How to Buy a Best Restaurant Point of Sale System
It’s hard to shop for a point of sale system, particularly if you haven’t operated a restaurant or vetted a system before. There are lots of elements of a point of sale system that will impact your business and sometimes it’s hard to know what those things are until you really start using a system. There are also lots of options out there and it can be difficult to recognize which point of sale systems you should look at.
To throw this query and find a point of sale system that best satisfies your needs I suggest that you take the following steps:
1. Make a specification list: Write down the major celebrations you will need to run your restaurant. The groupings I would list out might include: table service, bar service, take delivery orders, retail counter, quick service counter, online ordering, and kitchen operations.
Within each of these practice areas, one could make a long list of particular features, but that’s not something that you should necessarily do. Instead, focus on the areas that involve to you and drill down.
When we first open we will not do performance or take-out but we do intend to add that on in the future.” The fields I would drill feather on for this example are table setting and bar service, with an inconsiderable area of performance. I would further make a list of common purposes that are relevant but do not happen in these particular areas.
Toward table service, a “drill down” list strength includes:
Easy ability to take reservations
Easy ability to manage a waitlist
Flexible floor plan management
Ability to modify menu design quickly, set menu automatically for day/time of day
Split check functionality
Flexible modifiers
For bar service you would have different priorities:
Easy experience to manage tabs (especially if a bar has people that are not at situations at all times)
Ready to enter order quickly and advance to next order quickly
For insignificant things (such as delivery in the current example) we don’t need to go into as much detail but we still want to keep them in mind. For instance, for Delivery / Take Out I really require to make sure the system has functions to control these.
“Other” things that might matter to you:
Credit card processing options
Ability to accept gift cards
Time clock functionality
Tracking ingredients (more advanced functionality)
Integrations (accounting, payroll, etc)
Generally easy to use and easy to learn
Decisions to get help with set up and instruction? If you have more than a couple of monitors and printers it is likely advantageous to have a professional set up your system.
2. Talk to one or more restaurant owners: Find a restaurant that has similar operations like yours. Find out what system they are using. Ask them what headaches are caused by their current system.
3. Pull together your own stats: Before you start researching specific systems you should also make a list of the following information:
How many locations do you have?
How many terminals do you need per location?
What is your budget?
Cloud-based POS vs. local server POS. You don’t have to judge before looking at your opportunities but you should think about this as there are some major variations between the two types of systems. If you’re leaning towards a cloud-based system then you should look at further systems that are cloud-based, but still analysis server based systems. Some of the variations worth noting between the two: if you are attending for a system with lower start-up costs and with greater flexibility to access your data, then you should go with a cloud-based system. You may prefer the stability and “ownership” that comes with purchasing a POS that functions on a regional server and thus you may elect to go that route.
4. Evaluate specific point of sale systems: Do analysis online and make some calls or send some emails. Don’t spend too much time estimating any single system. Ask about the practice in general – is it cloud-based? What are common start-up costs given my needs of x extremities in x locations? Then get into the specific issues from your list – don’t be overly friendly and accept questionable answers. Ask right out: does your system handle reservations? Do you recommend gift cards? Does your system allow for split checks? Temporarily explain how transformers work in your system – what are some of the advanced conditioner purposes? By asking these detailed issues in the areas that matter to you and reading about the cost of each option you’ll be able to cull your list down from many opportunities to a few.
5. Schedule demos with the most equipped contenders: View a live demo of a few systems keep your list of subjects handy and ask to see the functions that matter to you. Get into more items about price and column quotes from each of the feasible point of sale businesspeople. Warrant that everything you need is included in the package being requested.
6. Decision time: Purchase the system that completely satisfies your needs.
