Moving Parts is a new weekly series. Every Friday we take one part of the system behind the Memory Catcher™ Franchise, show it working, and explain what it saves the franchisor. First up, the moment money changes hands, and how we track every franchise sale without a scrap of paperwork.
In most franchises, a sale at an event is the start of a little paper trail. A card machine slip, a name and address scribbled on an order form, a photo of it sent to head office, and somebody typing it all in again on Monday.
Every hand-off in that chain is a chance for something to go missing. And the more franchisees you sign, the more chains there are.
The till lives on her phone
A Memory Catcher takes payment at her sessions from the Memory Catcher™ Hub on her own phone, with a small card reader on the table. Before a session starts she checks the reader from the till, and nothing gets charged, so there are no test payments to refund.
The price list comes from head office. Every territory charges the same, and nobody’s typing in their own.
One tap, five jobs
She takes the parent’s name, email and delivery address, picking the address from a list as she types. Then the parent taps their card, and that one tap does five jobs at once.
- The sale gets her own order number, so anyone can tell whose it is at a glance.
- The parent is emailed a receipt with her photo on it and a link to send us their prints from home.
- A welcome email follows a little later.
- The order goes straight through to be made and posted.
- Her commission is recorded, before she’s even put the reader down.
Every hand-off between a sale and a finished order is a place for something to go missing. So we took the hand-offs out.
Why sales tracking matters more at fifty franchisees than five
With a handful of franchisees, head office can chase a missing order form. With fifty, the chasing becomes somebody’s whole job, and the mistakes land on customers who were promised a keepsake.
Here the order reaches the workshop the moment the card is tapped, whether it’s the first franchisee or the fiftieth. Nothing to chase, nothing to retype, and nothing sitting in a notebook in the boot of a car.
What the franchisee sees
Tap through to her earnings page and the sale is already there at the top, with what she earned on it. She doesn’t report it, and we don’t ask. Head office sees the same sale, because it’s the same record, so nobody waits on a weekly report.
Questions franchisors ask
How do franchisors track franchisee sales?
The simplest way is to let the sale create the record. Our franchisees take payment through the Memory Catcher™ Hub, so the order, the receipt and her earnings all come from the same card tap. Nobody reports a sale, and nobody types one in again.
Do franchisees need their own card machine and price list?
Ours take payment from the Hub on their own phone, with a small card reader on the table. The price list comes from head office, so every territory charges the same and nobody keeps their own.
What should a franchise payment system do besides take the money?
Start everything that follows the sale: the order number, the customer’s receipt and welcome email, the job for whoever makes the product, and the franchisee’s commission. Anything that has to be typed in again is a hand-off where something can go missing.
If you’re building a franchise network
If your franchisees still take payment on one device and send orders on another, that gap is one of the first things we’d look at with you when we build your franchise systems. Take the Franchise Scorecard to see where your franchise stands across all five fibres.
Next Friday: you take the prints, we do the rest.
