Choosing a POS System That Best Fits Your Restaurant

When choosing a POS system for your restaurant, there are many things to consider. One must choose the system that will best suit the needs of the type of restaurant in question. However, every restaurant needs a terminal that allows them to place orders for food and drinks that are then transferred to a kitchen where the orders can be carried out.

The first criteria one must keep in mind is finding the right POS system that best suits their type of restaurant, including:

  • Fine dining and casual table service
  • Nightclubs which provide limited amounts of food or none at all (drinks only)
  • Quick Service Restaurants (fast food)
  • Pizza takeout and delivery.

Each of these types of restaurants are in need of some sort of POS system.

In addition to the stations themselves, the owner must choose a database that will store the data that is needed on a day-to-day basis. The majority of professionals dealing with POS systems would agree that their preferred type of database for restaurants is the SQL, Structured Query Language.

The advantage that SQL provides is the ability for the operator to experience as little data corruption as possible. Stability is something that should come expectedly, and without question, when purchasing a quality POS system. There should be no need for repairs here and there to correct issues with failure and/or corruption.

When purchasing a POS system, it is also very important that the terminal updates any changes within seconds, without the need for rebooting or manually giving commands.

A crucial aspect of the POS system is the printer.

It is imperative that the chosen system operates with a dedicated print server. This server ensures that at any time a printer becomes offline or runs out of paper, the job will within seconds be rerouted to a backup printer. Before buying a POS system, one must be aware of the time it takes to reroute a job. If minutes pass by before a problem is detected, customer satisfaction could decline due to the lack of timeliness in processing an order. In the restaurant industry, timing is everything.

System restoration is an integral part of the POS system that will keep your business running smoothly.

In the event that something should go wrong with your POS system, there must be a plan within to restore itself. Remote backup is crucial for single station restaurants. You must ask your provider if they can rapidly deploy new hardware with a backup copy of all data, including all open checks, since there is only one station. If the restaurant has multiple stations, they should be networked together for ultimate redundancy. If one unit fails, the rest will continue operating as if nothing happened.

Finally, there is one last thing to ensure before deciding on a POS system that best fits your restaurant’s needs: make sure that the system is PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant.

Whether the business is brand new or has been in operation for a number of years, it is imperative that the owner finds the POS system with all the essentials that best fit the needs of the restaurant, ensuring customer satisfaction.

Curtis Stevens is a sales rep for Gotmerchant.com, a point of sale provider that offers a free POS system.

About Curtis Stevens

Check Also

Highlighting women in foodservice: Q&A with Natalie Grobelny of QSCC

In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, we sat down with Natalie Grobelny …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *