Do you want to grow your business and experience a significant increase in profit? Then you must start using the newest technology available that can streamline your operations while increasing client satisfaction.
One essential piece of technology is a restaurant POS system, which makes handling payments a breeze. However, not all POS systems are created equal.
In this article, you will find the must-have restaurant POS features that will help you choose the best system for your business:
Ultra-secure payment processing
On top of good food and great prices, customers expect restaurants to provide convenience and payment safety. Therefore, a good POS system should be able to process and accept any type of payment, such as:
- Cash;
- Debit or credit card;
- Smartwatch and mobile payments.
Each payment must be protected by end-to-end encryption to ensure your client's data is secure, no matter what payment method they choose.
Here are some other useful restaurant POS features regarding payment:
- Refund online orders: sometimes there will be accidents such as food spilling or delivery person being unable to get the order in time. This is why it is important to have the ability to refund online orders in seconds, with just a few clicks;
- Void items by server: if there is any problem with one of your dishes, servers must be able to remove them from the check immediately to not upset a client further and risk a bad review.
Restaurant analytics data
Monitoring your restaurant data will help identify and solve any problems with your business and ensure it is on the right track to more profit.
There is no need to invest in a separate restaurant analytics software when you can have this feature embedded in your restaurant POS system. When you choose your POS system, ensure that it gives you access to the following valuable restaurant statistics:
- Financial analysis for each day that includes net sales, order types, type of payment, and even offered discounts;
- Employee financial report to help you identify which of your staff members is performing the best and who needs some encouragement to better their service;
- Journal report that will show you all the events that happened during a sale that will make it easy to identify if there is any fraudulent activity;
- Most wanted menu items and categories to make it easy for you to identify which dishes should remain on the menu and which need to be improved.
Staff management software
An efficient restaurant POS system will enable you to easily manage your staff from a dedicated dashboard with an intuitive interface. To keep your business safe and ensure each employee knows their responsibilities, you can:
- Assign different responsibilities to different employees, such as manager access to financial operations;
- Give cash privileges only to selected servers to protect your funds;
- Erase employees from the system when their contract is terminated;
- Train employees by using the system’s training module before you give them access to all POS operations.
Furthermore, one of the best restaurant POS features is having RFID key cards for instant POS login. This way, employees can just scan their card when they need to use the POS, and not spend a lot of time manually logging their information.
Integrated online ordering
It is no secret that expanding your sales online can help you grow your sales significantly. After all, you can only serve a limited number of clients in the restaurant, so you need to provide online ordering to increase your profit.
To simplify your business operations, choose a POS system with integrated online ordering that allows you to accept online orders through the POS and immediately send them to the kitchen printer.
Furthermore, you will also get access to online ordering data which makes it easier to have an overview of your whole business. These are a few examples of must-have online ordering statistics:
- Preferred payment options;
- Best performing order types such as delivery, pick-up, and in-store, so you can identify opportunities for growth;
- Best and worst-selling menu items;
- Which promotions worked and which didn’t attract clients;
- Sales trends to identify which actions bring in the biggest revenue;
- Website analytics with tips on how to improve the number of clients.
If you want to get a bigger number of online orders, consider using an intuitive restaurant website builder to generate a sales and SEO-optimized website. The higher you rank in searches, the more clients you will get.
Moreover, if the website is easy to use and leads people to the online restaurant menu immediately, clients will be motivated to order again and again.
Ability to edit restaurant menu
Imagine this situation: a client places an online order, and your staff confirms it, only for it to reach the kitchen where the chef notices he has run out of the necessary ingredients. This will lead to an unhappy customer that may hurt your restaurant's reputation.
To prevent this, you need to have one of the best restaurant POS features: the ability to edit your restaurant’s online menu from the POS’s dashboard. For example:
- Mark dishes as out of stock when you run out of ingredients to prevent client dissatisfaction;
- Set up a stock quantity for the pre-prepared menu items to make inventory management easier;
- Make some menu items available only on certain days if you have a rotating menu;
- Add allergens and nutritional values to menu items to appeal to a larger audience;
- Enable modifiers such as sizes and toppings to increase the average order value.
Final words
Using technology can turn your restaurant into a well-oiled machine that not only makes all your operations run smoothly but also makes work easier for your employees.
Before you decide on your new system, do your research, and ensure it has all the restaurant POS features listed above. They are imperative for growing your sales, attracting new customers, and increasing client satisfaction which leads to more loyal clients.