How to manage multiple franchise locations each week
A weekly rhythm for owners over several stores: numbers Monday, GM check-ins, visits by need, schedules before they post.
Somewhere past three stores, an owner can't see every shift. What replaces it is a rhythm: the same questions, at the same time, for every store. It makes the week predictable for GMs too.
Without a rhythm, the owner's week is set by whoever calls first. The loudest store gets the visit, the quiet store drifts, and problems are found at month end when the P&L arrives. A fixed weekly cycle turns that around. Each day has one job, every store gets looked at the same way, and the owner's time goes where the numbers moved. This guide lays out that week, the formulas behind the Monday review, a worked example and the mistakes that tend to break the rhythm.
Monday: numbers
Last week for every store against the prior week and the same week last year: net sales, orders, average ticket, hourly labor, food cost where you have it, rating. Sort by the size of the change, not by store name. The top of that list is your week.
The measures fit together, which helps you see what moved:
- Average ticket = net sales / orders.
- Week-over-week change = (this week - last week) / last week.
- Hourly labor % = hourly labor cost from the POS or scheduling app / net sales.
Because sales equals orders times ticket, a sales drop has two possible causes: fewer customers or smaller orders. Those need different fixes. Fewer orders points at traffic, service speed, hours or reviews. A smaller ticket points at upselling, menu mix, discounts or a large catering order that didn't repeat.
Hourly labor here is the cost of hourly punches. It leaves out payroll taxes, benefits and salaried managers, so it reads lower than fully loaded labor on the P&L. Many quick-service operators find hourly labor somewhere in the high teens to mid twenties as a share of sales, but compare with your brand and format. For more, see restaurant labor cost percentage.
| Castle Rock net sales | $31,200 vs $33,600 prior week (-7.1%) |
|---|---|
| Castle Rock orders | 2,400 vs 2,400 (flat) |
| Castle Rock average ticket | $13.00 vs $14.00 (-7.1%) |
| Provo net sales | $27,900 vs $28,200 (-1.1%) |
| Provo hourly labor | 24.8% vs 21.5% prior week |
| Greeley net sales | $25,300 vs $25,000 (+1.2%) |
| Top of the list | Castle Rock ticket, then Provo hourly labor |
Castle Rock's orders held while the ticket fell a dollar, so customers came in as usual and spent less. That points at a missing catering order or a discount, not a traffic problem. Provo's sales barely moved but hourly labor jumped more than three points, which usually means the schedule didn't flex to the week. Greeley moved little and can get a short call.
Monday and Tuesday: GM check-ins
Fifteen minutes each, same time weekly. Three questions: what moved, what's the one thing this week, what do you need from me. Write the one thing down.
Send the Monday numbers to each GM before the call so they arrive with an answer, not a guess. Let them explain the change first; they often know about the road closure or the catering client who moved their order. Agree on one priority, not three. How to give your GM instructions they'll follow covers how to word it so it survives a busy shift.
Keep the written list short: store, the one thing, the number it should move, and when you will look again. Next Monday, start the call by checking it.
Tuesday to Thursday: visit by need
Go to the two or three stores that moved most, during the daypart that moved. A visit at 2 PM tells you little about a problem at close.
Before you go, decide what you want to see. For a ticket drop, watch the register during lunch and check the discount report in the POS for that week. For a labor jump, be there at the shift change and compare who is on the floor against the schedule. For a rating drop, read the recent reviews first and look at the same daypart they describe.
Stores that didn't move still need you, but a phone call usually covers them. Rotate an unplanned visit to a steady store every few weeks so no GM feels forgotten.
Thursday: schedules before they post
Review next week's schedules against the forecast before they're posted. It's the cheapest point to change labor, and it keeps you clear of short-notice change rules where they apply.
A simple check is scheduled hours against forecast sales:
- Sales per labor hour = forecast net sales / scheduled labor hours.
Compare each store with its own recent weeks at similar volume. A store that usually runs near $75 of sales per labor hour and is scheduled at $62 next week either expects a busier week than the forecast shows or has extra shifts in it. Ask before posting, not after. For more on this, see how to reduce labor cost.
Friday: the money
Deposits reconciled against sales, cash variances by store, and a look at the week's inventory counts. Small differences found weekly stay small.
Check three things for each store:
- Cash variance = cash deposited - cash sales recorded in the POS.
- Deposits that haven't reached the bank by the expected day.
- Food cost variance = actual food cost % - theoretical food cost %, where your inventory system supports it.
A $40 cash short once is noise. The same short at the same store three Fridays running is a pattern worth a closer look at who closed.
When the week goes off plan
Some weeks a GM quits on Tuesday, or a freezer fails, or a health inspection lands. The rhythm still helps here. Deal with the emergency, then pick the rhythm back up at the next fixed point rather than abandoning the week. If you miss Thursday's schedule review, do it Friday morning before the schedules post; if you miss Friday's reconciliation, do it Monday before the numbers. The stores that didn't have an emergency still need their check-ins, and they are the ones most likely to drift while your attention is elsewhere.
It also helps to keep a short note for each store: the GM's name, the current one thing, the date you last visited and anything you promised. Five lines per store is enough. When the week is chaotic, that note is how you avoid promising a GM the same thing twice.
Step-by-step: the weekly checklist
- Monday morning: pull last week for every store against the prior week and the same week last year.
- Sort by the size of the change and mark the top two or three stores.
- For each marked store, split sales into orders and ticket to see which one moved.
- Monday and Tuesday: hold a 15-minute check-in with each GM and agree one thing, written down.
- Tuesday to Thursday: visit the marked stores during the daypart that moved.
- Thursday: review every schedule against the forecast before it posts.
- Friday: reconcile deposits, cash variance and inventory counts by store.
- Next Monday: start each check-in by looking at last week's one thing.
Common mistakes
- Sorting the weekly report by store name, so the store at the top is the one that comes first in the alphabet rather than the one that moved.
- Comparing every store with the best store in the group, rather than each store with its own recent weeks.
- Visiting on a fixed rotation and spending the same time at a steady store as at one that dropped.
- Visiting at a convenient hour rather than during the daypart where the problem is.
- Giving each GM three priorities a week and checking none of them.
- Reviewing schedules after they post, when changes cost goodwill and sometimes premium pay.
- Mixing hourly labor and fully loaded labor in the same comparison.
- Letting the Friday reconciliation slide until month end, when small variances have stacked up.
As the group grows, the same rhythm still works; it just needs a district manager to run part of it. For more on comparing stores fairly, see how to benchmark franchisee performance.
Where Franlever fits
Franlever's weekly brief does the Monday sort for you — every store, biggest change first — and the daily brief gives each GM their one thing. It connects to the POS, plus accounting, scheduling, inventory and reviews where you have them, and measures each store against its own normal range and the brand's median. Each store gets at most one lever a day, sent to its GM by email or text, and some mornings nothing needs attention. See Franlever for multi-unit operators.
Common questions
- How do you manage multiple restaurant locations?
- With a fixed weekly rhythm. Review every store's numbers on Monday, sorted by the size of the change. Hold short GM check-ins and agree one priority each. Visit the stores that changed most during the daypart that moved. Review schedules before they post on Thursday, and reconcile deposits and counts on Friday. The rhythm keeps your time on the stores that need it.
- What numbers should a multi-unit owner review each week?
- Net sales, orders, average ticket, hourly labor, food cost where available and rating, for every store, against the prior week and the same week last year. Splitting sales into orders and ticket shows whether a drop came from fewer customers or smaller orders, which point to different fixes. Sort by the size of the change rather than by store name.
- How often should an owner visit each store?
- By need rather than by rotation. Visit the two or three stores whose numbers moved most each week, at the time of day the change happened, and cover steady stores with a phone call. Add an occasional unplanned visit to stores that are running well so their GMs still see you, and so you notice anything the numbers don't show.
General information for restaurant and franchise operators, not legal, tax, accounting or financial advice. Figures in examples are illustrations, not predictions or promises of results. Laws and platform policies change and differ by location, so check the current rules and talk to a qualified advisor about your situation.