Hospitality Strategist Viktoriia Prisna on the 4 Daily Money Leaks in Premium Dining

Viktoriia Prisna ran the operational and financial management of a restaurant and entertainment group: up to 18 venues, combined teams of more than a thousand people, and decision-making authority over purchasing, staff, launches and relaunches.

She came into the business as a finance manager in 2012. At her first management meetings the discussion covered concept, interior and product; her questions were about the break-even point, return on investment and real profitability.

Operations, staff, marketing, purchasing and crisis decisions were gradually added to her finance remit, and her role grew to general and managing director level.

Her own methods of financial control and internal audit came out of that work. Owners of restaurant projects outside the group later applied them independently.

In 2025 Prisna joined the jury of the international ECDMA Global Awards. In the same year she passed selection by the expert council of the International Association of Entrepreneurs and Executives, on the basis of her documented achievements in executive management and crisis management. She also published two papers in peer-reviewed journals.

The expert now works as an independent consultant and researcher and is also writing a book on systematic management in restaurants and clubs.

— Viktoriia, good afternoon. In your view, where does an upmarket venue lose money every day?

— Good afternoon. There are four points.

The bar, where what is poured and what goes through the till do not match. Purchasing, where a supplier is overpaid on items nobody has reviewed for a year. Stock counts that do not agree with the till reports. And bookings: the table is held in the system, the produce is bought, the shift is rostered, and the guest doesn't arrive.

All four are invisible in the daily revenue figure. A venue can be running full covers and still hand part of its earnings back.

— The owner looks at the report and sees revenue. How will he find what is not in the report?

— Through cross-checking. Till reports are matched against stock counts, stock counts against delivery notes, delivery notes against the products actually used.

Each level checks the one before it. A monthly stock count records the outcome but not where the outcome was formed. At SOHO FAMILY GROUP the multi-level scheme reduced operational losses by around 35%.

— You built a deposit-based booking system. How does it work?

— The guest pays a sum when booking, and it is drawn down against the bill over the evening. For the bars we made prepaid cards on the same principle. No-shows fell by around 70%.

That changes purchasing and the shift rota, because the evening is planned against confirmed commitments.

— How did you work with the cost of goods and purchasing?

— We started by recalculating recipe specifications and actual usage. The gap between the standard and the actual figure shows on its own where to look.

Then came a review of prices and terms with suppliers: volumes, payment terms, responsibility for the quality of a delivery. Costs and cost of goods fell by 12%, and purchasing costs gave a further 8%. The quality of the dishes did not change.

— You carried out reviews at venues that were being prepared for closure. What do you look for first?

— The cause of the loss. Falling revenue is a symptom. You have to find the point where money stops reaching the account. At Jagger Hall, Black Smith Bar and Manana, the full picture of the movement of money and goods over the period was reconstructed.

— How do you keep control from turning into micromanagement?

— Management means building an environment where an employee understands the objective, the authority and the measure. Personal control of every task runs into the physical limit of one person.

— During lockdown, what did you do in the first weeks?

— We moved the group to delivery and collection. Everything had to be rebuilt: the menu, the packaging, the routes, the cost calculation for a new channel.

Within two months delivery revenue grew almost fifteen times over. With the dining rooms closed it was the only source of cash flow, and it kept the business solvent and hundreds of jobs with it.

— Fifteen times in two months seems like a rebuild of the entire operation.

— Almost from the ground up. In parallel I put together a staff rotation system so the team would not fall apart. The group gave me an internal award for it.

— Revenue across the network grew under your management during the crisis period. What produced that?

— Over eighteen months the growth came to 35%. It was made up of closed loss channels, recalculated cost of goods and prepayment, which produced predictable cash flow. Almost no new venues were opened in that period.

— You created the GOLD CARD VIP programme for the Secret Room club. How did the loyalty scheme affect the way the venue ran?

— Premium guests come back because they are recognised. The card brought guest records, personal privileges and financial control into a single framework: you can see who comes in, how often and at what value. Average spend rose, and customer retention became a measurable indicator.

— You had up to 18 venues and one reporting framework under your management. What transfers to other markets, and what has to be rewritten?

— The logic transfers: where the control points sit, in what order the reconciliations run, who answers for a variance. That part does not depend on the country. The rules have to be rewritten: employment law, tax accounting, guests' payment habits.

The methods moved into other owners' projects. I advised some of them at the set-up stage, and after that the teams ran the system themselves. I held no operational management role there.

— You were invited onto the jury of an international award. What does an operations specialist assess there?

— The appointment was confirmed in May 2025; the award is the ECDMA Global Awards. I was invited as a practitioner in operations across multi-site projects and in the digital redesign of processes. I assessed entries in business operations, digital transformation and customer ecosystems.

— You already have two papers in peer-reviewed journals, and a book is in progress. Why does a practitioner need the academic format?

— Peer review forces you to prove things. In a paper you cannot write "the system works" — you need a method, a sample and a verifiable result. Both came out in 2025: one on automating financial reporting and its effect on the speed of management decisions, the other on operational control models for loss reduction in the premium segment. The book brings the same material into a working format for management teams.

Which of her methods work outside the group

Deposit-based bookings, multi-level reconciliation and the model for turning a loss-making venue around have stopped being the internal tool of one company.

They are applied by owners of restaurant projects in other markets — some after expert consultations with Prisna, some through their own adaptation. She holds no operational position in any of those companies.

The book she is now writing is aimed at the same readers: management teams that have to make the numbers hold without her in the room.