Top 30 Things A Restaurant POS Can Do For Your Venue ( And Why You Need One)
A restaurant point of sale (POS) system is not just a fancy cash register, but a command center for your entire restaurant. Not only can your POS system handle transactions of all types, including call-in and online orders, but it can also help you generate more revenue for your restaurant.
In this guide, we’ll share all of the ways that a POS system can reduce operating costs and improve your restaurant management workflow.
What is a Restaurant POS System?
A restaurant POS is a point of sale system that takes orders, collects payments, and helps you manage your entire restaurant, including the front and the back of the house.
A restaurant POS system can be used by multiple types of restaurants, such as quick service, full service, food trucks, and hotels and resorts.
If you have a mom and pop family restaurant, you’ll enjoy the way that a POS system can simplify your day to day management. It can help with inventory management and scheduling. It can also be used to provide a superior customer experience.
How?
Your restaurant POS will enable you to offer more to your customers, such as the ability to order online through your own restaurant website (which you can process through your POS), and the option for customers to skip the line and order at their table.
And if you have a franchise, you can use a POS to streamline all of your operations into a single system. Your POS system can automate many different types of operations that are unique to franchises, such as multi location management and the ability to build menu items based on individual locations.
But whether you have a small restaurant or several franchises, a system like Truffle POS is capable of handling every need.
Additionally, a restaurant POS system is efficient because it allows you to tackle many things at once.
While you could have separate components to handle the different aspects of running your restaurant, a modern system like Truffle POS provides an all-in-one solution. Through our POS, you can accept in-person orders and online orders. You can manage deliveries, and even send directions to your drivers. Your POS can also provide real time reports on what’s in stock, what dishes are in demand, and what items you need to order more of.
Bottom line: If you have a restaurant, you need a point of service restaurant system to make you more productive and powerful.
That’s just a small overview of what your restaurant POS system can do. Below, we’ll explore many of the benefits you’ll gain from a system such as Truffle POS.
Let’s get started. Here’s what you can do with a restaurant POS system:
1. Connect Your Entire Restaurant
From your hostesses to your cooks, you can have one POS system to manage everything in your restaurant. Your POS can help you manage your entire restaurant. This central control station also means that you don’t need to log into multiple systems that may not be compatible with each other.
2. Accept Online Orders
One of the most in-demand features that modern customers look for is the ability to order online. With the right POS system, you can offer online ordering and process those orders through your POS. This cuts your reliance on third party services to provide online ordering capabilities to your customers.
Online ordering functionality also reduces error. It’s easy to make a mistake when taking call-in orders.
Another benefit to online ordering is that you can improve your customer service. Instead of making customers wait on hold or call back when they encounter a busy signal, offer the option to order online. This frees up your front staff, while also giving customers increased flexibility to order online. Plus, online orders tend to bring in more revenue because customers have an opportunity to look over the entire menu and make changes without feeling rushed.
Online orders can connect directly to your kitchen and bypass the front staff which is more efficient than ordering by phone (but your POS can still handle traditional call-in orders, too).
3. Empower Your Customers
Your POS doesn’t just make sense for you and your staff. It can also act as an added value to your customers. In addition to online ordering, you can enable self-service at your tables. This way, your customer can place an order without interacting with your staff. This is an efficient solution if you have a busy restaurant and don’t want your customers to wait for someone to take their order.
4. Offer Curbside Pickup
Through your POS, you can offer your customers the option to pick up their order in the restaurant or curbside. Providing the curbside option will ensure that you comply with local health mandates as well as give your customers a safe and satisfying experience. Curbside is perfect for those customers who want to minimize contact and exposure to germs and crowds. This is a key convenience to offer in the middle of a pandemic, and can be set up in your restaurant POS.
5. Create Your Own Food Pickup System
In addition to offering curbside pickup where a staff brings out the order, you can go completely contact free and allow your customers to pick up their order from a secure lockbox. Your customers can unlock the food warming locker by scanning a QR code with their smartphone.
6. Implement a Kitchen Display System
Your POS system can connect to your kitchen display system. This will automatically improve communication between your front and your kitchen staff. This also allows you to accept online orders immediately and make changes in real time, without waiting for staff to come back and relay the message.
7. Minimize Your Paper Consumption
With a restaurant POS system, everything happens digitally. And that’s a good thing. Less paper means less confusion and zero opportunities for an order to get lost. You’ll also reduce ticket time.
8. Empower Your Cloud Kitchen
If you have a cloud kitchen (also known as a ghost kitchen), you need a restaurant POS system. A restaurant POS will funnel all of your online orders in one place which allows you to manage menus across different brands and track orders accordingly.
9. Customize Customer Displays
Deliver a delightful experience to your customers at the point of service by customizing what menu items they’re shown. You can upsell certain items, such as top sellers or those with ingredients you need to use that day, which can also help you manage waste.
10. Create a Customer Loyalty Program
Reward your most loyal customers. Your POS can recognize repeat customers and those who have enrolled in loyalty programs.
You can also encourage word of mouth marketing through incentive programs that you manage on your POS. For example, you can offer referral codes or coupons through your POS for customers to share with their friends and family. This enables them to spread the word about your restaurant.
11. Create Digital Menu Boards
Instead of printing an expensive static display menu, you can set up dynamic digital menu boards in your venue. These are synced to your POS system and can be updated whenever you change your menu offerings.
12. Learn More About Your Customers
Your POS system can help you learn more about your customers, such as what menu items are most popular. You can also create reports to analyze a customer’s order history to learn more about their buying habits.
13. Provide Automated Alerts
Your POS can increase customer trust by providing automated alerts. This notifies customers on the status of their order, which is an important feature for both take out and delivery.
14. Secure Customer Data
Your POS system should protect your customer’s credit card information during a transaction. Ensure that your POS system is Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliant.
15. Sell and Accept Gift Cards
Another excellent way to increase revenue is by selling and accepting gift cards. You can do that through your restaurant POS system. This allows you to market your restaurant for those who haven’t tried it before.
16. Get Insight Into Staffing
Are you overstaffed or understaffed for the upcoming week? Your POS system can help you forecast and manage your staffing needs. Everything you need to create schedules can be done through the POS, too. In Truffle POS, we offer an integration with 7shifts which allows you to manage everything from timesheets to tips. Additionally, you can use your POS system to analyze employee performance, identify top performers, and spot coaching opportunities.
17. Accept Multiple Payment Options
Through your POS system, you can accept multiple forms of payment, such as credit cards, gift cards, and cash. You can even split the check, which makes it easy for your customers to pay.
18. Manage Inventory
The inventory management feature in your POS system ensures that you know what’s in stock at all times. Through this powerful feature, you always know what needs to be ordered so that you’re never caught in a bind.
19. Provide Contactless Ordering
Instead of touching a screen or ordering directly from your staff, your customers can order remotely—online, through a table-size tablet, or from their smartphone. All of this is powered by your restaurant POS system.
20. Store Your Data in the Cloud
Not all restaurant POS systems are cloud-based, but Truffle POS is. Here’s why cloud-based matters in a POS system: A cloud-based, or internet-based system means that you can access your system from anywhere with an Internet connection. If you need to review a schedule, make quick changes to a menu, or review inventory on the fly while away from the restaurant, you can do so easily.
21. Make It Easy for Staff to Take Orders
Modern POS systems offer touch screen technology which can provide an intuitive experience for your staff. You can improve order accuracy and reduce wait times by investing in the right POS system. Touch screen POS systems reduce errors that arise from manually taking orders.
22. Manage Your Own Deliveries
Instead of working with a third party to handle your deliveries for your restaurant, you can take back your power. Hold on to the commission that you would otherwise pay out to a third party by hiring and deploying your own drivers. Also, by managing your own deliveries, you can take charge of your customer’s experience, from order to delivery.
23. Speed Up Order Delivery
Because your POS will talk to the back of the house, there’s no delay in receiving orders. This allows your kitchen staff to start preparing the menu item right away.
24. Analyze Your Performance
Find out which menu items are performing best through detailed reports from your POS system. You can also use these reports to optimize your orders and decide when it’s time to re-negotiate with vendors.
25. Minimize Waste
Use your POS system to know what’s happening in your inventory so that you can reduce waste and prevent your staff from ordering too much of one product. Analyzing your stock levels will also give you the opportunity to get creative with menu items and introduce specials of the day.
26. Modernize Your Work System
Instead of reconciling receipts and processing credit card payments manually, your POS system can do all of it automatically. This saves time, eliminates human calculation error, and gives you access to immediate reports about your restaurant.
27. Reduce Theft
Did you know the biggest reason inventory shrinks is due to employee theft? It’s unfortunate, but it happens. However, a POS system can help you keep an eye on your inventory so that if you suddenly dip in an item, you’ll be able to track who was working on that date and properly investigate the cause of the stock shortage.
28. Generate Reports
As mentioned above, you can generate all sorts of reports through your restaurant POS system, including: Kitchen production, sales, staff productivity, top performing dishes, deliveries, vendor billing, net profits, etc.
29. Create Specials
Using your POS system, you can run specials, promos, discounts, and offer coupons. You can designate special prices for a specific time, item, or set of items. And you can track promo codes to find out what marketing campaigns are working and what needs to be re-tweaked.
30. Automatically Update POS Menu in Real Time
If an item is sold out, you can 86 it in real time through your POS system. You can also make those menu items unavailable for ordering. This reduces customer frustration and eliminates back and forth between your front and back staff.
Looking for a POS system that offers all of those benefits and more?
Look no further than Truffle POS. Truffle POS is a smart all-in-one online ordering and POS system that will not only bring your venue into the 21st century, but also future-proof it.
Want to see how we can revolutionize your restaurant management? Click here to book your free, 30-minute demo with Truffle POS now.