November 3, 2024
Written by: The POS Exchange Team
Picture this: A restaurant with a buzz of customers enjoying their meals. But despite the atmosphere, things feel chaotic behind the scenes. Orders are getting lost, food is taking too long to get to the right tables, and servers need to catch up. If only the restaurant had an efficient restaurant POS system to help manage operations. If your restaurant is facing similar challenges, you’re not alone. As technology advances, customers expect faster and more efficient service. Luckily, there’s a solution to help you meet these demands: Best POS System for Restaurant. This blog will explore the valuable restaurant POS system features that will enhance your operations and elevate customer satisfaction through improved service delivery.
The POS Exchange can help you start your journey to better restaurant operations with our efficient POS systems. Our systems have the essential features to boost your bottom line and enhance your customers’ dining experience.
A restaurant POS, or point of sale, is a system of hardware and software that work together to handle workflow and transactions. POS systems are used in food and beverage businesses and other types of businesses like retail, so it’s important to buy a system designed specifically for your operation. These systems are used in food and beverage businesses and other types of businesses like retail, so it’s important to buy or switch to a POS system designed specifically for your operation.
In retail POS software, all the products are tied to the inventory with numbers (barcodes), which the cashier inputs into the system. After the order is input, retail POS software is designed to complete and close the transaction immediately. In other words, the software is primarily designed to complete sales. For this reason, most retail POS terminals are stationary and cannot be moved throughout the store.
Restaurants operate a little differently. In a restaurant, a staff member uses a POS to input a customer’s order, and that information is immediately relayed to the kitchen. Depending on the type of restaurant, the order may be closed immediately or remain open until the end of the meal or service. As a result, most restaurant POS systems feature portable tablets, such as a restaurant iPad, which can be carried around the venue to facilitate tableside ordering.
A modern restaurant POS is capable of so much more than taking orders. Venues ranging from food trucks to fast food joints to fine-dining restaurants now use their restaurant POS as the main operations hub for their business.
A modern restaurant POS can help your business thrive in three main ways:
Many of the specific benefits within these categories are interconnected. Make more informed business decisions, and your service will likely improve. Improve your service, and your sales will see a boost as well – a happy domino effect that makes running a better business that much easier.
Restaurant POS system features boost operations by streamlining processes to help restaurant staff deliver faster, more accurate service. For example, servers can input orders directly into a POS terminal instead of handwriting orders on paper. The system automatically sends the orders to the kitchen for preparation, eliminating the chance of misplacing the order or having it illegible.
When the food is ready, the kitchen can notify the server through the POS, so they know to deliver the meal to the correct table. With these processes in place, the restaurant can improve order accuracy, which enhances the guest experience and also boosts operational efficiency.
Another key benefit of restaurant POS systems is their ability to integrate with other systems. For example, a restaurant POS can connect with an inventory management system to:
The data gathered from these systems can help inform purchasing decisions so you can reduce instances of running out of products and avoid costly spoilage.
Integrating a POS system with other restaurant technologies can also streamline operations by creating a seamless data flow between systems. For instance, when your restaurant POS and accounting software are connected, every sale processed through the POS automatically syncs with your accounting platform. This reduces the need for manual data entry, which can be time-consuming and lead to errors.
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The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted online ordering as a critical feature for restaurant POS systems. With online ordering, customers can order their food directly from your website, reducing errors and improving the customer experience. When your restaurant POS system has online ordering features, you’ll save money by cutting out third-party apps.
Many systems allow you to design and organize your restaurant’s menu to suit your needs, letting you:
If you have multiple locations, a sound POS system will allow you to simultaneously make changes across those locations or customize each location’s menu. Streamlined online ordering can minimize in-person contact and reduce disease transmission risk.
If your restaurant offers delivery (or plans to in the future), you should ensure your POS system is built to handle it. POS systems may integrate with third-party delivery apps, such as DoorDash or come equipped with in-house delivery features. In-house delivery features include:
Most POS systems in all industries offer inventory reports and controls. Restaurants have more comprehensive needs than other businesses. Most restaurants spend a lot of time managing stock. When you offer dishes with many ingredients, it’s easy to get caught off guard and run low on some ingredients. You don’t want to be in a position where you can’t offer a dish of your most popular meal.
A worthwhile restaurant POS system will have recipe-tracking features. These features should track both individual ingredients and entire dishes. If you’re running low on any ingredient, it should alert you and highlight the dishes that may soon be lacking. Many restaurant POS systems also allow you to customize alerts and send notifications.
Sometimes, POS systems can automatically place orders for ingredients you are running low on. The right POS system must offer the ability to seamlessly create ingredient chains to see a complete report on each dish’s ingredients. You usually need to use your restaurant POS system to create a list of ingredients and the dishes they add to. The best POS systems will allow you to automate most of your stock management tasks so you can focus on other things.
Good restaurant POS systems have marketing tools or integrations to help you grow your business. Loyalty programs work and are very common today because of their proven effectiveness. To stay competitive, you must keep your current customers hooked with:
Only some restaurants POS systems will come equipped with these tools. Marketing and loyalty rewards are some of the more common integrations with these systems. Making sure you have access to marketing tools is key.
Some POS systems have baked-in features that track customer purchases and allow them to accrue points or other rewards based on how often they dine with your restaurant. Others may allow you to integrate with third-party apps that make this kind of point generation possible. Restaurants with a well-defined and executed loyalty and referral program generally see a 20% increase in revisits and re-orders.
Restaurant owners can’t afford sudden problems that cannot be fixed on time. A good restaurant POS system should offer at least one 24/7 assistance method. Ideally, a 24/7 phone service is available. Free POS companies offer multiple channels for you to ask for advice and assistance. In some cases, live training can also be called for.
But these features should all be included in your package. Check to make sure your restaurant POS system offers you adequate support through the:
Some great restaurant POS systems won’t have all these options, but all you need is a way to get help if you ever need it.
Restaurants can boost their revenue throughout the year by making it easy for their customers to purchase gift cards, either in-store or online. POS systems should also make it easy to track and accept gift cards after they’re purchased. Although gift cards are a crucial tool for marketing and revenue, many POS systems consider them an add-on feature, not included in the base price of the system.
Some restaurants may benefit from letting customers order their own food tableside with the help of a tablet. Self-service ordering works best for fast-casual restaurants with simple menus. Other restaurant managers may give servers handheld devices (some systems use proprietary hardware designed for restaurant use, and others are made to work on standard tablets such as iPads) to take orders instead of a pen and paper.
With tableside ordering, the POS system can guide servers through the customer’s ordering process. The order goes into the system automatically, immediately updating financial reports (and inventory reports, if you have that feature) without manual input.
Kitchen display systems make paper order tickets a thing of the past. If your POS system comes equipped to connect to a kitchen display system, meal order details will pop up on a kitchen display for the back-of-house team as soon as they come in from the front-of-house.
Suppose the system uses tableside ordering or self-service ordering. In that case, the order immediately goes from the table to the kitchen, eliminating the need for servers to waste valuable time making extra trips back and forth. If you use a kitchen display system, there’s also much less room for error, because kitchen display systems are generally designed to visually highlight things like change requests or allergy alerts in visually consistent ways. Other KDS features, such as timers, can help the kitchen team assess how long customers have waited for their food.
Some POS systems have specific features that make curbside pickup easier. Namely, some restaurants have adopted food lockers to ensure that customers get the right order, and to deter theft. Not all restaurant POS systems integrate with food locker systems, so make sure to check if you do plan to incorporate food lockers into your contactless pickup program.
A cloud-based POS system is a good option for restaurants of all sizes. Cloud-based systems are easy to set up and maintain and can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection.
A good POS system should be easy for employees and customers. The system should have a user-friendly interface and be easy to navigate. It should also be able to handle multiple transactions simultaneously without slowing down.
Most modern POS systems are cloud-based, which means the data used to run the system is stored on a remote server. This has a lot of advantages: It makes your data accessible from any internet-connected location, for example, which is especially important if you run multiple locations.
It also means that your data is backed up regularly and is more secure than if it was just stored on a local computer. But ideally, your POS system will store enough data on a local device to enable it to keep working for some time even if you temporarily lose access to the internet.
If you’re going to be running multiple locations, your restaurant POS system should be able to show in real-time how your restaurant group is doing on a local or national level. Restaurant managers should also be able to drill down to see data for groups of restaurants in a particular city, state, or region.
They should be able to view detailed inventory and revenue reports across those locations, and they should also be able to modify menus and recipes across all locations or individually by location. Your POS should make it really easy to add new restaurant locations. Ideally, it will take just a few minutes to transfer things like menu data and other information to create a new location.
Franchise owners have slightly different needs than restaurants with multiple locations. A good POS system should allow franchise owners to receive automated royalty payment reports, and administrators should be able to set custom royalty and ad spend percentages for each restaurant location.
The best enterprise POS systems for restaurants make it easier for operators to train employees, check for quality, and uniformly implement processes across all locations. They provide structure and guidance on internal processes to make everything consistent and boost employees’ confidence as they start.
This can be a huge benefit to restaurant managers, because training new employees tends to take up a lot of time and attention. Choose a restaurant POS system that can actually help onboard and train your staff.
With the rise of online ordering and food delivery services, it’s important that your restaurant POS system can integrate with third-party apps and services. This will allow you to:
Integration with accounting and payroll software can help streamline your back-end operations and reduce manual errors.
A modern POS speeds up every transaction to help you serve more customers in less time. For quick service restaurants, a modern restaurant POS simplifies the transaction process for staff, allowing them to move through lines much more quickly. For full service restaurants, mobile POS systems enable your servers to take tableside orders.
Tableside ordering is a big deal, because all your servers need to do is punch in the order once at the table instead of writing it down and running to a POS. This eliminates errors and speeds up service. A server’s product knowledge is more consistent because they can carry it around with them. No more running back to the kitchen with questions about ingredients or allergy alerts. It’s all right there. Some restaurants have seen sales increases of 20% or more after implementing tableside ordering.
A restaurant POS can break down food cost percentages and contribution margins by day and by menu item. When you know how much a menu item is costing you to make, you can spot opportunities to optimize your menu prices. For example, if you find that the food cost percentage of your signature latte is higher than the industry standard of 20%–40% (i.e. the cost to make that latte is too close to the price a customer pays), you know the time has come to raise the price tag. And once you do decide to raise prices, a restaurant POS will also let you update your menu instantly from anywhere at anytime.
Your restaurant POS can also tell you which menu items are top sellers and which items are the most profitable (hint: they’re not always the same thing!). For example, you might think the seafood pasta is your best dish because it sends customers back to compliment the chef. But what do the numbers show you about how many are sold in a day? What about the total cost to make each dish? Your restaurant POS could reveal that while this pasta dish sells well, it doesn’t do much for your profit because it’s expensive to produce, with a higher food cost percentage than every other item on your menu. Instead, through your POS report, you could see that the margherita pizza is actually my most profitable menu item, even though it’s not a top seller. Promotions and recommendations from servers can easily boost the number of these pizzas sold, which could increase my sales of a highly profitable item.
Use POS data to optimize your menu design and influence customer spending. Once you’ve identified high-margin items using your POS reports, you can place these items strategically on your menu in an area called the Golden Triangle. A restaurant menu The Golden Triangle is the area of your menu that customers read first, making them more likely to order items located here. You’ll want to display high-margin items in my Golden Triangle, which will help increase the sale of dishes that give your bottom line the biggest boost.
Don’t rely on your staff to remember to upsell. Automatically prompt your front-of-house staff to upsell with your POS. When you use a modern restaurant POS, you can customize upsell prompts on any and all orders. Say a customer wants to order a Bloody Mary from the bar. The bartender punches in the order and before they hit send, they see a pop-up modifier with an option to upsell. Want to make that a double? What about a premium vodka? Upsell prompts make training new staff easier – since it’s built right into the system – and help servers provide a consistent level of service to customers. Small upsells can really add to your bottom line over time, and automating the process can increase your average check size quickly.
Make sure that any inventory headed out the door has been paid for by customers – not by you, unknowingly. Employee theft in restaurants is a real threat: 75% to 85% of all restaurant theft is committed by employees, and theft can account for up to 4% of restaurant sales. Shrinkage – liquor lost due to spill or waste – can account for about 25% of alcohol sales. A restaurant POS can help combat employee theft – leading to an increase in actual sales – in a few different ways. First and foremost, a POS ensures that all ordered items are tracked. To get a BLT from the kitchen with extra bacon, for example, the server has to enter it into the POS. Second, a POS has security settings that restrict what a staff member can do within the system, based on their position. For example, a front-of-house employee might be unable to void an item, alter a bill, or comp a birthday dessert without involving a manager, which cuts down on the freebies given to friends or to boost tips. Third, a restaurant POS can track your inventory, ensuring your sales report matches your inventory report. Your POS can also have integrations that use a combination of hardware and software to track alcohol pours (beer, liquor) and help you cut down on shrinkage costs.
Create a loyalty program that rewards repeat customers and encourages them to keep coming back – and to bring their friends! This is about more than a simple punch card that customers might lose or copy or just plain not want to carry. With a restaurant POS, your loyalty program is integrated right into the system, tracking customer interactions and creating a customer database you can use in other ways. For instance, programs like TouchBistro Loyalty allow you to offer personalized rewards based on guest spend, items purchased, or subscriptions.
Use the customer database collected through your POS loyalty program to target marketing campaigns for individual customer preferences. Customized marketing campaigns are incredibly popular right now, and many customers now expect a unique offers tailored to their needs. A restaurant POS can use your loyalty program to collect customer data and trends, which you can use to create targeted campaigns that better incentivize customers to return and spread the word about your venue.
Use floor plan and table management to quickly find out how much is being spent at each table and when guests were seated. Hosts and managers may want to know, in real time, how long guests are taking to finish their meals, so they can keep service moving at a reasonable pace. If they see a table is lagging but spending a lot, it may be time for a server to upsell them on coffee. But if a table’s been seated for a while and they’re not spending much, it may be time for a subtle hint to pay the bill. Floor plan and table management can also help hosts give more accurate wait-time estimates based on how long tables have been sitting for, which can go a long way for eager customers waiting for tables. And when you’re able to associate time and money to each table and each section, your managers and hosts are much better equipped to keep service moving in a way that will make you the most revenue.
Your restaurant POS can help you take online ordering directly, or streamline orders from takeout and delivery apps like Uber Eats, Grubhub, DoorDash, and more. Suppose your restaurant POS provider offers a commission-free direct online ordering system, like TouchBistro Online Ordering. In that case, you can give customers the option to order directly from your restaurant in real time. These orders are then directly streamlined into the POS so staff know exactly what orders to prepare and when. Some restaurant POS systems also offer integrations with online ordering aggregators so you can see all the orders coming in from all your third-party food delivery services. This helps you streamline operations and reduces the amount of manual work needed to manage orders from multiple third-party apps – which ultimately reduces the risk of errors.
Offer a faster, more secure way to pay the bill. According to a study done by 451 Research, 44% of mobile customers routinely use a mobile app to make a restaurant purchase. Restaurants will need to keep up with this growing expectation, especially if they want to attract a new generation of diners. With a mobile payment processing integration, you’ll be offering your customers an EMV-compliant mobile payment option for top-notch payment security and convenience.
If you’re making a list of restaurant POS systems to choose from, focus on those that don’t store credit card information in their systems. POS companies that do not store information are considered more secure because they don’t handle or store any sensitive payment information. Your POS can also connect you with payment processors (like Chase, Moneris, PayPal) that are EMV compliant, which means they have the technology to accept debit and credit cards with embedded microprocessors that store and protect the cardholder’s data. This helps guard customers against theft and you against fraudulent credit card chargebacks. Some restaurant POS systems also offer integrated payments that provide security and a seamless experience for your guests, since they can order and pay all through the same system.
Know exactly how much your front-of-house staff are selling, how many voids they’re entering, and how long they’re taking with each customer or table. Restaurant POS reports can give you the scoop on staff performance so you can identify where mistakes are being made and course correct when you need to. See where additional training from your managers or other outside services might be helpful for staff members who aren’t quite up to snuff. On the flip side, your reports can also tell you who’s killing it so you know who to schedule when you’re at your busiest.
Nothing puts a damper on a customer’s restaurant experience than having their order come out wrong. These mistakes can cost you time, money, and customer retention. With a modern restaurant POS, your servers can take tableside orders on a mobile device, which helps reduce errors by eliminating a step: scribbling down an order before running to punch it in. Plus, tableside orders let servers communicate menu changes (like an 86’d pasta of the day) or modifications (like how they want their steak cooked) right when they’re needed.
A system of clear, consistent communication helps avoid errors that slow down service and frustrate customers. A restaurant POS can standardize how orders are communicated from front-of-house to back-of-house staff, organizing items on tickets and display systems so that they’re straightforward and easy to read. A POS can also communicate any modifiers or allergies that your kitchen needs to know before starting – without anyone needing to run to the back to explain a complicated order.
Schedule specials and promotions that run until you indicate otherwise, to reduce human error and time-consuming manual adjustments. Rather than making a customer wait while staff figure out how to subtract the early bird discount on their breakfast order or flag down a manager to apply a discount, program my restaurant POS to apply automatic discounts during specific times or on specific items. Do you want to offer a special price for coffee after the morning rush between 9:30 and 11:00 am? What about discounting domestic draught beer before the evening rush between 3:00 and 6:00 pm? You can set all of these parameters right from your restaurant POS, creating smoother service with fewer errors.
Prevent staff from inputting items that have already sold out, and save customers some serious time and disappointment. A restaurant POS with ingredient and inventory tracking can keep your staff informed of what’s happening in the kitchen. You can set warning prompts to alert servers about low availability on certain menu items or when an item gets 86’d. That way, if customers try to order an 86’d item, your staff can tell them right away that the item isn’t available – instead of making them wait before they find out.
“Separate bills, please.” Servers dread this request when a table is leaving, and customers hate being asked about it up front. But a restaurant POS can divide and calculate separate checks in a way that’s not painful for your staff or for your customers. Because really, splitting checks should take only a few taps.
To take bill splitting a step further, you’ll also want to make it simple to split items shared between guests. Is table 12 sharing nachos between all four guests but a bottle of wine between only two? A restaurant POS should let you split one menu item between different checks so that each customer can pay for their portion.
Manage customers at the bar who plan on staying for a few rounds and want to set up a bar tab. A restaurant POS helps you keep track of which drink orders belong to which customer by storing select credit card details as a tab. When that customer is ready to cash out, a bartender can use the POS bar tab to locate the right credit card and process payment. Smooth and easy. A modern iPad POS can also help you transfer bar tabs to a different table. Say a party wants to have a drink while they wait for a table to open up in the dining room. When that table is ready, your bartender can use the POS to transfer the tab over with just a few taps.
Offer a paperless option with emailed guest checks, adding convenience for customers and a cost savings for you. When a customer is cashing out, you can ask if they’d like their guest check printed or emailed. Customers love this option, since it means they don’t have to worry about losing itemized paper guest checks, which is especially handy for business meals that need to be expensed at the end of the month.
Get a real-time view of what was sold, when it was sold, who sold it, and which method of payment was used. Since your restaurant POS records every sale, it allows you to see extensive sales reports that give you a full look at how your venue performed that day. Like getting a daily health check from your doctor, you’ll always know if your business is in good shape or whether you should buckle down on improving your revenue.
Leverage your restaurant POS data to make labor decisions that will help your venue better perform: improve service with more staff during busy times and save money with less staff during slow times. By looking at POS reports, you can identify your busiest and slowest times on any given day. How many staff members do you need to keep a high level of service during the early morning rush? Can you push start times for Monday night servers to 6:00 instead of 5:00 pm when the dinner rush starts a bit later? These reports can also show if you need to adjust hours of operations, which can help decrease labor costs. Why open at 8:00 am when my first sale doesn’t come until 10:00? Your restaurant POS is the best tool to tell you when and where to make labor adjustments.
Why wait until the end of a day to see what’s selling at your venue? Through cloud reporting, you get remote access to real-time data on which menu items and menu categories are selling. If you need to make changes (price, promotions, ingredients), remote menu management lets you adjust what you need easily – even when you’re off site.
Spot underlying trends using historical data, and make decisions based on what’s worked for you in the past. Your POS is a hub of information, collecting a wide variety of datasets that you can drill into and compare: month to month, year over year, or for special occasions like the Super Bowl or UFC fight nights.
A POS used in restaurants can help you break down your total costs to see what you spent on food, alcohol, and labor. A restaurant POS helps you keep track of your costs over a customized time range. A food cost report, for example, can show you things like number of items sold, gross sales, gross costs, and what the cost represents as a percentage of the gross sales. Use these cost reports to cross-reference with your sales reports, and analyze upcoming purchasing and staff scheduling decisions.
Manage your inventory right from your POS, so you always know when, what, and how much to order. Modern POS systems designed specifically for restaurants let you track menu items as a whole or by counting individual ingredients. Your POS then becomes a complete inventory database that can notify you when you’re running low on top sellers, like your calamari appetizer or the strawberries that garnish your Tuesday night bellinis. Tracking inventory on a POS makes it that much easier to know when, what, and how to reorder from your vendors. Plus, when you keep an eye on inventory costs, you’ll be able to spot price jumps and know when to renegotiate with your vendors or find new ones.
POS performance reports can show you how individual staff members are doing by measuring things like their average cover (how much their customers are spending) and time per table turn (how long their tables are seated for). Use these performance reports to identify high performers and reward them, helping you retain those star employees longer. You can also see when and where staff are underperforming, so you’ll know when to ask your managers to provide more coaching or implement a buddy system, to help guide those who are struggling.
Create schedules based on target labor ratios, employee skill levels, and historical data. With a scheduling integration like 7shifts, your restaurant POS becomes a complete resource you can use to schedule staff easily. Enter employee information like average table turnover, special skills, and past performance, then pull up that data later when you’re making scheduling decisions. If Thursday night will draw a crowd for a special sporting event, your POS can find the servers best qualified to deal with a packed venue.
Avoid manually re-entering data into your accounting software, with integrations that export data automatically. A restaurant POS can connect to accounting software like Quickbooks, Sage, and Xero, exporting the latest sales data, labor reports, inventory costs, and more without any need for duplicate entries. Whether you need this data for your P&L, tax reporting, or investment proposals, you have everything all in one spot – accurate, up-to-date, and ready for your accountant or bookkeeper.
A restaurant POS lets you input and track promo codes, so you know how many customers were driven to your venue through a corresponding marketing campaign. Say you’re looking at the number of ice cream sales associated with the SUMMERBOGO promo code. That number tells you how many customers responded to that specific campaign. You can use this information to determine if it was worth what I spent printing and distributing flyers around the neighborhood. Or, compare last year’s data to see if the email campaign saw a better return on investment (ROI). Make decisions for future campaigns based on what you know will work.
Manage tip pool contributions and distributions to make sure everyone’s getting their fair share. If your venue organizes tip sharing or a tip pool – for just front of house, or front and back of house, depending on regulations in your area – you can set up a restaurant POS to automatically calculate the contribution amount when servers cash out or clock out. Managers and venue owners can then use tip pool data in the POS to distribute the funds among the team.
Protect your restaurant data from system crashes. Sometimes, no matter what we do to prevent it, technology fails us. With a modern POS, if something happens to your hardware – equipment is stolen by a former employee or destroyed in a small kitchen fire that also took the chef’s eyebrows – all is not lost. Restaurant POS systems can automatically backup your data safely on the cloud, meaning you have it with or without working hardware.
The POS Exchange brings over 20 years of restaurant expertise to the table, serving 200,000+ merchants and processing billions annually. Our tailored POS system solutions help businesses speed up checkouts by 30%, implement dynamic pricing, and manage customer reviews while reducing overhead. Perfect for:
We offer end-to-end service, from smart consultation and interactive demos to local installation and 24/7 support. Our mobile iPad POS systems streamline operations with features like:
With integrations for business management tools and advanced security measures, we ensure your POS system grows with your business. Trust our expertise to help you avoid the common pitfall that affects 38% of new business owners who choose the wrong POS system. The POS Exchange delivers customized POS system solutions that tell your unique business story whether you're managing:
Book a free demo with POS exchange to learn about our customized POS system solutions today.
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