This post isn’t about food. But it’s about some of the (very boring) stuff we need to be doing to protect our ability to make great food in the future.

I’ve been spending the majority of the past 2 days contacting vendors and suppliers and service providers. My pitch is consistent: we want to use your service again in the future, but we can’t afford it now without revenues coming in. And the ask is the same: can you please pause billing for the next 3 months.

Google didn’t go as far as helping us out (unlike 90% of the other firms/ people I’ve talked to).

But… I did find out about a Google G-Suite “hack” that I wish I had known about a year ago. Clover’s monthly bill went from $996 to $90/month. And it might save your restaurant company money as well.

1. You have to get into the Admin Control Panel for your organization’s G-Suite (I do this through “manage this organization” option on my “gear” in Gmail.
2. Go into “Billing” from the Admin Control Panel. In “Billing” you will see (at the very bottom on the list, under “Enable Products” heading): “Cloud Identity Free”. You have to “Enable” this. I know, it seems strange, but this is what you have to do. When you enable it brings you through a few screens. One of them has a checkbox that says something about “automatic assignment.” You need to UNCHECK this box. Again, don’t ask me why it’s set up this way, but you have to do this.
3. Now you can wait a half hour or so (it doesn’t indicate to do this anywhere, but if you don’t you won’t be able to make the changes properly). Then go back to the Admin Control Panel and find your “Users.” You can select users (works for multiple at a time) and “Remove Licenses.” This is where you remove the $10/ user/ month charge.
4. Note, this move removes the users access to G-suite and stuff. So it sort of suspends users. But they retain their email address. And you can turn stuff back on in the future. And it halts the billing for that user.

I hope this is helpful for you all. Looking forward to sharing some fun stuff about food soon. But delivering great food requires a lot of other non-food work too.