Having a restaurant POS system is very important for business owners, especially those in the foodservice business. However, not many restaurant owners are aware of the numerous benefits of a POS system.

A restaurant POS system does a lot more than accepting payments. It also helps you manage the operations in your establishment. In this article, well discover the numerous things a restaurant POS system can do for your business.

What can a restaurant POS do for my business?

A restaurant POS system has many functions. Here is a list of twenty things a restaurant POS system can do for your business:

1. It can speed the rate of your transactions

A good Restaurant POS system allows you to attend to Several customers in less time. It can eliminate several steps of the typical front-of-house workflow and help you get transactions done faster. The more customers you serve, the more money rolls into your coffers.

If you run a quick-service restaurant, a modern POS system can help speed up each of your employees’ transactions, thereby allowing them to move through the lines faster. Also, with a POS system, a cashier can attend to a long line of customers and take their orders in advance, which the cooks and baristas can get started on. The other cashier can then focus on processing payments.

In full-service restaurants, a mobile POS system allows your servers to take tableside orders. Tableside ordering takes a lot of work, and a POS system makes things easier. All they have to do is punch in the orders at once instead of writing them and rushing to the pos system. This way, errors can be greatly minimized, and the service will be faster.

It also enables a server to get more knowledge of the menu as they carry it around with them instead of running back and forth from the kitchen to ask questions about the food and ingredients. Everything they need is right there with them. Many restaurants have reported a 20% increase in sales after implementing tableside ordering.

2. It allows you to optimize your menu prices

With a good Restaurant POS system, you can break down your food cost percentages and contribution margins by day and menu. When you know how much it takes to make your menu, it is easier to spot opportunities to optimize your menu prices.

For instance, if you discover that the food cost percentage of your premium latte is above the industry standard of 20% to 40% (if the cost to make the latte is very close to the price a customer pays), it’s time for you to increase the price for the latte. When you decide to increase your menu prices, a restaurant POS system will enable you to update the prices from wherever you are.

3. It can help you push your most profitable menu items

A restaurant POS system can tell you which menu items are at the top of customers’ list and which ones bring you the most profit. Many restaurant owners mistake both for the same thing, but they’re not.

For instance, you may assume that your seafood pasta is your best food because of how many times the customers compliment the chef. But do the numbers show you how many of them are ordered for in a day? What about the total cost of making each of the dishes?
Your POS system can tell you that although the pasta dish sells very well, it is too expensive to make and doesn’t bring you much profit. It may have a higher food cost percentage than any other menu item.

You can also discover, through your POS system, that the Margherita pizza is the most profitable dish on your menu, although it’s not among the top sellers. Using promotions and recommendations from your servers, you can boost the sales of your most profitable dishes. You can check Chef Online to setup your own restaurant online ordering system.

4. A restaurant POS system can optimize your menu design and help you make more profit

You can use your POS data to optimize your menu design and influence how your customers spend. As soon as you’ve identified your high margin items, you can then place those items in a strategic position on your menu through your POS reports. This position is called the Golden triangle.
The Golden triangle is that part of your menus that the customers read first. They’re more likely to order items from that area. Placing your most profitable dishes in that area will boost the sales of those dishes and bring you more profit.

5. It can automatically increase your upselling

You can’t always rely on your staff to remember to upsell. With a POS system, you can automatically prompt your front-of-hoise staff to upsell with your POS.

Using a modern POS system, you can easily customize upsell prompts on any and every order. Let’s say a customer wants to order a Bloody Mary from the bar. The bartender punches in the order, and before they hit send, they see a pop-up modifier with an upsell option. The bartender asks the customer, “would you like to make that a double? How about our premium vodka?

Customizing upsell prompts makes it easier to train new employees because it’s built into the system. Also, it helos servers maintain a consistent level of service to customers.

Small upsells can greatly boost your bottom line over time. Automating the process will increase your average check size faster.

What are some advantages of a restaurant POS system?

1. It reduces employee theft

It is important to ensure that any inventory headed out the door has been paid for by the customer and not by you. Employee theft in restaurants is a serious threat.

It has been reported that employees have committed 75% – 85% of restaurant theft. 4% of restaurant sales are as a result of employee theft. Also, shrinkage (the amount of liquor lost from spills or waste) makes up about 25% alcohol sales.

Having a restaurant POS system can help you deal with employee theft in many ways. First of all, a POS system ensures that every item that has been ordered is tracked. For instance, if a barista wants to get a BLT from the kitchen with some extra bacon, they must enter it into the POS system.
Secondly, a POS system has special security settings that restrict what a staff can do within the system, and it is based on the staff’s position. For instance, a front-of-house staff cannot void an item, change a bill, or comp a birthday dessert without informing the manager. This reduces the number of freebies given to friends.

Lastly, a restaurant POS system keeps track of your inventory, ensuring that your sales report matches your inventory report. Your POS may come with integrations such as barvision (a combination of software that tracks alcohol spills), which can cut down shrinkage costs.

2. It can increase customer retention

You can create a loyalty program that rewards consistent customers and encourages them to keep returning to your business. They could also bring their friends!

This isn’t just a simple punch card that customers may lose, copy, or refuse to carry around. With a POS, the loyalty program is integrated into the system, tracks customer interactions, and creates a customer database that you can use in many ways.

Perhaps your loyalty program can have customers excited about saving their points for a free double espresso down the road. They could also visit your establishment two days in a row because they know they’ll get extra points.
A loyalty program can take any form. The major purpose is to create the perfect environment for consistent business.

3. A POS system can also help you create focused marketing campaigns

With a POS system, you can use the customer database from your loyalty programs to target market campaigns for individual customer preferences. Customized marketing campaigns are a big thing now in the foodservice industry. Many customers now anticipate unique offers that are designed to meet their specific needs.

Your POS system can collect customer data and trends from your loyalty program and set up targeted campaigns that offer great incentives for your customers to tell other people about your establishment.

4. It can help you manage your floor in real-time

You can use your floor and table plan to determine how much money is spent at each table. You can also keep track of when guests are seated.
Some hosts and restaurant managers would like to know – in real-time – how long it takes guests to finish their meals so they can ensure that service moves at a good pace. If they discover that a table is lagging buy spending more money, it may be the time to upsell them a cup of coffee. However, if a table is lagging and they’re not spending a lot of money, it may require a subtle hint to pay the bill.
A good floor plan and table management can help hosts give more accurate wait-time estimates using the number of time tables have been sitting. It can greatly help eager customers that are waiting for a table.

All tables are not equal. When you can associate a particular time and money to each table and each section, your hosts and managers find it easier to keep service moving in a way that will bring you the most profit.

Conclusion

A restaurant POS system has tons of benefits for your business. Investing in a modern restaurant POS system can skyrocket your revenue and increase your customer base in just a few months.

Author

Sumit is a Tech and Gadget freak and loves writing about Android and iOS, his favourite past time is playing video games.

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