Overview
Beaumont Unified School District (USD) in Beaumont, CA consists of 10 school cafeterias. The 57 members of their Child Nutrition Department serve approximately 5,000 students daily. In the 2013-2014 school year, they served over 640,000 breakfasts and 846,000 lunches.
District Obstacles
The point of sale system Beaumont USD was using didn’t communicate between school sites, causing district staff to email and print reports for cafeteria managers on a daily basis. Valuable time was being wasted that could have been utilized elsewhere. Furthermore, the reports were lacking information to reconcile the daily and monthly numbers that were needed. So the district was forced to create their own spreadsheets to meet their needs.
Finding the Answer
A single, centralized database needed to be implemented for the district, which would allow all data (not just point of sale data) to be shared between school sites. The system needed to include reports with all of the data that needed to be shared, including accountability of cash handling and financial information. Both of those criteria, along with a system that is user friendly and very easy to learn led Beaumont USD to choose Meals Plus cafeteria management software system. The transition to the new system was “effortless.”
Results
According to the Child Nutrition Department’s Bookkeeper II, Kristi Casey, who was heavily involved in the Meals Plus implementation and continues to be the district’s “go-to” Meals Plus expert, “Meals Plus is continuously improving the system. Just when you think Meals Plus can’t possibly improve the system any more, they add something to make it easier to run.” Not only do the robust reports contain all of the data they need, they are easily shareable within the district. District staff have saved approximately 8-10 hours per week of manual labor, which means they can now focus on the most important things – like serving the students!
