Restaurant scheduling software

Turn more tables and delight more guests with easy and free restaurant employee scheduling. Improve your restaurant management with communication, time tracking and more.

restaurant server

Thousands of restaurants like yours use Sling for their restaurant scheduling

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Restaurant scheduling software

Use Sling’s restaurant scheduling app to get more 5-star reviews and become your neighborhood’s favorite spot.

  • Build restaurant schedules with ease

  • Publish and communicate employee schedule changes instantly

  • Reduce tardiness and no-shows with shift notifications

  • Allow restaurant employees to swap shifts and find their own cover

Restaurant time clock

Track restaurant employees’ time on the clock and instantly sync with payroll for easy payment processing.

  • Turn any phone into your restaurant’s employee time clock

  • Enable GPS geofencing to ensure teammates are on site

  • Perfect your restaurant schedule by seeing who shows up late or no-call no-shows

  • Instantly upload employee timesheets to Payroll and avoid costly mistakes

Sling employee messagingSling employee messaging

Restaurant communication

Keep your entire restaurant engaged and aware with Sling’s restaurant messaging app.

  • Send private and group messages to your entire restaurant crew

  • Create custom newsfeed pages to segment communications by topic, shift or type

  • Deliver restaurant-wide announcements where they can’t be missed, right from your desktop or phone

  • Go beyond shouting “behind” with restaurant communication for front- and back-of-house

labor cost reportlabor cost report

Restaurant labor costs

86 excessive costs of labor by tracking hours worked and setting the most efficient schedules for your crew.

  • View potential restaurant employee overtime ahead of time as you schedule

  • Stay on budget by comparing your restaurant labor costs to projected and actual revenue

  • Set labor rules to view how much special pay like holidays and overtime might cost your restaurant

  • View your costliest restaurant shifts and optimize your restaurant schedule

Restaurant task management

Turn more tables and 86 restaurant employee confusion.

  • Clearly assign tasks to restaurant employees

  • Assign tasks to employees or restaurant shifts

  • Create a restaurant task from scratch or use a template

  • Accomplish more of your restaurant’s to-do list

Sling by Toast better togetherSling by Toast better together

Pairs perfectly with Toast

Fire up your workforce and delight your guests with the perfect pairing of restaurant management tools.

  • Sync restaurant employee profiles from Toast to Sling

  • View sales data from your Toast POS and compare it to your restaurant labor costs

  • Instantly upload restaurant employee timesheets to Toast Payroll for quick and easy processing

  • Easily integrate and sync your Toast and Sling accounts

Fantastic scheduling software!

Easy to create shifts, user friendly and great to message employees individually or by group.

Spend less time on restaurant scheduling and more time delighting your guests

Make sure your restaurant employees are resting

Give your crew enough time to rest between shifts with clopening alerts and break time built into their shift. Automatically remind employees when it’s time for a break. If anything is out of compliance or needs your attention, Sling lets you know.

Keep track of credentials with employee documents

Attach important files to restaurant employee profiles. Keep licenses, records, or anything else that matters to you right next to your team members’ profiles. Receive alerts when documents are about to expire, so you never have to worry about slipping out of compliance.

Compare your restaurant’s most profitable shifts

Build custom reports to view your restaurant’s costliest and most cost-effective shifts. Compare the value of each shift to what you’re spending on restaurant labor costs. Use reports to optimize your restaurant scheduling and find areas to save.

What can Sling help you save?

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Keep your guests—and employees—coming back

Handle your restaurant management and use your time more effectively with Sling’s restaurant scheduling app. Whether you’re running a corner coffee shop or a regional franchise, free up countless hours of restaurant management each week so you can get back to taking care of your guests.

Highly recommend for small businesses.

Sling has been a great addition to our business and has helped all employees stay up to date. Would highly recommend.

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Frequently asked questions

What is restaurant scheduling software?

Restaurant scheduling software is a suite of tools that can help busy team managers organize and direct their employees so the guest experience consistently meets the business’s high standards for quality, service, and cleanliness.

Restaurants of all types can benefit from using such software to streamline the workflow with features including:

  • Shift scheduling (for even the most complicated staff rota)
  • Integrated time tracking
  • Labor-cost control
  • Overtime control
  • Quick and easy communication
  • Cloud-based distribution
  • Clock-in/clock-out control
  • Multiple-location administration
  • Geofencing
  • Task management

The best restaurant scheduling software — like Sling — incorporates all of these features (and more) into one powerful solution that can help maximize the effectiveness, productivity, and efficiency of any restaurant team.

How can I build effective restaurant employee schedules?

One way to build effective employee schedules is to do away with the method that has you starting with the opening shift on Monday and assigning names to each shift straight through to the end of the week.

Instead, try scheduling an “anchor” employee or two (typically your best team members or those with the right skills and experience) in each shift throughout the week first. Then, schedule other team members in the open spots.

This helps ensure that you have the team members most suited for each shift — e.g., the lunch or dinner rush — working when you need them most.

To make this process easier, use your scheduling software to set eligibility requirements for the first one or two spots on each shift so you don’t accidentally schedule a team member who doesn’t have the right skills, qualifications, or experience.

Can restaurant scheduling software help control labor costs?

Absolutely! Advanced restaurant scheduling software will often notify you if the combination of employees you’ve selected to work causes the shift to approach or exceed a certain expense threshold.

For example, the Sling app helps you control labor costs by giving you the option to set a labor budget that works for each shift and then showing you real-time updates on what each shift will cost as you schedule.

With tools like Sling, you can avoid the confusion and trial-and-error of trying to find the right combination of team members for each shift and be better positioned to come in at or under budget every time.

Can I track restaurant employee hours with a time clock app?

One of the best ways to track restaurant employee hours is to use an app that turns any phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop into a time-tracking station.

For example, with the Sling app, once you give your employees access to the program, they’ll have the ability to start and stop their time on whatever device they have with them.

Managers can then monitor work hours with the Sling app, import any and all work hours into one of many reports, and even integrate time-tracking data into other programs to make payroll and other workforce management activities as streamlined as possible.

What’s the best way to manage multiple restaurant locations?

We understand that managing multiple restaurant locations can be complicated, so Sling includes tools to help you keep everyone organized, on task, and under control, regardless of where they work.

Sling can help you:

  • Manage payroll for all your locations
  • Control labor costs for each shift scheduled
  • Assign tasks and monitor employee progress
  • Filter schedules to find the information you need
  • Communicate with one person, a specific group of people, or everyone regardless of their location
  • Create reports by location or region to gain valuable insight into your operation
  • And much more

And, for the most accurate employee management across multiple locations, Sling makes it possible to set up geofencing around each restaurant so that employees can’t clock in unless they’re inside those boundaries.

This feature also allows you to set the system to automatically stop tracking time if an employee moves outside the geofence so you can prevent both intentional and accidental time theft.

Why choose Sling for restaurant scheduling?

Whether you manage a restaurant team of 10 in a single location or a team of 100+ across multiple locations, Sling can help you keep everything running efficiently.

Sling’s powerful workforce management tools make it easy to:

  • Build effective schedules in less time
  • Organize shift trade request
  • Allow your employees to sign up for available shifts
  • Manage time off
  • Coordinate availability
  • Track employee hours (on both stationary and mobile devices)
  • Reduce absenteeism
  • Minimize late arrivals
  • Control labor costs
  • And much more

Right now, you can get all of the essentials to help you organize and optimize your workforce and handle internal communication for an unlimited number of users and locations for free with just one click.

Get started today

Schedule faster, communicate better, get things done.

Scheduling is only the start.

Shift scheduling with Sling is free. But that’s only the beginning of what you can accomplish. Sling comes with a 14-day free trial so you can choose the plan that works best for your needs.

Bill monthly

Bill annually

Save 15%

Unlimited employees, managers, and locations

Free

Unlock your team’s potential with easy-to-use scheduling and communication features.

Free

Key features

  • Shift scheduling

    Organize and manage employee work schedules

  • Time-off requests

    Approve or deny employee requests for time off

  • Available shifts

    Easily see which shifts still need to be filled

  • News sharing

    Share news with your team through targeted pages

  • Long-term scheduling

    Build employee schedules months in advance

  • Private messaging

    Communicate with employees one-on-one

Plus many others

Premium

Take it to the next level by adding tools for tracking time and optimizing labor costs.

$2.001.70

per user per month

Key features

  • Mobile time tracking

    Accurately clock in and out of shifts from a moble device

  • Labor cost management

    Keep track of your labor costs and compare against sales

  • Overtime tracking

    Track, analyze and prevent excessive overtime

  • Private and group messaging

    Communicate with employees in private or group conversations

  • Calendar synchronization

    Keep track of your scheduled shifts on any calendar app

Plus everything in Free

Business

Recommended

Understand your labor data, pull reports for payroll, and run your business efficiently!

$4.003.40

per user per month

Key features

  • Kiosk time tracking

    Use a shared device for employees to clock in and out

  • Reports

    View reports of total hours worked and wages earned

  • No-shows

    Track and manage shifts employees miss

  • Sick call-outs

    Track and manage employee sick call-outs

  • PTO management

    Approve and track paid time off requests

Plus everything in Premium

Man in front of bar

16 Restaurant Scheduling Tips For A More Productive Team

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Woman working on a laptop

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cheeseburger fries and drink in a restaurant

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using a tablet to write an employee handbook

16 Tips for Making a Restaurant Employee Handbook

Learn 11 tips for writing an effective restaurant employee handbook and learn how cloud-based software can help make this process easier.

Built with you in mind

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