Things You Need To Consider Before Purchasing A Restaurant POS System
How Many Restaurant POS Stations Will I Be Needing?
- Considering peak customer volume
When handling peak customer volume, you need to have a plan to be able to efficiently serve them all. - Considering the number of staff taking orders
One station per 3-5 servers would be sufficient for a table service environment. High volume areas such as bars and cashier stations may need to have a dedicated station for that purpose. When switching to a POS system from a cash register many people unintentionally forget that their POS system will not only be used to cash out customers, but will now be used for order entry as well. - Restaurant layout
A proper restaurant layout affects your employees service. So if you have a bar, assigning a separate station for your bar tender would be easier since he can serve customers from there quickly. - Assigning stations effectively where customers pay for their meals
Having proper locations where customers can pay for their meals is also important, you don’t want to keep them waiting do you? For paying at the front, you should have one or two dedicated cashier stations to allow speedy transactions.
Which style of POS computer is best?
- Desktop PC: the standard desktop type.
- Least expensive computer option
- Has onsite warranty for 3 years
- take more span but can easily be positioned so it can’t cause any hassle for your customers when paying
- Has greater flexibility for addition of extra ports
- Latest CPU speeds and memory
- Screen and computer are separate; in case of technical difficulties problems are isolated.
- Small form factor (SFF): smaller than desktops.
- Compared to the standard computer, SFF is more stylish
- Has 3 years standard onsite warranty
- More Space Saving
- Fewer options for expandability
- Latest CPU speeds and memory
- Screen and computer are separate; so you can easily isolate which ones has technical difficulties.
- All-in-one terminals: combining touchscreen technology and computer.
- Stylish, space-saving terminal with fewer wires required
- Has 1-2 years warranty (Not onsite)
- Comes standard with sufficient ports for almost any operation
- CPU speed is generally slower than the other two options but sufficient for the Point of Sale needs.
- Screen and computer are combined
How many cash is ideal for my retail business?
- This is probably fairly self-evident, but unless your servers carry their own cash bank you should have a cash drawer at every station you want for ending transactions.
Should I consider having integrated debit cards?
- Using your POS systems to process credit card transactions allows you to keep records of every transaction you process in one convenient location.
- You can reduce 3-4 seconds per transaction using with the advance of high speed internet.
- A standalone terminal can be used in place if you do not have high speed internet connection.
How many kitchen/bar printers?
- Having one kitchen printer will probably be sufficient for most restaurants; however, if you have different sections in your kitchen which handle different dishes you may want a printer for each section.
- Think about this, appetizers can be printed on one printer and have all your main dish printed on another.
- When choosing for printers to use for your kitchen and bar, use impact (dot-matrix) printers instead of thermal printers. Why? Because tickets that are printed on thermal printers becomes unreadable when exposed to heat, and the loud printing of impact printers can alert your cooks and bartenders that an order is coming through.
Do I need more that one receipt printer?
- Having a receipt printer at every station would be better than just having one.
Is a back office computer needed?
- A back office computer is good for allowing managers to run reports, access the system to make changes to menu, check inventory levels, or adjust employee time clock times, without disturbing servers and cashiers.
- It’s not quite necessary to have a back office computer for your restaurant, if you have less than 4 stations.. It is however a great idea that you host your database on a back office computer if you do have 4 or more stations so that none of the stations has the additional load of running the database.
More information is available at POS-For-Restaurants.com
The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types and sizes throughout the U.S.
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