Restaurant Operations

Run your restaurant
with DineOps

A complete offline staff management platform for small restaurants. Schedule employees, track hours, record tips, and get automated labor cost insights — all in one place.

Get Started → Browse Modules
👤 Employees 📅 Scheduling 🕐 Time Clock 💰 Tips & Pay 📊 Dashboard

First time?

Getting started

DineOps is fully offline — no account, no internet required. Get up and running in under five minutes.

1
Install DineOps from the Microsoft Store
Search for "DineOps" in the Microsoft Store and click Install. The app is a one-time purchase — no subscriptions.
2
Launch the app — database is created automatically
On first launch, DineOps creates a local database in %LOCALAPPDATA%\DineOps\DineOps.db. No setup wizard needed.
3
Add your employees first
Go to the Employees module and add each staff member with their role, hourly rate, and hire date. Every other module references your employee list, so this is the right starting point.
4
Create the week's schedule
Open Scheduling, find the employee, enter their shift times for each day. The app auto-calculates total hours and projected labor cost.
5
Use Time Clock daily
Each shift, employees clock in and out by name or ID. DineOps records hours, calculates cost, and flags variance against the schedule.
6
Check your Dashboard for insights
The Dashboard automatically generates plain-English reports and recommendations based on your last 7, 14, and 30 days of data. No manual reporting required.

Module guide

Five modules, one restaurant

Click any module to expand its full guide.

👤
Employees
Add, search, update, and manage your staff roster
▾
  • Add employees with ID, name, role, phone, email, hire date, hourly rate, and overtime rate
  • Search by Employee ID (exact) or name (partial match) — results populate the grid instantly
  • Update any field without touching others — partial updates only change what you fill in
  • Delete staff records with a confirmation dialog showing who you're removing
How to add an employee
  1. Open the Employees tab in the sidebar
  2. Fill in at minimum: Employee ID (e.g. MG or EMP001) and Full Name
  3. Add Role, Phone, Email, Hire Date, and Hourly Rate — all optional but recommended
  4. Set Status to Active — this controls whether the employee appears in scheduling and time clock
  5. Click Add Employee — the grid refreshes with the new record
Employee ID required Terminated = blocked from scheduling Partial update supported
📅
Scheduling
Create and manage weekly shift schedules with per-day detail
▾
  • 7-day schedule grid with Start Time, End Time, Break (minutes), and Station per day
  • Automatic hour calculation — enter times, the app computes total hours and labor cost
  • Overnight shifts are handled automatically (e.g. 11:00 PM to 3:00 AM = 4 hours)
  • Overtime warning when a schedule exceeds 40 hours — you can still save with confirmation
  • Find & Update any existing schedule by Schedule ID without restarting from scratch
How to create a schedule
  1. In the Create Schedule section, type the Employee ID or Name and click Find
  2. Confirm the right employee appears in the confirmation dialog
  3. Fill in Start/End times for each working day — leave the full row blank for days off
  4. Optionally add break minutes (e.g. 30) and station (e.g. Bar, Kitchen)
  5. Accepted time formats: 9:00 AM, 17:00, 9:00 PM
  6. Click Save Schedule — total hours and cost appear in the success message
Blank day = OFF Overnight shift supported Station tracked per day
🕐
Time Clock
Clock in/out, track actual hours, and calculate variance vs schedule
▾
  • Expected Today board shows everyone scheduled for today's day of the week
  • Clocked In Today board shows active shifts with elapsed time
  • Variance tracking — actual hours vs scheduled hours, and the cost difference
  • Day-swap friendly — any active employee can clock in even if not scheduled today
  • Long shift warning if a shift exceeds 16 hours — catches forgotten clock-outs
  • Update any clock record to fix typos in times — all derived values recalculate
Daily clock-in/out flow
  1. Open the Time Clock tab at the start of each shift
  2. Check Expected Today to see who's due in
  3. Type the employee's name or ID in the Clock In/Out field and click Clock In
  4. The employee moves from Expected to Clocked In Today
  5. At shift end, type their name/ID again and click Clock Out
  6. A confirmation shows hours worked, cost, and variance vs their schedule
Variance vs schedule auto-calculated Split shifts supported 16+ hour warning
💰
Tips & Pay
Record tips per employee, view work summaries, and track weekly totals
▾
  • Record tips per employee per date — multiple tip entries for split shifts are supported
  • Today's snapshot cards show total tips collected and number of people who worked today
  • Employee Work Summary shows every clock record alongside same-day tip totals
  • Weekly hours view shows current week, last week, and the week before for any employee
  • Date defaults to today — backdating up to 90 days is supported for catch-up entry
How to record tips at end of shift
  1. Open Tips & Pay at the end of each shift
  2. Enter the Employee ID or Name, tip amount, and date (leave blank for today)
  3. Click Save Tip — the Today's Total card updates immediately
  4. Repeat for each employee who earned tips that shift
  5. Use Show Employee Records to review an employee's complete history of hours and tips
Multiple tips per day OK Backdate up to 90 days Tips + hours on one view
📊
Dashboard
Automated insights, reports, and recommendations from your data
▾
  • Today's overview — expected staff, clocked in, no-shows, hours, variance, labor cost, tips
  • Rolling windows — same metrics for last 7, 14, and 30 days for trend comparison
  • Plain-English report — four narrative paragraphs explaining what the numbers mean
  • Automated recommendations — color-coded action items (🔴 red / 🟡 yellow / 🟢 green) based on 30-day patterns
  • Auto-refreshes every time you open the Dashboard — no manual refresh button needed
Reading your recommendations
  1. Red — urgent: labor overrun or significant cost variance needs attention now
  2. Yellow — monitor: something worth watching, like understaffing or low tips per hour
  3. Green — healthy: strong performance, team doing well
  4. The report section explains each metric in plain language — no spreadsheet expertise needed
7 / 14 / 30 day windows Auto-refresh on open Plain-English narrative

Power user

Tips for best results

Small habits that make DineOps work better over time.

⚡
Set hourly rates before scheduling
Labor cost calculations on the Dashboard are only accurate if each employee's Hourly Rate is filled in. Set it when you add the employee, not later.
📅
Use the Find button before filling in shifts
In Scheduling, click Find to verify the right employee loaded before spending time filling out 7 days of shifts. Saves frustration if you mistype the ID.
🕐
Clock out at end of every shift
Variance and labor cost reports are only accurate for completed shifts. Open clock-ins show $0 cost until they're closed, which skews the Dashboard.
💰
Record tips the same day
You can backdate up to 90 days, but entering tips same-day takes 30 seconds and keeps the "Today's Total" card accurate for real-time decisions.
🔍
Use Schedule ID (not name) to update schedules
If an employee has multiple schedule records, searching by Schedule ID guarantees you load the right one into the update form.
💾
Back up your database regularly
Copy %LOCALAPPDATA%\DineOps\DineOps.db to an external drive or cloud folder weekly. This single file is your entire restaurant's history.

Common questions

FAQ

Does DineOps require an internet connection? +
No. DineOps is fully offline. All data is stored locally on your Windows PC in a SQLite database file. No cloud account, no subscription, no internet required after the initial download from the Microsoft Store.
Where is my data stored? +
Your data is stored in C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Local\DineOps\DineOps.db. You can back this file up by copying it anywhere. To restore, replace the file in the same location.
Can I schedule an employee who swapped days? +
Yes. The Time Clock module lets any active employee clock in regardless of whether they appear on today's schedule. This is intentional — day swaps happen in real restaurants without always getting updated in the system.
What happens if I delete an employee with clock records? +
The employee record is removed from the Employees table, but their clock-in and tip records remain in the database. They'll show as an unnamed employee in historical reports. For this reason, it's better to set a departed employee's Status to "Terminated" rather than deleting them.
How does the Dashboard know what's a "good" labor cost? +
The Dashboard compares actual hours worked (from Time Clock) against scheduled hours (from Scheduling) to calculate variance. A recommendation appears when variance exceeds 10% of total scheduled hours, or when variance cost exceeds $500 over 30 days. These thresholds are based on standard restaurant labor management guidelines.
Can multiple people use DineOps at the same time? +
Not simultaneously — DineOps is a single-user desktop app. One manager or owner runs it on one Windows PC. For very small restaurants, this matches the typical workflow (one person manages staff operations). Multi-user sync is a planned future feature.
How do I fix a wrong clock-in or clock-out time? +
Go to Time Clock → View All Clock Records → find the record's Clock ID using the Search function → enter that Clock ID in the Update section → correct the time → click Update. All derived values (hours worked, cost, variance) recalculate automatically.