Best Restaurant POS Systems: The Ultimate Guide
It’s essential for any restaurant to have a good POS system because it helps make sure that you get to manage your inventory and automatically record sales data with little to no effort.
This will make it easier for you to run your restaurant as you no longer have to focus on things that are usually out of a restauranter’s expertise. That said, we are here to give you a list of the best restaurant POS systems that you may want to use if you are running your own restaurant.
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1. Best Overall: Square POS
Square POS is great for different businesses, whether they may be table service, bars and lounges, coffee shops, bakeries, food trucks, counter service, and all other types of similar businesses. That’s why it is one of the most popular names when it comes to restaurants.
Best features
- Zero monthly fees that you have to worry about
- Sales tracking is on a per-item basis that is easy to keep track of
- Offers you 24/7 round-the-clock support
Other features such as a menu, inventory, and layout management are also part of the basic software package that you buy when you purchase Square. Some add-ons are great enough for different types of business as well. That’s why Square POS is as popular as it is as it comes with neat features that are all easy to use. Of course, the support team is also fairly useful but is more of just an added benefit to an already great package.
Other features
The one thing that stands out when it comes to Square POS is that it comes with a wide range of different features that any restaurant owner will love. There are plenty of different restaurant management features that you can easily customize in terms of the layout to easily group items together and make it easier for you to see and keep track of your top sellers. Moreover, the bulk additions feature will allow you to quickly update the menu when you think of new dishes that you want to add to your offerings.
On top of that, Square POS also comes with a good range of third-party integrations that will make deliveries and pickups easier on your part. There are even other third-party tools that will help you keep track of your employee’s time and for you to manage your reservations easier as well. In that sense, Square’s different features are great for any restaurant because it is more than just a simple POS system.
You will also love how Square comes with an intuitive and easy-to-use table management feature that will easily allow you to manage your tables with a quick click-and-drag system. This will allow you to find ways to free up space and accommodate more customers in your restaurant. And the best part is that you can use the same feature to monitor all of the tables in your restaurant so that it will be easier for you to see which ones are in use and which ones are not.
But the meat of any POS system is in the way it reports. In that regard, Square also offers you impressive reports that will allow you to see different types of summaries in terms of your sales per category. And you can even see different trends, such as how many items of certain dishes were sold during a shift. This will allow you to have a more focused style of running your restaurant.
Pricing
As we said, Square POS comes with no monthly charge. So, in place of a monthly fee, you have to pay the following fees:
- 2.6% + 10 cents of each card-based sale
- 3.5% + 15 cents for each keyed-in transaction
- 2.9% + 30 cents for online sales
So, as you can see, the way Square charges you are on a per-sale basis instead of a fixed monthly fee. This means that you will be paying a charge that depends on your overall sales such that it will be easier on your part if your restaurant wasn’t doing well during a certain period.
2. Best for Kitchens: TouchBistro POS
TouchBistro POS was developed as a POS system for restaurants from the start instead of slowly integrating restaurant features into this POS system. This means that its features are geared towards restaurants, and that is what makes this POS system so popular in terms of the features it has for the kitchen.
Best features
- Comes with a free trial so that you can check whether or not you like it
- Comes with bill-splitting that can be great for groups that tend to split the bill
- It has a VIP community network
Other features
When it comes to restaurant POS systems, TouchBistro is as versatile as it comes in terms of its overall interface and inventory and staff management features. On top of that, it has a strong support team and a good price tag that makes it a force to be reckoned with in the restaurant POS market. And, from the get-go, it even offers 200 different features that are already enough for any restaurant owner.
From there, you can see how truly versatile TouchBistro is because it comes with a lot of different apps and features that will suit a restaurant’s specific needs. A good example is a Full-Service app designed for the classic restaurant setting because it offers many different features that any traditional restaurant needs.
Meanwhile, TouchBistro also comes with a strong management feature that will make it easier for you to see comped dishes and manage your own inventory. You can even come up with different unique table plans that will allow you to see your restaurant’s most valuable tables so that you can come up with seating strategies that will play up to your restaurant’s strong suit. And one of the best parts is that servers can send the orders directly to the kitchen using printers or displays to be quicker and faster for them to manage the orders.
Like any good restaurant POS system, TouchBistro will easily allow you to modify or edit and then upload different custom menus to the POS app. It even comes with alerts that will notify you of low inventory so that you can keep track of your stock and prevent customers from ordering items that aren’t available. The same inventory management feature also allows you to track items and ingredients that are sold and go into each dish so that you will be able to keep track of each item one by one.
And when it comes to reports, TouchBistro is great at delivering daily reports to the managers and senior staff members to come up with different strategies relative to the results of the report.
Pricing
Another good thing about TouchBistro is that it doesn’t come with a monthly payment system. Instead, it offers monthly user plans that have a cap. So, for example, a solo user plan is worth $69 while a dual user plan costs $129. The different plans allow you to have multiple users for one plan. But you can also use the unlimited plan, which will give you unlimited licenses for a cost of $399 per month.
The problem, however, is that all of the features aren’t available in its main plans. You would have to subscribe to the different add-ons that may be useful for your restaurant. The good news is that the main plan already comes with most of the different features that restaurants need so that you no longer have to pay more for the add-ons.
3. Best for Large Restaurants Epos Now
Epos Now is one of the most popular POS systems meant for larger restaurants because it comes with different features that will easily manage multiple restaurants belonging to one large chain.
Best features
- A lot of third-party integrations
- Amazing hardware options
- Individual staff permissions
Other features
Epos Now is great for larger restaurants because it comes with amazing employee management features that will make it easier for management to manage the different employees working for the restaurant. But the thing is that it isn’t a simple POS system that focuses on employee management because it also comes packed with features that can give other POS systems a run for their money.
Epos Now is amazing at managing larger restaurants mainly because it has plenty of different employee management tools. A good example is how it allows you to give your staff individual code pins that each have different access features for certain staff members. This will allow other staff members away from some of the essential management features that senior staff members and managers should only use. It even comes with full staff clock-in and clock-out functions that will allow you to make sure that your staff is always on time and that the time they spent working will be well accounted for in terms of their pay.
Even though Epos Now specializes in employee management, it doesn’t lack its other features. It has detailed inventory management functions that will allow you to keep track of everything in your inventory to see whole dishes and even individual ingredients that go into every dish you serve. This very same feature will also allow you to quickly import products in bulk, which is a great feature whenever you have a big delivery that has just come in.
And one of the things that we love about Epos Now is that it comes with over 80 different third-party integrations that will make it easy for you to integrate the POS with other different apps. For example, you can integrate Epos Now to an accounting app that will help do all of your accounting for you so that your load will be lessened.
Pricing
Epos Now offers you three different pricing plans, but you would have to talk to a representative to know the prices that Epos Now offers to its clients. This might not be the best in attracting prospective clients, but Epos Now has already built a pretty good name to the point that clients come to them seeking out the pricing options they offer.
Best for Smaller Restaurants: Upserve POS
If Epos Now is the best for bigger restaurants, then Upserve POS is the better option for those running smaller restaurants because it comes with a lot of different features that fit the bill of what a smaller restaurant needs. This means that its features and prices are simply right for smaller restaurants that don’t need all of those fancy and amazing features.
Best features
- Personalized onboarding
- Can function offline
- Comes with 24/7 support
Other features
The name already suggests that Upserve was specifically designed for catering and hospitality businesses, but it also works great for smaller restaurants. The fact that it comes with a training mode for new staff means that it is great for helping smaller restaurants and catering services get their temporary staff up to date on what they need to do to use the POS system well enough while also building familiarity with the system.
Because smaller restaurants tend to be places where groups of people who love splitting the bill come into, Upserve offers a bill-splitting feature that will allow customers to split the bill easily. Moreover, it also supports tableside ordering using a tablet to be easier on the part of the limited servers. This also allows the restaurant to save time (learn about all POS benefits here) so that the staff no longer has to do all of the work, such as taking orders and payments.
Upserve is also amazing when it comes to reporting and its analytics as it shows management different data and analytics regarding the trends in the restaurant. This will allow the senior staff and the managers to improve staff performance and implement different strategies about the most popular dishes at a certain time of the day. The same feature also allows you to identify VIP customers that you might want to take care of better.
Of course, Upserve comes with a 24/7 support team that will always be ready to assist you whenever you need them.
Pricing
Upserve is good for smaller restaurants because it comes with a basic plan of only $59 a month for a single terminal. An additional terminal will cost you $60. This price tag should be good enough for smaller restaurants that may only need one or two terminals.
But the problem with the basic plan is that it doesn’t come with all of the important features. Most notably, it is missing the inventory management feature that you may want to get for an extra $99 per month on top of the basic plan.
Meanwhile, Upserve Pro offers you a lot more features at $199 per month while reducing the cost of your extra terminals to $50 from $60. This plan is better in terms of overall features that will allow you to see the analytics behind your restaurant.
The more expensive Upserve Enterprise plan will cost you $359 with extra terminals at $40 each. This should be reserved for bigger restaurant chains and not for smaller ones.
Conclusion
Getting and learning a POS system can and will be intimidating at first; however, it is absolutely necessary to compete with other restaurants at the same level. This is because, with a POS system, you can free up time, increase efficiency and money management, among countless other things that would be too much if done without it.