What is a POS System? Why Do I Need It For My Cafe or Restaurant?

What is a POS System?

Point-of-sale (POS) system is where your customer pays for the items or services that your company provides. POS facilitates the completion of a business transaction between a client and a company.

Today, everything is digitised. The simplest way to automate and digitise your restaurant operations is to simply install a POS system. This automated method enables you to keep track of sales, cash flow, and food inventories, and it’s great in simplifying bookkeeping.

Coffee shops and restaurants handle counter, seated, takeaway, and delivery orders and they are typically high-volume and fast-moving. That’s why business owners need a POS system that is reliable, long-lasting, and easy to use.

7 Reasons why POS system is a must-have for cafes and restaurants

Using the POS system can have positive effects on your business. It allows you to have a better control of your business operations. It lets you accept payments from customers quickly and securely, helps cut down employee theft, and more.

Let’s take a look at these reasons why you need a POS system in your cafe or restaurant.

1. Keep your customer queue quick and efficient

Providing your customers with what they need in a timely manner can make or break your business.

A POS system with a user-friendly interface will help you keep your customer’s line going as swiftly as possible.

While the speed with which your coffee shop POS system processes payments may not seem relevant at times when store foot traffic is minimal, it makes a significant difference during peak hours.

2. Securely store your business data in cloud

Choose a cloud-based POS system to keep all of your data safe and accessible. No need to worry about your data being lost if your hardware fails.

Working on the cloud has another advantage, you'll be more flexible as a manager because you'll be able to access your coffee shop management system from any computer, anywhere in the globe.

3. Efficient stock and inventory management

One of the worst mistakes you can make is not keeping a close eye on your stock and inventory section.

A smart POS system should have an integrated inventory management system that alerts you when stocks hit its reorder level.

This ensures that you never order an item when it is still in stock, as well as that your kitchen never runs out of supply. Your POS will assist you in avoiding inventory management errors that you might otherwise make unintentionally.

Over-ordering and under-ordering can be devastating for your restaurant. So, when choosing a restaurant POS, make sure it allows you to maintain tight control over this area.

4. Efficient customer relationship management and communication

As a cafe or restaurant owner, you must strive to maintain a solid customer relationship with your customers at all times.

You can certainly manage your whole client database with the help of your restaurant POS. You can have a central database of customers and segment them depending on their region, ordering habits, and order history.

Once you have all of your clients' information, you can immediately send out personalised SMS and emails telling them about new events at your restaurant, as well as special offers and discounts.

5. Receive real-time reports

You may not be physically able to visit your restaurant on a regular basis. With a POS system, you will no longer rely on your restaurant manager for sales data, because it will generate real-time information, ensuring that you are always up to date on the state of your business.

A cloud-based restaurant POS system may provide you with full information and records of all the operations that take place at your restaurant across all of your locations.

6. Higher security

A POS system's tracking capabilities allow you to keep track of all sales made during a particular time frame. This capability also has the added benefit of holding your employees accountable for all sales rung up and preventing employee theft.

It is common knowledge that the restaurant industry is a major victim of internal theft. Your restaurant POS will provide you with real-time reports of all sales, the amount of bills generated, stock available, and products sold, reducing the risk of theft and your reliance on your managers.

7. Better menu display

A POS system allows you to divide your menu into categories that are similar in nature, such as appetisers, main entrees, beverages, and desserts.

Using categories, rather than a traditional register where each price is manually entered or products are strewn about, allows employees to build a faster checkout process.

The most significant advantage of this function is that it allows your customers to have a more pleasant and efficient checkout experience.

Top POS software in UK

TouchBistro

TouchBistro is an all-in-one point-of-sale and restaurant management system that simplifies restaurant administration.

TouchBistro helps restaurateurs streamline and simplify their operations by combining the most important front of house, back of house, and guest interaction technologies into one powerful platform, allowing them to spend less time manually connecting the dots and more time connecting with guests.

Lightspeed POS

Lightspeed has two main products that provide cloud-based point of sale solutions for retail and restaurant businesses: Lightspeed Retail and Lightspeed Restaurant.

Lightspeed Retail includes complete inventory management, sales and data analysis, payments, customer management, and more.

Lavu

Lavu is a cutting-edge POS system that does more than just accept payments in the restaurant industry. Lavu allows owners and business leaders to connect with their customers on a deeper level by streamlining a client encounter.

Odoo

Odoo is an open-source software platform with hundreds of well developed business apps that is fully connected and customisable.

Odoo's user-friendly database can handle a wide range of business demands, including CRM, sales, project management, manufacturing, inventory management, and accounting, among others.

Odoo is an all-in-one software solution that caters to the demands of businesses of all sizes or budgets.

What to do next?

Implementing a POS system in your business can be beneficial you and your clients. If you want to know more about how to implement a POS system and upgrade your IT platform at the same time, go read our IT guide for small business.

Discover how to allocate a budget, define requirements, best practices, how to invest in security and everything you need to implement a successful IT plan. Read our IT guide for Small Business

Whether you operate a counter service or fancy restaurant, now is the time to make the necessary changes to boost client satisfaction. With the addition of a POS system, you'll be able to concentrate on what matters most in your business, the quality of your products and customer service.

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