Church's managers devote less time to invoicing for product, thanks to an Internet-based processing system, so they can spend more time ensuring a quality meal and service for their customers.

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How it was: The store manager takes inventory every day to decide how much to order. For each item, she inputs the quantity and places the order with the distributor. When the order arrives, she puts it into the system, noting any discrepancies.

How it is now: The inventory and ordering process is the same. But when the order arrives, the manager simply confirms the invoice or inputs exceptions. “It's taken something that was an hour, an hour-and-a-half, down to five minutes,” says Alan Stukalsky, Church's chief information officer. Managers can use that time to interact with employees or staff.

The distributor is pleased as well, because “they're being paid quicker and more accurately,” Stukalsky says. “From a partnership standpoint, we weren't doing a good job of paying accurately. We wanted to pay accurately, but it was hard to manage.”

In the past, items might be miskeyed and payments were often less than expected due to the managers' adjusting invoices based on incorrect deliveries. Both the distributor and Church's corporate spent time investigating and reconciling differences. Today, Stukalsky says, they receive one or two invoices per month, down from 15 or 20, and they are accurate.

Church's CIO Alan Stukalsky would like to tie the chain's invoicing system to the point-of-sale system to quantify what customers are purchasing rather than what the stores are purchasing.

Another benefit is that the program creates reports that show where a unit might be overspending and compare it to other restaurants. Corporate can then guide those who need help.

Looking forward, Stukalsky expects that Church's will roll the system to franchisees. He'd like to see the system tied directly to the POS system, so the marketing department can get more insight into what customers are buying, rather than just data on what the restaurants are buying.

But he says it already has “helped us close the loop of the supply chain. We knew what went into the store, but we weren't really capturing information once it got to the store. Now we can get good reports around not only what they ordered but what they received and used.”