Features to Look for When Choosing a Point-of-Sale System for Your Restaurant
A point-of-sale (POS) system is essential for any restaurant. It’s the place where your customer makes their purchase for the goods or services you offer. While every POS system looks a little different, they mostly consist of the same paret: a main computer that has several checkout terminals with hardware for checkout purposes. Some use barcode scanners, while others use card payment terminals. Believe it or not, POS systems have not been around all that long, with one of the first ones being built for McDonald’s back in 1974. Those who used the early models saw how it streamlined the check out process, making everything simple and fast. The idea caught on, and as technology improved, so too did POS systems.
Monify offers many POS systems to increase the efficiencies at your restaurant. Our POS solutions blend ordering and payment processing and bring them together for your restaurant management software. From tablet payment options to smartphone integration, we have the best POS software and equipment to meet your needs. Below, we’ll take a look at features to look for when choosing your point-of-sale system for your restaurant. Contact us to get started today!
FEATURES TO LOOK FOR WHEN CHOOSING A POS SYSTEM FOR YOUR RESTAURANT
Mobile Ordering & Contactless Payment
In a post-COVID-19 world, if you’re not offering your customers mobile ordering options and contactless payment, chances are you are losing customers. Servers can take orders on a tablet, inputting them directly for the cooks, which helps to eliminate human error. Payment at the table is a convenience many restaurant customers love. After all, you won’t have to give your credit or debit card to a stranger who then disappears with it, leaving you to wonder if the right order was charged and if it was only used for your transaction. No longer do you have to flag down your server as well when you are ready to leave and pay. Ensuring your POS equipment is mobile is a must in today’s world.
Inventory Management
Restaurants have small margins that have to be maximized in order to not only survive, but also to turn a profit. The key to inventory in the restaurant business is keeping just enough on hand that you don’t run out, but not keeping too much on hand that it spoils, or you have to find a place to store it. After all, no one likes to be told that their favorite meal can’t be made because a key ingredient is out. In fact, this may ruin people’s day if that is the only reason they visited your restaurant. With a POS system that also offers inventory management capabilities, you’ll be able to have one platform to be able to accept payments, and monitor your food costs, inventory usage, and your waste products as well.
Reporting Capabilities
Analyzing the numbers is crucial for a restaurant. You’ll need to be able to analyze your margins, your food and drink sales, how well your happy hour is doing, and more so that you can improve your inventory and keep trying new ideas to find what works well for you. For example, varying the hours of happy hour can make a difference, as well as your daily specials. You’ll need to be able to track these in order to determine their viability. The more detailed the reports, the better. Ideally, your POS system should be able to generate a sales report that shows different metrics, such as products, hours, employees, net profit, margins, and more. An accounting capability is appreciated as well, such as profit/loss and balance sheet capabilities. With Monify, we can help you find the perfect POS equipment for your restaurant’s needs. Call us to learn more today!
Employee Management
Having a user-friendly interface and POS system for your employees’ use is critical to its success. You should be able to add in new employees, create and manage their shift schedules, have the schedules emailed or texted to the employees, and be able to track employee hours so you don’t run into an overtime issue. It should also be easy for your employees to log their hours, which will prevent you from having to correct mistakes. Having a payroll management tool installed or as an option can be a great help and can help to streamline your payroll processing.
Customer Management
Customers are very discerning, and they know intuitively when they are just a number walking through your restaurant door on Friday night, or if you truly care about their customer experience. In a town full of restaurants, you need to differentiate yourself from the competition, and one way to do this is through your customers’ experience. Your point-of-sale system should be able to offer some sort of customer relationship management (CRM) tool to track your customers so you can implement a rewards system of some type. Easy rewards are birthday rewards and points rewards for purchases. All you need is a simple system that can track customers’ name, email, phone number, and birthdays. You can always implement a more complicated loyalty rewards program, but, in this case, the key is that something is better than nothing. Choose a POS system with CRM capabilities.
CHOOSE MONIFY AS YOUR POS SYSTEM PROVIDER OF CHOICE
Monify offers the best POS systems for your restaurant. But we don’t stop there. We aim to be your one-stop-shop for all of your business payment needs. In addition to our top-notch point-of-sale systems, we also offer payment solutions, cash management safes, financial technologies, consulting services, and much more. Our mission is to make running your restaurant as easy as possible by providing you with all of the tools that you need for payment processing and more in one, easy-to-use platform. By saving you time and money, we hope your restaurant will flourish as word gets out that not only do you offer the best food, but you also offer an efficient payment process, as well as great customer service and rewards. If you are looking for the best POS software, contact Monify today!