How Does An Ice Cream Shop Owner Spend A Typical Workday?

Wednesday, May 4th, 2016

An ice cream shop owner has a lot of different responsibilities to attend to on a daily basis. Owners take care of customer service, make sure employees are performing their jobs, and ensure that inventory levels can meet customer demands. In smaller shops, the owner will often work behind the counter to serve customers as well. The following are a variety of duties an ice cream shop owner handles during a normal workday.

Managerial duties

As the owner of an ice cream shop, you will have managerial duties to keep up with during the day. These duties include accounting and keeping track of sales. If you own a franchise, you have to report to the company and let them know your sales, as part of the profits would be theirs.

Payroll is not done every day, but depending on how you have setup paydays, you will have to prepare payroll and payroll taxes often. Other responsibilities include the management of federal taxes and making sure all your licenses are current.

Front of the store duties

In a small ice cream shop, the owner will often wait on customers and prepare their orders. If you have hired enough employees that this is not necessary, you can still assist those employees during busy times. Your help may be needed to keep tables cleaned and ready, as well as deal with customer compliments or complaints about your ice cream shop.

Back room duties

During the day you will want to keep an eye on inventory and make sure nothing is running low. You do not want to turn a customer away because you have run out of an ingredient at your ice cream shop. Some menu items may require special mixes so you will want to make sure the store has an adequate supply to meet demands. Machines and equipment will also need to be cleaned throughout the day.

Keeping records of inventory

You should keep an eye on your inventory every day. In addition to checking on items and ingredients, you will also need to keep reports to see what you have used. Every week, a physical count should be made at your ice cream shop to see what is left in stock. This count will need to be compared to daily inventory records to make sure they match. Orders will need to be put in to replace any items that are running low.

Store owner duties versus employee duties

As the owner of an ice cream shop, your duties are going to vary day to day. How many of these duties you perform depends on the number of employees you have and how well you trust them to do things like inventory. Inventory numbers are often used as a way for a business to protect against theft, so you want a trusted employee to conduct this duty.

An opportunity to become an ice cream shop owner

If you have ever considered owning your own business, an ice cream shop may be the one for you. KaleidoScoops has a cooperative business model that will allow you to have an independent ice cream shop and offer you maximum flexibility with minimum risk. Get The Scoop on becoming part of the KaleidoScoops cooperative today. You can also Contact Us by email to learn more.