Fourth Analytics will lift the bonnet of every key back-office function, such as people, labour and purchasing, producing instant reports that reveal key trading information.

Companies will be able to slice this information in a number of ways, from company-wide reporting to regions, area manager-territories, or even single pub, hotel or restaurant locations. They will also be able to segment the information in terms of time – by the hour, day, week, month or year.

Fourth CEO Ben Hood said the new system was compelling: “This type of extremely valuable information has to date been the preserve of the giant companies, with giant budgets. Fourth Analytics will allow companies with five or 1,000 sites to access key information that will drive better decision making, greater efficiency and higher profit. This is Rolls Royce management information for all – this is the democratisation of business intelligence for the hospitality industry.”

The software will reveal almost 300 different key performance indicators, reports and charts.

Two key factors of the Fourth model mean that entry costs for Fourth Analytics will be low: the software will be supplied on a subscription model; the service sits on ‘the cloud’, negating the need for on-site servers or elaborate software installations.

Hood added: “The key attributes are the speed, accuracy, accessibility and ease of use – it is highly functional and everything is pre-populated. In simple terms, that means that if you are an existing Fourth user, this is ready to go: one push of a button can give an operator access to nearly 300 key pieces of information that can help drive greater profit.”

In addition to sales and profit – and giving company directors the ability to examine a real-time company P&L – Fourth Analytics will enable firms to explore various costs and metrics around labour, staff turnover and tenure, purchasing and payments.