Control labor costs with the Labor Budget Tool - Getting Started for Managers
The Labor Budget Tool shows you whether your scheduled labor cost is on track against your projected sales, before you publish the schedule. Catching a labor overage at the scheduling stage costs a few minutes to fix. Catching it after payroll costs real money.
Phase 4 - Run your operation
- Control labor costs with the Labor Budget Tool (you are here!)
- Maintain shift continuity with the Manager Log Book
- Keep going: explore add-ons and get support
Things to know
- The Labor Budget Tool requires employee wages to be entered on each employee's profile. Employees without a wage entered will not be included in your labor cost calculations. Your totals will be understated until all wages are complete.
- Managers need the Can manage sales projections permission to modify sales figures or enter manual sales data. Without this permission, you can view the tool but not change the sales inputs. Contact your Admin if you need this permission enabled.
- If your restaurant has a POS integration, sales projections may populate automatically from historical data. If not, enter your projected sales manually before scheduling.
- Wait for 2-3 weeks of actual data before adjusting your targets significantly. One atypical week skews the averages in ways that lead to over-corrections.
Set targets and monitor labor cost
The Labor Budget Tool sits at the bottom of the Schedule page and updates in real time. It compares your projected sales against your scheduled labor costs so you can see if you are on target before you publish.
Note: Managers will need "Can manage sales projections" permissions to modify AI-generated figures or enter manual sales data.
- On the Schedule page, scroll to the bottom to find the Labor Budget Tool panel.
- Set your projected sales for the week. If your POS integration is connected, projected sales may already be populated from historical data. If not, enter your projected sales figures manually in the Sales row for each day.
- Click the Target dropdown and choose your preferred metric:
- Labor %: scheduled labor cost as a percentage of projected sales.
- SPLH (Sales Per Labor Hour): projected sales divided by scheduled hours.
- Hours: total scheduled hours as the target, independent of sales.
- IPLH (Items Per Labor Hour): useful for high-volume counter service.
- Enter your target values for each metric. The tool highlights individual day totals in green (on target) or red (over target) as you add and adjust shifts.
- Adjust your schedule by reducing hours, swapping roles, or cutting shifts until the labor cost is within your target range.
- After the week closes, use the Compare to actuals toggle to see how real performance matched your plan. Use this data to refine your targets for the following week.
Tip: Wait for 2-3 weeks of data before making major changes to your targets. This helps you spot patterns rather than reacting to one-off busy weeks.
Troubleshooting
The labor cost totals seem too low compared to what you'd expect
One or more employees are missing wages in their profiles. Open the Team page, check each employee's profile, and confirm a wage is entered for every active employee scheduled that week.
You can see the Labor Budget Tool but can't edit the sales projections
Your permission level doesn't include sales projection management. Contact your Admin to enable the Can manage sales projections permission on your profile.
What's next
Your labor cost is visible and under control before you publish each week.
Your next step is Maintain shift continuity with the Manager Log Book. Record what happened during your shift so the next manager doesn't have to ask.