In 1990, Luigi Romano opened a pizza restaurant that he named Romano’s in St. Louis, Missouri. Over the years, he opened both company and franchise locations and grew the business to include over 40 restaurants that serve the three states around the St. Louis area. In 2015, Romano introduced a centralized phone ordering system with one phone number for customers to use. This meant that the customer did not need to look up the phone number of a local restaurant and call that restaurant to order. Rather, customers call one number, and the employees taking the order can determine the closest Romano’s location and process the order. This system also centralized the pricing, ordering, and inventory systems for Romano’s. In 2016, Romano’s began offering online pizza orders through its website. Romano’s advertises this Web ordering as more convenient for the customer. For example, its ads suggest that a customer can examine the entire menu on the website prior to ordering, something that is not possible with phone orders.
While there are many customer advantages of Web ordering, there are also many advantages to the company. From an accounting and internal control perspective, describe the advantages of Romano’s system and any risks that it reduces.