Research Outline

Restaurant Fraud Detection Technologies

Goals

To identify existing technology products that help restaurants identify and reduce fraud for the purposes of competitive analysis.

Early Findings

Preliminary research indicates there are several technology products available to help restaurants identify and reduce fraud. A few of our findings are below.

UPSERVE

  • Upserve's POS platform integrates with a module called Upserve Inventory that syncs restaurants' recipes and reduces subsequent loss because "ingredient usage is automatically tracked."
  • Using Upserve Inventory allows restaurants to know exactly how much of a product is supposed to leave the restaurant, which allows them to identify fraud more quickly.

AVERO

  • Avero's predictive analytics module "monitors and scores every front-of-house employee across seven 'watch types,' including comps, tip inflation, auto gratuity, check reuse, voids/promotions, transfers, and POS authorization."
  • It also analyzes employee patterns and compares peers across POS data to isolate historic trends.
  • Restaurant operators are then apprised on which employees "trigger the most alerts and where problems are most likely to be occurring or will occur given isolated patterns."

TENZO

  • Tenzo's POS system has an AI component that can use historic sales data, weather predictions, events, and labor schedules to identify server performance issues.
  • For instance, it can identify bartenders who are pouring too much alcohol or waiters who are giving customers breaks on food or drinks by ringing up less expensive items instead of what is being delivered.
  • Tenzo can identify servers with consistently low average spend per guest when compared with other servers or with unusually high numbers of credit card transactions, both of which can be an indication that the servers could be pocketing cash.

BEERBOARD BOSS

  • BeerBoard BOSS is a tool that ensures employees "pour the proper quantity of beer for each guest, keeping waste from over-pouring at a minimum."
  • For instance, the tool allows restaurant operators to see that "120 ounces of a particular draft were poured at 2:45, but nothing was rung up in the POS until 3:07, or that two guests were served at the bar at 5:30, but only one glass was recorded in the POS system."

RESTAURANT GUARD

  • Restaurant Guard is a loss prevention and employee performance monitoring tool that uses AI to analyze POS data for suspicious transactions (transfers, voids, comps, etc.).
  • Managers receive an instant mobile notification if suspicious activity is detected.

ENVYSION AND SOLINK

  • Envysion and Solink are video surveillance and data platforms that use AI to "detect repetitive events and recognize them as normal or suspicious activities."
  • POS transactions are matched with these video analytics and if suspicious activity is detected, an instant notification is sent to the restaurant operator.

FORTER

  • Forter uses a "team of experts" that feed data into machine learning systems and can help restaurants identify fraudulent customers (i.e. those who may be abusing coupon services) and "prevent this bad customer from further actions on the site."
  • Forter's AI system uses more than 6,000 individual data points to distinguish between customers restaurants want to keep and those who are fraudsters and need to be stopped.
  • In addition, Forter does not simply provide restaurants with the raw data. Instead, its team of human experts performs "the ongoing, in-depth research required to fine-tune [its] technology, adapt to new techniques, and customize the solution to [their] individual needs.

FIRST DATA

  • Using AI, First Data's Fraud Detect product "analyzes vast data sets to identify fraud and potential chargebacks."
  • This product also uses information from the dark web that can typically only be accessed by cybersecurity experts to help identify potential fraud.
  • It can "score and assess transactions in less than a half second."