Ensuring a seamless transaction process for your restaurant is an essential element for productivity and growth. Typically, an optimized process allows you to eliminate pain points for customers while making it faster and easier for you to accept payments. As such, when shopping for the right Point of Sale (POS) system, there are varied features you need to look at before making your decisions.
In this post, we’re going to explore some of the features you need to consider when shopping for the right POS system. Read on to learn more.
1. Floor Plan and Menu Management
A good system will allow you to manage your menu and floor plan to improve the overall customer service. With the management interface, you can customize your courses determine where to place different menu items. Most software programs allows you to use colors and sort order numbers to plan your menu.
It will also allow you to view a floor plan depicting your restaurant’s plan. With simple steps, you can set up your floor plan and separate it into sections. You can then assign your staff members to each section. This kind of flexibility makes managing and growing your restaurant easy.
2. Table-Side Ordering and Payments
To ensure quick service to your customers, get a system that supports table-side ordering and payment. In this case, your staff generates a receipt of the order right at the table and customers pay using their credit cards. This allows you to use fewer staff to handle many requests and customers will experience shorter wait times when placing orders. For these tasks, you need a system with a user-friendly interface for both your customers and staff. Table-side ordering also helps to reduce the risk of stolen or lost cards with a simple checkout experience for customers.
3. Inventory Management
You should also choose a POS system that allows you to manage your inventory. For every sale you make, the system deducts it from your inventory and notifies you when a particular product is running low. Some systems allow you to integrate your back house, front house, and the kitchen together to ensure a seamless inventory management. A good system will also allow you to set benchmarks for every item. This means you can get notified when your items hit their milestones and place reorders.
4. Loyalty Programs
One way you can reward your loyal customers is through offering loyalty programs. An ideal restaurant POS system will allow you to facilitate that with much ease. With the system, you don’t need to print loyalty cards. It has a customer database that stores every single transaction, and you can easily identify frequent customers whom you can reward. This way, you can integrate it with popular merchants and programs to run your own program. Your customers can redeem their gift cards, and you can monitor your loyalty program efficiently. The use of such rewards and promotions helps you to increase sales in the long run.
5. Reporting Tool
Your restaurant reports allow you to get the information you need to make sound decisions for your business. For that reason, ensure you get a system that will enable you to generate scannable sales reports for every month or fiscal period. Your team can use this business data to gauge the performance of your business and compare it to past reports. The system should also generate menu reports to help you identify fast-moving menu items, and this is important in planning your inventory and orders. Labor reports are also critical in managing and organizing your staff to ensure maximum productivity.
6. Compatibility with Third Party Systems
Do you use third-party systems, such as QuickBooks, Retail Pro and SAGE? If so, you need to consider a POS system’s compatibility with such programs. For example, a system that is compatible with QuickBooks will make your accounting and bookkeeping rather feasible. You can transfer data easily to the third party systems and automate your transaction process to optimize your business. This integration saves you time as it allows you to focus on running and growing your business. It also saves your staff the frustration of using different systems for various tasks.
If you’re a new restaurant owner, taking the time to find and review different POS systems before choosing the ideal one for your restaurant is important. Today, businesses are leveraging these systems to process payments and ensure improved business management. Also, cloud-based systems can be accessed from any browser using any connected device. Don’t forget to inquire about customer service when picking the right system as that’s one of the most important factors.
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