Even with a Point-of-Sale system; running a restaurant could be the most difficult business to keep alive. From slim margins and employee theft, to long hours, owning a restaurant is hard.
(for those who do it regularly, we salute you!)
Then there’s other problems that can occur like mistakes on food/alcohol orders, employee theft, accounting issues when tracking of food inventor the list can be endless.
Aside from the above, you also have to deal with changing menu items, keeping track of tables, and making it easy to split up tabs.
To help with this, we’re going how a POS system can help you ultimately more profitable and which features you should consider when shopping a POS system for your bar or restaurant.
As someone who's worked in fast food and as a barista, we know how busy it becomes, and how hard it is to keep track of orders.
Invest in a system that's able to handle busy times. This may mean skipping out on the cheapest model, but your servers and customers will thank you when the system doesn't crash on a Friday or Saturday night.
Ah specials, menu items that are seasonal can bring in tons of money (I'm looking at you McRib and Pumpkin Spice), but also drive employees and owners insane since they have to update menus and alter the items in your system. Look for a POS that can add menu items and alter prices with ease.
It's unbelievably simple for employees to fleece your establishment and steal from your inventory.
This can come in the form of offering free meals without permission, or employees directly stealing food.
Now this isn't the same as giving out food that has to be thrown since it wasn't sold. That food is already been accounted for as a loss (you can give your employees someday old cookies and not go bankrupt). This is related to stealing food that has not been counted as a loss, throwing off your ordering and numbers of products in store.
Get a POS system that will help you catch employee theft with an excellent tracking system in it.
A lot of companies want to skip this feature, like waving insurances thinking it won't be necessary since technology never fails (when has that happened, name one time).
Look, even the best systems have the risk of faltering. So before the machines gain consciousness and take over the world through Skynet, you need to invest in customer support for your businesses.
It's even better if it's automatically included with your POS.
There's lots of other available features for POS systems, but these are some essentials you shouldn't skip.
If you’d like to learn more about what technologies steps to take with your own business, or would like a free demo, contact us here.
