Key factors of Restaurant POS System You Must Know

For any restaurant enterprise, the hub and starting point of any order is its point-of-sale (POS) system. This is where the action takes place, a server can place orders and take payment.

As technology and customer experience have evolved, businesses increasingly rely on restaurant POS system features to run their business. A restaurant POS smoothly processes orders, accepts payments, and checks inventory levels.

Yet while it's becoming indispensable to businesses across industries, not all restaurants are. Many small shops still use analog cash registers and/or spreadsheets to process transactions and update inventory – and they're missing out on what's possible with restaurant POS system features.

Let's see what restaurants can do with the right POS system. Here are important restaurant POS system features that can simplify business operations and make running a restaurant easier.

Inventory Tracking

Striking a delicate balance between ingredients on hand and customer demand can make or break an operation. One of the industry's biggest challenges is figuring out which items are popular and which remain on the shelves.

POS software can significantly reduce those figures by automatically keeping inventory levels up to date. You can a record of what you're running out of and what customers aren't interested in. Some POS solutions can even notify you when you're running low on certain items – critical during times of high volume. The last thing you want on a busy Saturday night is to run out of your best-selling entree.

Sales Reporting

POS software can generate sales reports and help managers track the performance of individual establishments at different locations. Such reporting highlights which items are selling the fastest and shows businesses how to focus on the biggest revenue generators. This data is critical for demand and revenue forecasting.

Depending on the POS system, reporting capabilities may include total sales, sales for any given period, sales by item or category, and sales by item or server. Entrepreneur Magazine reports that by using an integrated POS system, an independent retailer can reduce costs by nearly 10%.

Customer Management

Some restaurant POS systems have the ability to store basic customer data such as names and contact information. This data can offer sales managers and servers the ability to personalize the dining experience and by which improve customer loyalty

By collecting customer details, retailers can identify valuable customers and anticipate their orders. After all, there are few things as comforting as the old notion of going somewhere everyone knows your name and dinner order.

Kitchen Communication

POS systems are important for strong communication and order accuracy in your restaurant or bar. Use a restaurant POS system to easily track orders and ensure customers receive their food quickly and accurately. Some restaurant POS system features allow you to send orders from any front-end device to the kitchen with the push of a button.

Payments and Labor Tracking

With a restaurant POS system, you can track hourly total sales, average sales, taxes, voids and discounts, and payments by credit card, cash or gift card.

You can check job summaries for hourly labor costs and percentage of sales. There are also software solutions that allow you to view hours by employee and employee classes.

Security

A proper POS system should come with a cash drawer to help manage security at the point of sale terminal. By using two cash drawers attached to a single, shared POS terminal and printer, each drawer is assigned to a single server. This type of POS system and cash drawer allows managers to hold employees accountable for integrity.

In-Depth Reporting

When choosing a restaurant POS system, you need to keep in mind what reports you want to receive from the software. With the proper POS software, you can check complete reports on everything from labor to sales to activity.

By bringing in the latest innovations in POS systems, restaurants are investing in the resources they need most. POS software solutions offer a variety of features, but if companies focus on the most critical ones, they rarely fail.