, I continued, 3 months, 6 months and I've been with the system for a year now.

What changed in your business when you implemented Loyverse?

Previously, I had problems with another system because sometimes the internet failed, and I could not work because everything was online. In Loyverse, there is the offline mode. Even if I don't have internet, I can make sales, and when the internet is connected, it will be synchronized with the Back Office, eliminating my headaches. 

When I saw that in the POS, I could register the sale, charge, add a customer to the ticket even without internet, and that automatically, when I put the internet, everything is synchronized, it was excellent. A week ago, I started with the shift management, and it is great to have that daily summary of all the sales; it gives me a clean report. Since we started using Loyverse, we have started to print the receipts, and I don't need to do anything else to make accounts; everything is in the reports; if I receive a payment by card or transfer, I have the report to review all the details later. 

I can assure you that with Loyverse, we have advanced what could have taken us two years, and we have achieved it in a couple of months. One of the positive points of Loyverse is that in the free version, we can personalize our receipts, and there is no advertising from you. Our receipts have a personal touch and are not contaminated with advertisements. 

Is there a tool that has impacted your business the most?

In these ten months, we have implemented well-managed card charging and created four payment methods. With the sales reports by type of payment, I can quickly identify the total sales in cash, or card. I have also created the Delivery as a payment method to identify the total we have received for orders already, this information is vital for my business and has saved me many times. 

We also manage different devices to better organize our business; we have the customer screen, we manage a POS device for Pedidosya, for WhatsApp, for physical sales, and another tablet for the kitchen.

It has helped me in my relationship with the customer, it has helped me because the customer can check his order on the screen, see the variants and modifiers, and see the total. Then, he can decide to add more products because he can see that he still has the budget to continue buying.

Is there any tool in Loyverse that you would recommend for other users?

Yes, I would like to share a trick we use with the predefined ticket tool. We don't have tables as such, but we have used them to identify our customers, for example: Cart 1, Cart 2, Family, Friends, Couple.  And if necessary we customize them, for example: Green Cart, Blue Cart, etc. This is to identify who placed the order. Even if they are not regular customers, in some cases, I don't need to ask for their name, so what I do is add to the ticket some physical description of the customer to the ticket, the color of their clothing, if they have glasses, etc. This makes it easier for the employees to immediately locate where they have to deliver the order. 

How do you see the future of the company in the coming years?

I think the business will continue to grow at the same slow but steady pace. What I can guarantee is that I will continue with you, because the program has given me reliability. It is having the confidence that every time I open the program it will be working, and when I synchronize the sales everything will show up in the reports. 

I am not in the business all the time, but I don't have to wait a minute to review all the information from anywhere. I also know that with the integrations in the future, when the company grows, I will be able to continue with Loyverse and integrate it with the program I need.

Finally, what advice would you give someone just starting their business?

I want to share my experience of what worked for my father, which is discipline. You reluctantly had to do things, and his rule was always to respect schedules. If you have a work schedule, that is your schedule without complaints. Open your business; if you are a traveling salesman, go out and sell, respect those schedules, that has worked out very well for you, and additionally, and talk to the clients. We can serve a customer in one minute, but we talk to them for 15 minutes; you need to manage that relationship with your customers.