Restaurant POS Software Buyer’s Guide
Restaurant POS Software Features
Loyalty Points
A loyalty points system is made to reward good customers. It can be set up to allow you to deal with diners in many ways, based on the type of customer. Some ways are discounts, gift cards, and special events, or other incentives to please you and your other customers.
To prevent theft of your valuable loyalty rewards, it is important to have a very secure and safe system. You want to make sure that the employees do not get to know where the loyalty points are located on the POS system. The POS system settings make the locking of these valuable points very secure.
To prevent someone from entering your POS system, all you need is a card reader connected to your computer. The POS system will lock as soon as the card reader enters. If your POS system and ATM machine are not password-protected, you don’t even have to worry about someone hacking into them.
Shift Scheduling
A shift scheduling feature is a great asset to everyone’s management. This is a feature useful for those who work in arrangements. It allows your staff to input the name of the person they want to work with so that you avoid multiple workers charging or entering their hours. It also lets your staff know which other workers are on the schedule day and night, as well as when you want them back to your restaurant.
Shift Scheduling Features
- Tasks can be assigned to different people to ensure that all employees are efficient with their work points.
- It helps prevent them from working too much so that they will get enough hours per day.
- Offers better wages because it doesn’t overcompensate different levels of people’s employment.
- A more efficient operation. Sometimes people argue that having multiple people are inefficient, but when you have highly trained and motivated workers, it actually results in an effective and motivated team.
- 360 degrees control 14 to 16-hour work shift times are fine but if you want more flexibility than just have two people do the job at the same time points.
Gift Cards
The Gift Card feature lets staff choose one of their different slots to purchase a gift card for. The employee will then prints and present the gift card to you for your presentation.
This is the best method because it reduces cost, increases morale, and allows some type of reward for good performance. Also, it allows everyone to buy their own gift cards since they will be right at home on the POS.
Order Entry
This is a feature that allows you to handle all the steps involved in ordering. Breakfast service, lunch, and dinner are great to create a very instinctual environment for guests. This feature allows for order entry of food supplies at the point of sale.
This ensures that the cashier is able to complete an order in case of a server error or dish that is out of stock. Anything left from an order is added back to the customer’s bill.
Inventory Management
The Inventory management feature will limit employees’ use of the equipment and food merchandise that is non-stock. This feature should only be used when a manager is not fully confident in an employee’s ability to use the equipment being kept idle. This function usually does not impact profitability since the purpose of the inventory is to reduce cost.
This feature helps with many things. More simply, it allows you to track what is on hand at your restaurant. It will keep an inventory of all stock items. You can use the cashier option (not connected to POS) to track the remaining amount of food or supplies order that is owed to staff.
Recipe Costing
The Recipe costing feature is a rollover pricing system. Meaning you will charge a customer the full amount of the items that went into one dish, regardless of the number of times it was re-made.
This is great for any restaurant where they do not have the ability to cook every single item fresh because of the limited size of the kitchen.
For example, if you were running a pub and could cook only 1 or 2 foods at a time (chicken nuggets or sausage rolls would be examples) you can charge full price for each recipe you make.
Restaurant POS System Prices
Usually, the restaurant POS-software charges per-month costs that vary depending on the number of terminals and locations and whether you’re only using software or need hardware as well.
Generally speaking, the prices range from around $69 – $99 per month for a single terminal aside from the costs of licenses. In some cases hardware requirements additional software such as MS Office, etc.
A small PC can be a POS system or a tablet-based system or any other computer system such as special medical scanners that require special software.
A tablet-based system is usually more expensive for two reasons – firstly, still requiring an operator with the system running and secondly, a tablet computer must be brought in every time a new purchase is made.
What are the Pros of Restaurant POS Software
- The Restaurant POS software is very easy to use after a little practice on your part.
- The restaurant POS software is usually compatible with many other POS systems. It may support a touchscreen as well. It also can be used on credit card terminals that accept the magstripe reader.
- It may support online payments.
What Should You Consider Before Buying Restaurant POS Software
- The software does not come with all features. It is a complete POS system suited for the restaurant industry.
- Sometimes, some restaurant POS software does not offer the option to customize the menu.
- It may be very costly.