Setting Expectations in Distil Diagnostics

What are Expectations?

At the beginning of each financial year, the business typically defines two key figures:

• Budget: The revenue required to cover all expected costs for the year.
• Sales Target: A higher, aspirational figure set above the budget to generate profit and drive performance.

As the year progresses the Actual figure is the amount of revenue actually generated. 

Every year begins with a Budget and a Sales Target — but reality often has other ideas. Success depends on how quickly a business can see what’s changing and adjust course.

That’s where Distil’s Forecast comes in. Updated daily, it blends past performance, market signals, and real-time trends to predict what’s coming next.

Every Forecast is unique to each restaurant. Some Restaurants will be right on track, others will run hot - or need a boost.

With this visibility, teams can act fast: dial up marketing to fill seats, streamline labour to protect margin, or open more floor space to meet extra demand.

Within Distil, Expectations represent the evolving targets for each restaurant’s covers.

They’re updated throughout the year so the Forecast can accurately assess performance and highlight where adjustments may be needed.

When Expectations are set too high

If Expectations are set too high, then all Restaurants will be flagged as Below - the team will struggle to implement Revenue improvements. 

When Expectations are set too low

If Expectations are set too Low, then all Restaurants will be flagged as Above - the team will also struggle to implement Revenue improvements. 

Why Adjust Expectations?

By adjusting Expectation numbers to reflect reality, the output becomes more accurate and actionable — enabling teams to respond effectively.

A secondary benefit is that the business gains a clear, central view of actual performance (good or bad), allowing better planning and decision-making.

Tip: A good place to start with setting initial Expectations is to use YoY covers. Therefore the first comparison is “How is this year tracking against last?”

How to Adjust Expectations

Login to your account in Distil and open up any screen in Diagnostics. 

You will see a menu option labelled 'Edit Expectations' in the top right sub-menu. Click this head. 

Then choose the financial year you wish to edit. 

The first screen in Expectations is ASPH (Average Spend per Head). 

You can edit ASPH by individual service and venue. Alternatively, you can set all to last year's performance or the market average for your cuisine, price quartile and location. You can edit these figures at any time. 

Click next when you're done. 

The next screen shows your Cover Expectations by month. 

You can edit by service for each month, or you can choose to apply a percentage increase across each service for the whole year. 

Click next when you're done.

On the final screen, you will see your Expectations display as monthly revenue across the whole group. 

If these figures match your calculations, you can exit or you can go back and make further edits.