These days, running a restaurant without the help of a cloud-based POS system is unthinkable. Customers demand you provide modernized convenience features, such as online ordering and self-order kiosks. Modern businesses must use reporting features on a regular basis if they’re to have the intelligence needed to make informed management decisions. And seeing as how the most successful restaurants already use POS systems, you’ll need the best one you can find if you’re going to stay competitive.
Practically every aspect of restaurant management can become easier and more efficient using a leading POS system. But what do the top point of sale systems for restaurants have in common? What characteristics do they share and what are their most important capabilities? Here’s what you need to know to avoid all of the poorly-designed or overpriced POS systems out there, and find one that can help you achieve your restaurant’s goals.
Common Features of Top Point of Sale Systems for Restaurants
The best POS systems are built by people who understand the challenges restaurant owners face. That’s why you’ll find that the top POS systems are cloud-based, enabling staff to collaborate and access data from anywhere; offer analytics and insights small restaurant owners seldom have access to; and are incredibly easy to use. Here’s what sets the best systems apart from all the bad solutions cluttering the market.
Reporting features
Large chain restaurants have advantages proprietors and entrepreneurs don’t. They have armies of business analysts and sophisticated tools in place that generate intelligence. This makes it easier for the management of large chains to make informed decisions. That leads us to the first thing top point of sale systems for restaurants have in common; they have reporting features that give small restaurant owners these same exact capabilities.
The best POS systems help you to better understand your business using rich reporting that creates deep insights. You can customize reports, enabling you to zero in on the specific insights and answers to questions you’re really looking for. You could learn about sales; by product, category, tag, supplier or employee. Generate sales summary, timesheet or cash drawer reports. And you can download all your reports to Excel. Because large chain restaurants aren’t the only ones who can access the best intelligence—your restaurant can have the same opportunities, too.
Cloud-based access enables fast collaboration
The best POS systems are designed to help your restaurant work as a team, especially during rush hours. With an easily understood touch-screen display, these systems let all staff members pass orders seamlessly to the kitchen or bar, in real time.
This is powerful—by the time your server has finished taking an order, your bartender will already have seen it. Drinks can arrive before the server even departs. Your server doesn’t ever have to go to the bar or kitchen to deliver an order, either, freeing them to stay with your customers on the floor.
Another benefit of the cloud is remote management. You can access your system or its data any time from anywhere, as both are automatically synced up across devices and over the Internet. This allows you to update menus, track inventory, and adjust scheduling at your convenience. Who says you can’t work from home in the restaurant industry? Better yet—if your business has a second, or third, location, you can manage them all from the same tablet.
Ease of use
We all know how chaotic a restaurant can be, especially when you’re running the hottest spot in town. That’s why the most important feature of the best POS systems is that they’re easy to use.
Touch-screen displays must be simple and direct enough that anyone can read them clearly at a glance. And that isn’t just for servers— the same must be true of the displays used by customers and kitchen staff too. Kitchen display systems, online ordering apps and self-order kiosks must all be as user-friendly as possible.
Ease of use doesn’t only apply to displays, but to processes, also. In the best POS systems, use of inventory, employee and customer management features can be quickly learned by anyone. But when you do have questions, you’ll find that the best POS systems all offer free support that’s available 24/7, every day of the year. Help is available through online chat, email or phone conversation with a real person, not a chatbot. And with flat monthly pricing that’s not usage based, leading POS systems are not only easy to use, but are easily affordable.
Give Your Restaurant the Opportunities it Deserves
Complex problems call for advanced solutions. And by understanding what the top point of sale systems for restaurants have in common, you can choose a solution that will give you the same software capabilities your larger competitors currently enjoy. After all, bigger isn’t better.
Your food’s quality is driven by your passion for cuisine, while great service is the product of an empowered staff. Have the same capabilities as your larger competitors and unlock a world of opportunities—to serve more customers professionally, and more efficiently.
Face it, your food is probably better than what the large chain restaurants in your area offer because you love what you do. Ensure more customers get to taste your food by managing your shop using the best POS system available.
talech is the best POS system restaurant owners can invest in. It has all the features large chain restaurants have access to. This helps level the playing field and enables even the smallest mom-and-pop eatery to become highly competitive in the local dining market. You can access it any time, anywhere and adopt it for an affordable price. To see why talech is the best, request a free demo of our POS system.
