AAPI is a Belgian staff management platform that connects shift planning, time tracking, digital contracts and payroll integration for hospitality businesses. Available on web and mobile, it helps managers organise employee information and reduce repetitive administration.

Horeca Brussels explores this approach in two articles about AAPI and the everyday challenges of managing hospitality teams.

Connect shift planning, time tracking and HR administration

Hospitality staff management involves coordinating availability, changing schedules, absences and employee documents. When information is scattered across spreadsheets and messages, keeping everything aligned takes time.

AAPI brings these tasks into a connected environment. Managers can:

• Check employee availability and organise shifts.
• Record working hours through digital time tracking.
• Manage absences and leave requests.
• Handle digital contracts and electronic signatures.
• Connect staff administration with Dimona declarations and payroll processes.

Horeca Brussels explains these capabilities in its article on how AAPI simplifies HR management and shift planning for hospitality businesses.

Reduce duplicate data entry between planning and payroll

Entering the same employee information into separate systems creates unnecessary work and opportunities for mistakes.

In an interview about AAPI’s hospitality staff management platform, Managing Director Michael Bossaerts explains how reducing duplicate data entry helped shape AAPI.

By connecting employee registration, contracts, planning and payroll integration, AAPI aims to improve the flow of information from onboarding to payroll preparation. The platform was developed with input from hospitality operators, with particular attention to mobile access and accurate employee data.

Give employees access to their working information

Clear communication matters just as much as efficient administration. Through the employee app, staff can consult schedules, access contracts and payslips, submit leave requests and communicate with their employer. This gives employees greater visibility over their working arrangements.

Frequently asked questions about AAPI

Is AAPI only a shift planning tool?

No. AAPI also covers employee registration, digital contracts, electronic signatures and payroll integration.

Does AAPI support time tracking for hospitality teams?

Yes. AAPI includes digital time tracking to record working hours alongside staff planning and HR administration.

Where can I learn more about AAPI?

Read the two Horeca Brussels articles linked above for a closer look at the platform and its development. Both articles are available in French.

CARD Advance helps your hospitality business with a microcredit (€2 000 to €50 000)

AAPI and Growzer optimise and automate your staff cost and kitchen management.

• quick €2,000 to €50,000 available for terms of 3 or 6 months
• repayment moves with your sales
• discount on licences of AAPI and Growzer 

This collaboration of CARD Advance, Growzer and AAPI runs until 30 June 2021. Want to know how this works?

Contact info@aapi.be for more info and terms and conditions.

1. Digital hospitality counter / E-counter hospitality industry

Permits and approvals: it’s pretty much the first thing every start-up catering entrepreneur has to deal with. Not only is the number of permits already quite high, the entrepreneur also has to comply with all the rules at different levels: federal, regional, local, …

Because both the hotel and catering industry and the government services clearly benefit from a simplification of procedures, a number of city councils have appointed hotel and catering-specific online portals, e-deskettes and hotel and catering coaches. And the Flemish ict-organisation for local authorities V-ICT-OR has also made work of a digital hospitality counter, through which the (starting) hospitality operator can arrange all licence applications and other administrative obligations.

Through all these systems, start-up entrepreneurs are guided through the schemes specifically applicable to them, which they can apply for or handle directly. This concerns the correct choice and handling of insurance, price indications, music in the business, smoking in the catering industry, alcohol, VAT receipts, hygiene, Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC), environment, company waste, signboard, terrace, and so on. Authentic sources such as the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (CBE) and the national register are used as much as possible. Links are also provided to the digital back-office systems of federal, Flemish and local administrations.

The streamlining and automation of this process not only ensures that the hospitality operators are immediately guided through all the necessary procedures, it simultaneously provides a great relief of the administrative burden on the (local) boards.

2. The white checkout as a driver for efficiency

In Belgium, the white till has caused a shock effect. The introduction of this GKS meant that all catering managers were ready for a thorough professionalisation of their cash register system and their overall management. So no more gut feeling, time to keep accurate records, calculate and plan everything. This is the only way for catering entrepreneurs to ensure that they operate with healthy margins, use their staff efficiently and keep a well-run business in the long term.

Together with government measures on human resources in the hospitality industry, this ensured that digital tools quickly found their way into the sector. In their slipstream followed management tools, ordering solutions, marketing platforms, food safety applications and accounting packages.

3. Digital tools & apps

Digitalisation is making it increasingly easy to support hospitality entrepreneurs in their business operations. Entrepreneurs are also more active online. The white box office has certainly helped this in the Belgian hospitality industry. New entrepreneurs are also open-mindedly looking at digital tools and incorporating them un their management and governance. The insights they gain from them are a crucial management component.

A hospitality-specific digital tool, AAPI for example is a feat of digital innovation and can rightly be considered the flight forward. Not only does it provide complete transparency for personnel management, it also helps the hospitality entrepreneur to schedule his personnel efficiently, to continuously monitor personnel costs – among other things by linking it to an automatic check-in and check-out function – and to communicate more smoothly with employees. In addition, all contract management is done digitally and there is an automatic link with Dimona.

Often, more efficient and transparent staff management goes hand in hand with better cost management in all areas. After all, staff costs are part of the total cost per dish and therefore have a direct impact on the price you have to charge. To calculate the price needed to achieve the target margin, you also need to have a perfect view of the cost of each ingredient and the dose you need of that ingredient in the dish. The Growzer tool, for example, can help you map out all your F&B catering management. Central ordering, automatic 24-hour stock management, smart menu engineering and maximum cost control are among Growzer’s capabilities.

If you list your HR administration, People Management, F&B costs as well as your overheads, you suddenly have a pretty complete picture of your expenses. If you collect all this Business Data in AAPI, then you can calculate which dishes are the cheapest and which the most expensive, which ones you can charge the biggest margin on and what impact the price increase of a particular ingredient has on the profitability of a dish. Only then can you make truly informed decisions: do you raise your price, use a little less of that expensive ingredient or just dump the dish from your offer?

In this way, a hospitality operator achieves a level of professional management never seen before. Every change is registered, which is good for transparency towards the authorities but also for insight into business operations. Because a good overview of costs and the factors that influence these costs almost automatically leads to better management, and to better decisions.

No more Monkey Business!

Or how the white box office might eventually contribute to a more profitable business after all.

AAPI: Smart digital alternative

Constantly changing social legislation and increasing complexity around taxation and new technologies mean that social secretariats often no longer have a ready-made answer for Belgian (hotel and catering) employers. This complexity, combined with outdated ICT solutions, means that employers have to be patient if they want to pay their employees correctly and on time. The new app AAPI offers a smart digital answer in this respect.

​AAPI : the first digital social agency in Belgium

The ready-made digital socio-legal answer for every Belgian hospitality employer

BYE BYE complex & time-consuming payroll & personnel administration

HELLO digital automation & proactive socio-legal hyper-personalised advice

UNIQUE AAPI is fygital : digital app with physical Customer Coach standby

​And all at a lower management cost…

One of the bone of contention between social secretariats is pricing. AAPI wants to provide customisation in this area. The app is particularly customer-friendly and modular. It allows personnel management to be highly automated.

The hospitality employer has the opportunity to take over a lot of processes and select what they do or don’t do themselves. This, of course, translates into the rate.

AAPI: One download and all other socio-legal tools and programmes become instantly redundant.

Detect, analyse, conclude and project.

In times when intuition and experience are no longer enough to make a hospitality business function optimally, digital transformation is finding its way into the hospitality industry. Business models based on big data analytics today make it possible to make informed and efficient decisions faster and even predict future trends. Data mining traces anomalies, patterns and correlations in data sets containing millions of data in milliseconds. A level of detail that you and I as humans cannot pick up.

Dashboard AAPI

Past > Dates

The data mining process consists of 6 levels or steps in which past and present data (‘near’ real time) evolve into future-oriented and informed decisions to optimise your hospitality business.

Past facts, actions and decisions provide us with a large container of raw, historical data. This data is the foundation of every further step we take. Specifically, by data we understand all collectable data including, for example:

• purchase prices
• cabinet tickets
• wage and contract data
• time clock data
• daily prices per overnight stay

This range of inputs allows maximum use of the available data in structured models. Beforehand, due attention is paid to the integrity of the data because, of course, quality and reliability are essential.

Past > Data > Information

Structuring data gives us a detailed picture of the situation. We evolve from data to information. This means actively reworking/transforming the chaos in large data sets into workable and understandable information. We determine what is relevant and what is not; extraneous values are examined. With this structured information, we start working to understand what just happened in the past and present (‘near’ real time). This involves, for example:

• worker x worked y hours today with a wage cost of z euros
• in week w, there were x overnight stays at a daily cost of y euros with a turnover of z euros
• soft drink type x was purchased at y euros/bottle and sold at z euros/bottle
• The chaos of mass input is thus transformed into concrete readable and usable information leading to a number of observations

Past > Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom

These observations form the basis on which we develop a deeper knowledge of the situation. We identify where things are going well, where there are bottlenecks, where improvement and optimisation are possible. Regardless of any assumptions, your business is converted into figures, thus perfectly mapping out where your business stands. A concrete example of this could be:

• Your café is open every working day from 12am to 1am. Between 11pm and 1am, only a very limited amount is spent on average although there is invariably occupancy by 2 workers. Insight: review opening hours, optimise staffing in number and profile. This knowledge leads to insights that you or your team can deepen and process.

For this is where wisdom appears and where analytics have their real added value. Indeed, supporting models allow the knowledge gained to be used intelligently to make projections and draw out future plans. Here, correlations, patterns, connections and trends are analysed both within your company and in comparison (benchmarking) with the hospitality sector. This way, you can make well-founded and informed decisions for your hospitality business at an accelerated pace.

• increasing margins
• improving customer relations
• reducing risks
• scheduling employees more efficiently and smarter
• optimising upsell

Past > Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom > Future

With the acquired knowledge in mind, it is time to take the final step.

The real icing on the cake, of course, is the future. What do we expect to happen there? Where are further opportunities to expand, broaden and/or deepen your business? Will established trends continue? How can we best reverse a negative indicator in a structured way? How do I build further pay margin in the future based on the wisdom gained?

So, in addition to using the all-important common sense, we move from reactive to predictive analysis. Just that little bit further so that you, as a hospitality entrepreneur, are ahead of your competitors. You can perfect your business both internally and externally and maximise your profits in an informed way.

Running a hospitality business means dealing with one certainty: things rarely go exactly according to plan.

One week your terrace is packed, the next the weather changes, reservations move around or an unexpected event suddenly fills the room. Customers are unpredictable. Business is unpredictable. Your planning doesn’t have to be.

AAPI Flexibility

That’s where smart scheduling comes in.

AAPI helps you plan as efficiently and flexibly as possible. The AAPI planning and payroll module gives you useful tips and smart notifications exactly when you need them. Think of it as an extra pair of eyes looking over your shoulder while you build your schedule.

Our intelligent sensors help you spot opportunities, avoid unnecessary costs and understand the social and legal impact of your planning decisions. Less guesswork. More control.

And maybe even a little more sleep at night.

Of course, flexibility has its limits. Your employees also need to know when they are expected at work. As a rule, variable schedules must therefore be announced in advance.

Need some extra hands? Overtime, flexi-jobs, students and temporary workers can give your planning some much-needed breathing room. Changing schedules during the week or removing hours at the last minute is more complicated and often requires agreement from your employees.

The best planning tool is therefore still combined with something very traditional: a good conversation with your team.

Because flexibility works both ways.

Great flexibility

Hospitality has an interesting advantage compared with many other sectors: the system commonly referred to as “great flexibility”.

Instead of having employees perform exactly the same number of contractual hours every week, their working time can be averaged over a longer reference period.

Imagine a quieter week where one of your full-time employees works 30 hours instead of 38. Those remaining hours can potentially be performed later, when business is booming and you actually need the extra capacity.

That gives you much more room to match staffing levels with reality instead of trying to predict exactly how busy every individual week will be.

There is one important condition: by the end of the reference period, employees still need to have performed their average contractual hours.

To make use of this flexibility, your employment regulations also need to include the appropriate provisions and working schedules.

In other words: flexibility is fantastic, provided the paperwork is as well organised as the planning.

Net overtime

Net overtime can be another powerful tool in your staffing mix.

One of its biggest advantages is that these additional hours can be performed by the people who already know your business, your customers and your way of working.

That matters.

When your restaurant suddenly fills up, having an experienced team member step in can be much more valuable than simply adding another pair of hands.

Depending on the applicable conditions, net overtime can also be financially attractive for both employer and employee.

And don’t automatically think only about your traditional full-time employees. In certain situations, flexi-jobbers or students may also qualify when the necessary conditions are met.

The lesson?

Before adding another person to the schedule, look at the different staffing options available to you. The cheapest hour is not always the smartest hour — and the smartest hour is not always the most obvious one.

Part-timers

Part-time employees are extremely valuable to many hospitality businesses, but from a pure planning and cost perspective they require a little extra attention.

The possibilities for additional hours are more limited than with some other employment arrangements.

Part-time employees can perform additional hours on top of their normal schedule within the applicable rules. If this happens frequently, however, it may have consequences for their contractual working time.

That’s where a temporary contract adjustment can sometimes provide a better solution.

For example, you can temporarily increase an employee’s contractual hours for a week or a month when you know you will need additional capacity.

It gives you flexibility while keeping the agreement between employer and employee clear.

Plan smart, not just full

Good scheduling isn’t about putting as many names as possible into little boxes on a calendar.

It’s about finding the right combination of people, contracts, working hours, flexibility and labour cost for every moment.

That’s exactly what AAPI helps you do.

Build your schedule. Let AAPI keep an eye on the rules, opportunities and consequences.

You focus on your guests.

We’ll help you make the planning work.

Collaboration with AI expert Dataroots and visualisation platform cumul.io translates into easily digestible data insights, real-time smart sensors and excelling efficiency.

AAPI’s collab with Dataroots and cumul.io makes Belgian hospitality entrepreneur’s mouth water

To convert the immense amount of business data difficult for operators of hotels, restaurants and cafés to valuable insights, Antwerp-based hospitality tech start-up AAPI is sitting down with Leuven-based AI expert Dataroots and visualisation platform cumul.io With this digital collab 3.0, they are fully committed to artificial intelligence, dashboarding and benchmarking.

The hospitality sector, they know it like the back of their hand at AAPI. In fact, that’s where they are…

AAPI is a hospitality sector-specific all-in planning tool with digital time clock and fully automatic dimona management. AAPI not only automates and digitises the catering entrepreneur’s planning and payroll processing, but also automates Payroll in the back office of all Belgian Social Secretariats. This saves not only the hospitality entrepreneur, but also the service provider/social secretariat a lot of administrative hassle and personnel costs, or as they say at AAPI ‘No More Monkey Business’. And all this based on the AAPI APP, standard in the pocket of the hospitality entrepreneur 2.0.

AI-driven planning

In a second phase, Dataroots and AAPI are looking at artificial intelligence to actively support hospitality operators in their workforce planning using personalised recommendations and predictions, or predictive analytics. “Already after only three months of analysis, a hospitality business can become more profitable. With AI, we are perfectly capable of suggesting an optimal staff planning after a few months that takes into account numerous facets, such as availabilities, wage costs, added value based on skill and experience, job classifications and dimona types,” says Bart Smeets, co-founder of Dataroots.

Top experts

Tom De Pauw is already looking enthusiastically to the future and is more than happy with his cooperation with Dataroots: “Dataroots employs absolute top experts. They communicate clearly, work in a structured way and actively think along with us about our ambitions. We are convinced that this cooperation will enable us to quickly distinguish ourselves in the hospitality industry. With the power of AI, we provide a breath of fresh air that offers prospects in terms of turnover and efficiency in a sector that is under pressure.”

AAPI is unique & phygital : first and only digital app with physical Customer Coaches on standby

Tom De Pauw (manager AAPI): “AAPI is more than just another hospitality SAAS application (APP & Web), AAPI is a smart hospitality app with razor-sharp focus and personalised customer service. That makes AAPI unique compared to other planning tools. AAPI’s Customer Coaches are all social legal experts with more than 10 years of experience in the payroll and hospitality world on their counter. On the one hand, we help Social Secretariats and their Payroll consultants to look at the customer/hospitality entrepreneur in a different, innovative way based on data insights, personalised recommendations and numerous real-time smart social legal sensors generated from the planning. On the other hand, AAPI addresses the hospitality entrepreneur and provides numerous useful tips to increase their net returns through AAPI. All service providers in Belgium are going to have to learn that hospitality entrepreneurs also have questions on weekdays after 3.30pm, or at the weekend. AAPI’s Customer Coaches can be reached 7/7 between 8am and 10pm.”

Data Done Right

To further boost its unique targeting features, phygital start-up AAPI is now looking even further, specifically at the potential of the data that operators have at their disposal but are not yet exploiting. “Hospitality operators are sitting on a mountain of digital data regarding staff, wage costs, turnover and margins, but the insights that this data has to offer only rarely come to light,” says Tom De Pauw, business manager of AAPI. “Even for those who search specifically, it is a long time digging for the right figures. It remains a challenge to get this data and insights to the hospitality operator in an easily digestible way.”

Data analysis & benchmarking

To change this, AAPI is counting on the power of artificial intelligence and the expertise of Leuven-based AI expert Dataroots and the know-how of visualisation platform cumul.io Initially, they worked out a strategy together to use AI and data analysis to present valuable insights to hospitality operators quickly and clearly. A data warehouse was developed, where all HR and payroll data was collected and then linked to a user-friendly and clear dashboard.

Benchmarking has also been addressed. Individual operators can thus test their figures and performance against those of other AAPI users. Tom De Pauw: “This gives our users a picture of their peers. Why is it that hotel and catering business A has the same turnover as business B, but faces 15% more staff costs? Why does the net wage of the staff at business C account for 40% of the total wage cost, while at business D it is only 30%? Thanks to AI, we will be able to answer these questions more easily, which will allow our users to optimise even further.”

AI-driven planning

In a second phase, Dataroots and AAPI are looking at artificial intelligence to actively support hospitality operators in their workforce planning using personalised recommendations and predictions, or predictive analytics. “Already after only three months of analysis, a hospitality business can become more profitable. With AI, we are perfectly capable of suggesting optimal staff planning after a few months that takes into account numerous facets, such as availabilities, wage costs, added value based on skill and experience, job classifications and DIMONA types” says Bart Smeets, co-founder of Dataroots.

Topexpertise

The cooperation with Dataroots offers new perspectives for a sector that is under pressure. Tom De Pauw is already looking enthusiastically to the future and is more than enthusiastic about the cooperation with Dataroots: “Dataroots employs absolute top experts. They communicate clearly, work in a structured way and actively think along with us about our ambitions. We are convinced that this cooperation will enable us to quickly distinguish ourselves in the hospitality industry. With the power of AI, we provide a breath of fresh air that offers prospects in terms of turnover and efficiency in a sector that is under pressure.”

Charlene De Buysere is always looking for ‘the sweet spot’.

Both for the sweet spot of each cup of coffee, and for the sweet spot of her consultancy and day-to-day operations.

For the sweet spot of hospitality business operations, Charlene relies on AAPI.

AAPI brings me knowledge. And knowledge turns out to be power, because since AAPI, declaring my wages still takes 15 minutes, and my returns increased by 5%. Perfectly under control, and so I can be busy with other essential matters.

Charlene Charlene De Buysere – WAY Specialty Coffee Roasters

The 3 AAPI apps (AAPI APP, AAPI TIME & AAPI ME) are like a daily shot of caffeine, they keep you awake, alert and give a huge boost 🚀 to the ins and outs of your hospitality business.

✔️ flexible workforce planning

✔️ business dashboards & insights for optimum efficiency

✔️ accurate time recording and interpretation every moment of the day

✔️ automatic dimonas & contracts

✔️ complete personnel management in just a few clicks

✔️ optimised and automated payroll processing

✔️ socio-legal smart notifications

✔️ clear reporting

✔️ interfacing with GKS, F&B tool Growzer, accounting tool YUKI, various payroll engines,…

⏳ Save time – 📈Increase your efficiency and profits – ⚡️Real Time

The hospitality sector, we at AAPI know it like the back of our hand. In fact, that’s where📱we are…

Love Your Horeca Life Again: Less Admin, More Hospitality with AAPI

Working in hospitality is a bit like being in a relationship.

There are the moments you absolutely love: a full terrace on a sunny afternoon, a restaurant buzzing with happy guests, a hotel running like clockwork or a team that somehow manages to nail a hectic Friday-night service.

And then there are… the other moments.

Someone calls in sick two hours before their shift. A student suddenly isn’t available. The planning changes for the fourth time today. Someone forgot to clock out. Payroll is approaching. And somewhere, hidden in an Excel file, WhatsApp conversation or pile of paperwork, is the information you urgently need.

Still feeling the #horeca LOVE?

Hospitality should be about people, not paperwork

Nobody starts a hospitality business because they have a passion for administration.

Hospitality entrepreneurs want to create experiences, welcome guests, build great teams and run a profitable business. But managing a flexible workforce can quickly become a business of its own.

Permanent employees, flexi-workers, students, temporary staff, changing availability, different contracts, last-minute absences and fluctuating customer demand all have to fit into one operational puzzle.

That is exactly where AAPI comes in.

AAPI brings staff management, shift planning, time tracking, contracting, payroll and reporting together in one digital environment.

Less jumping between systems.
Less manual administration.
Less monkey business.

And a lot more time for horeca.

A planning that moves as fast as your business

In hospitality, yesterday’s perfect schedule can be completely outdated by this afternoon.

Good shift planning therefore needs to be flexible.

With AAPI, managers can create and adjust schedules digitally, react to changing availability and manage last-minute replacements without rebuilding an entire planning spreadsheet.

Employees can access their schedules digitally, while managers maintain an overview of who is working, when they are working and what those shifts mean for the operation.

Because a planning should not be something you create once.

It should be something that works with you.

From working hours to accurate time tracking

Planning a shift is one thing. Knowing exactly how many hours were actually worked is another.

AAPI’s digital time tracking helps businesses register working hours accurately by allowing employees to clock in and out.

That creates greater transparency for employees and gives employers a reliable foundation for administration and payroll.

Especially in horeca, where working hours can change quickly and shifts don’t always end exactly when originally planned, accurate time registration can make a significant difference.

No discussions based on different versions of the truth.

Just better data.

Give your team the information they need

Staff management isn’t only about creating schedules.

It’s also about communication.

Employees want to know when they are working. They need access to contracts, payslips and other relevant documents. Managers want to communicate changes quickly without having to send the same information through five different channels.

With the AAPI employee app, this information is brought together digitally.

That means fewer messages asking:

“When do I start tomorrow?”

“Where can I find my contract?”

“Did the planning change?”

“Can someone send me my payslip?”

Your employees get more autonomy. Your managers get fewer interruptions.

That’s a relationship worth investing in.

Planning and payroll: better together

There is another relationship in hospitality that deserves some love:

planning and payroll.

When these processes operate separately, administration starts multiplying. Information has to be copied, checked, corrected and transferred from one system to another.

AAPI connects workforce planning with the processes that follow it, helping businesses reduce repetitive manual work and simplify payroll administration.

The result isn’t simply digitalisation for the sake of digitalisation.

It’s about creating a smoother operational flow from the moment an employee is scheduled until those working hours are processed.

Know what’s happening while it’s happening

Running a hospitality business purely on gut feeling becomes increasingly difficult as teams and operations grow.

Managers need visibility.

How many people are scheduled?
What are the labour costs?
Where are adjustments needed?
Are actual working hours matching the planning?

AAPI dashboards and reporting bring workforce information together so managers can make decisions based on what is happening in their business.

Not three months later.

Now.

And that matters in an industry where margins can disappear surprisingly quickly.

Fall back in love with horeca

Technology should never take the hospitality out of hospitality.

Quite the opposite.

The best technology removes the repetitive work surrounding your business, so you and your team can spend more time on the things humans are actually good at: welcoming people, solving problems, creating experiences and making customers want to come back.

That’s the idea behind AAPI’s #horeca LOVE life.

Because your relationship with horeca might occasionally be complicated.

But your staff planning doesn’t have to be.

Less planning stress. Less administration. Better staff management. More time for your guests.

Sounds like a pretty good match.

Ready to make a move?

Discover how AAPI can simplify your staff planning, time tracking and payroll processes and give your team more time to focus on hospitality.

AAPI – No More Monkey Business.