Food & Beverage Forecast Instructions

1) Why a forecast?
Being able to forecast your revenues for Food & Beverage as well as your anticipated covers helps you be successful in a number of ways:
*You can plan your expenses such as labor, food and supplies to be within budget if you know a range for your revenues
*Staff knows how many guests to anticipate per meal period and can mentally prepare and prep food supplies accordingly
*Scheduling becomes easy and can be adjusted when there are changes in a forecast
*The whole team will feel that they are prepared, organized and in the loop. No one in F&B hates anything more than being
"slammed" unexpectedly

2) Step by Step guide for filling out forecast

*Note that we have inputs that are either black, blue or green text. Black areas NEVER get changed as they contain formulas
If you type over these the formulas will be lost and you will need to copy it from another cell that corresponds.
*Not every hotel will use all of the categories and may need additional categories if you have multiple outlets. If you need help
customizing or have questions
please send an email to AMERFandB@ihg.com.
First we will look at the areas with blue and green text, blue numbers get changed each time you do a forecast and green ones when you feel they
need to be adjusted based on current data, this will be explained further ahead. At a minimum this forecast should be done at the end of the month for
the next month and then updated with actuals and re-forecasted for the remainder of the month each week.
Also re-forecast when there have been big changes either in room counts or Catering business

Day and Date

Date is formulated to go from 1-30. Just adjust manually for odd numbered month. If you follow the formula you can paste that in
which is just the previous cell + 1. For Day place the correct two letter abbreviation that corresponds to the first day of the month you
are in. You will notice that the forecast is separated into weeks with dark lines that start Sun and end Sat. this is relevant as to the
labor analysis on the bottom which we will discuss later. IMPORTANT: make sure the there is a blank row above the first day of the
month so you can input hotel rooms from the last day of the previous month for breakfast to calculate on the first.
Banquet Food
This day by day amount would include all meals, receptions and coffee breaks you do in your banquet space. Hopefully your
Catering Director does a day by day forecast that you can load into here. If not this section could be left blank or estimated as best
as possible.
Room Rental
Same procedure as Banquet Food
Service Charge
This is the amount of service charge you add to banquet events. Right now the formula is set to calculate on Banquet Food and
Banquet Beverage at 21%. If you also charge service charge on room rental, AV etc or charge a different amount the formula will
need to be adjusted.
Audio Visual
Same procedure as Banquet Food
Delivery Fee
This calculates the delivery fee you add to room service orders. This is not the gratuity that you charge (which most likely goes to the
server). If you do not add a delivery fee or do add one but pay it out to staff then this section should be deleted. It is currently set to
add up the covers for room service breakfast, lunch and dinner and multiply it by $2.00. You can adjust this formula based on your
actual delivery fee (if you have one)
Banquet Beverage
Same procedure as Banquet Food
Guests/Rooms

This section is critical for your forecast. Your front Office staff should be able to provide you a day by day forecast of total rooms sold
for the month and then update it each week so your foecast will be more accurate. VERY IMPORTANT, make sure you get a
"forecast" from them and not an "actual on the books" report as that will only be waht is sold for the month at that time without taking
into account pickup. Fill in the Rooms section based on this information. The Guests section will automatically calculate how many
guests you most likely will have. This is based on a formula that shows weekdays you average 1.2 guests per room and weekends
averaging 1.5. You should adjust this formula based on your hotels actual information and occasionally adjust a certain time period if
you know there will be an unusuall number of guests per room. For instance, you normally have 1.5 guests per room on the
weekend but this weekend you have sports teams in with an adult and 4 kids per room. This is important because the capture
percentage (we will address this later) is based on guests and not rooms which is a more accurate way of forecasting your covers (or
number of guests that will dine with you)
Inn Banquets
 This is a very old term that refers to how many guests of the "Inn" will be in Banquet events for Breakfast and Dinner (which are the
two areas calculated by using guest information. For each day you should add the number of guests that are staying in your hotel
but will have a Banquet event for either breakfast or dinner. This will take that number out of the available guests who may dine in
the restaurant. If you feel that some of these guests will still come to the restaurant (maybe they do not have a full breakfast and only
a continental for instance) then you can adjust this number or "massage" it to give you what you think will happen. One critical area
with this is to ensure these guests are actually staying at your hotel as taking out say 100p who are coming ot a banquewt dinner but
are not staying with you will inacurrately lessen your capture for restaurant dinner. This may require some detective work on your
part especially when you have say a dinner for 100p and only 30 of them are staying in the hotel. In this case you would only add 30
to the Inn Banquets dinner amount.
Breakfast capture/average check

Under capture this would be the percentage of guests you normally see in the restaurant based on total guests in house. You should
be able to gain this number by taking your historical (year to date, recent month etc) covers and dividing them by the guests foir the
same period. For example, year to date you have had 500 guests for breakfast and there have been 1800 total guests in the hotel
(you can use rooms sold if you do not have guest information but would suggest multiplying it by your estimated guests per room as
we discussed previously). This would calculate to 27% capture. Average check would be ascertained by either your hotels financials
or your Point of Sale system. It is important that you have this by meal period to get an accurate forecast of revenues. Since these
areas are in green type you would not need to change these everytime you do a forecast but when you feel the numbers have
changed based on history. You can also adjust them for different parts of the month based on what you know. For instance, you
know a you are offering a Sunday brunch or special event in the restaurant where teh check average will be higher, you should then
change the average check for that day(s).
Lunch covers/average check

Average check would be calculated as above but lunch covers are not calculated on in house capture. This is due to the fact that
most guests are not in the hotel during lunch and your covers come primarily form on their own Banquet/Meeting guests and local
community customers. Figuring out these covers should be based on historical numbers from the local community as well as how
many on their own Banquet guests you have each day and what percentage of them you feel like you will attract.
Dinner capture/average check
Same as Breakfast capture/average check section above
Room Service
Same procedures as above for breakfast and dinner. For lunch this would be based on history and unless you have many guests
who stay around during the day or early Airline crew guests for example this number will most likely be pretty low.
Beverage P.O.R. (per occupied room)

When it comes to alcohol sales using capture percentages and average checks proves to be very inaccurate and difficult to gauge.
The industry best practice on this is to take you beverage sales (restaurant and lounge, not Banquets) for a certain period of time
and divide that by you occupied rooms for the same time period. While there will be ups and downs throughout the year this being a
green number is one you only change as you see it needing revision. The suggestion here would be to look at your most recent
three month data and use that for future forecasting. If you see at the end of a couple months that you did more or less sales than
what you forecasted it is time to adjust the POR number up or down.
Revising forecast within the month for the month

Depending on actual information available to you the best option is to enter month to date totals under each heading (yes, even the
black numbers) across the date that you have actual information for. You then simply forecast the rest of the month as you did
earlier. this gives you totals at the bottom that include both month to date actuals and forecast for remainder of month. If you do not
have actuals your best option is to leave the previous forecast in there and at least update the rooms occupied to give a better
chance at making it lore accurate with actual rooms. Last option is to delete previous days but this will then render your monthly
totals inaccurate due to missing actuals or even forecast revenues for past days. Your day by day numbers will still be good as long
as you are updating them as you had in the initial set up.
3) How to read your forecast
*Note: this is set to only print out the sections up to "Total Beverage" as this is what you will want to post for the staff. The remainder
of the document is data that goes into the forecast but not relevant to use on a daily basis for prep or scheduling.
Covers
This shows you by day how many guests you expect for each meal period. Your wait staff an kitchen staff will love you for this and
the more accurate you become the better it will be for your financials and your staff's happiness.
Revenues
This gives you the forecasted revenues per day for restaurant and room service by meal period. Under the "Outlets Food" column all
room service and restaurant revenue will total for the day and at the bottom for the month
Total and Total F&B
At the bottom of the forecast you will see a total revenue number per outlet in each column and then a Total F&B number below that.
These are numbers that your GM and Controller will be very interested in.
Labor Analysis
 This calculates how much revenue you will do per week to offset your labor. By calculating your labor dollars (which can be done on
your schedules) you can then divide those amounts by the revenues to get your labor percentage. NOTE: the formulas are
calculated based on general practices for what revenues correspond to what labor. You can either revise the formulas to coincide
with your hotels P&L practices or ask for help from IHG to revise the formulas. Last option is not to use this feature but knowing your
labor cost so you can adjust or explain variances is a valuable tool for you and your owner.

4) Organizing your data

Month and year
To adjust this go into File/Page Setup/Header-Footer/Custom Header and change the date for the month you are reporting
Setting up tabs for each month

It is suggested that you make a file for each month by adding tabs to the spreadsheet. You can then copy over the main forecast
(suggest keeping a master without any number input incase you lose a formula or mess the sheet up!) into each tab adjusting the
day, date and header to match the new month. NOTE: when you copy it over not all the print properties will remain so you will have
to go into page setup on the master sheet and copy over the setting so it prints out on one sheet and with he correct sizing.
5) Questions??
Send an email to AMERFandB@ihg.com
 Food and Beverage Forecast April 2003

Restaurant Room Service Outlets Bqt Room Svc Audio Del Total Outlets Banquet Total
Breakfast Lunch Dinner Breakfast Lunch Dinner Food Food Rental Charge Visual Fee Food Bev Bev Bev
Revenue

Revenue

Revenue

Revenue

Revenue

Revenue
Covers

Covers

Covers

Covers

Covers

Covers
Date
Day

Su 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 Mo 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 Tu 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 We 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 Th 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 Fr 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
6 Sa 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
7 Su 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
8 Mo 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
9 Tu 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 We 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
11 Th 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
12 Fr 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13 Sa 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
14 Su 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
15 Mo 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
16 Tu 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
17 We 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
18 Th 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
19 Fr 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
20 Sa 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
21 Su 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
22 Mo 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
23 Tu 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
24 We 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
25 Th 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
26 Fr 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
27 Sa 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
28 Su 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
29 Mo 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Tu 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
We 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Th 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fr 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Sa 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Su 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mo 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Tu 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
We 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fr 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Sa 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Su 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total F&B 0

Labor Analysis
SU SA Outlet F&B Rm Svc F&B Kitchen Food Bqt F&B
0 60 0 0 0
7 13 0 0 0 0
14 20 0 0 0 0
21 27 0 0 0 0
28 00 0 0 0
0 0