Choosing the right restaurant POS system for your business is the best way to up its efficiency.
To summarise, EPOS systems (or electronic point of sale systems) are an end-to-end solution to all manner of daily problems in the hospitality industry.
They cover everything from payment processing and stock control, to table management and custom pricing. Hospitality Businesses also use them to track online orders and dispense digital receipts.
Good POS systems can manage all this and more across multiple locations, while providing a wealth of reporting features to make sure you get the most out of your tools.
Best POS Systems Available
Aloha EPOS System
Aloha is designed as a holistic solution for restaurant EPOS management across multiple locations.
The system is easy to use, but extensive and regularly updated to meet the evolving needs of restaurant owners, while offering stellar customer support.
Aloha excels in managing the entire process from ordering to delivery, with a suite of cloud-based support features.
Where the Aloha point of sale system truly thrives is in its management of stock control, labour, payroll, and other back-house operations.
The key focus of the system is automation of these processes.
Ease of Use
Aloha scores major points for its accessible, easy-to-understand user interface.
Anyone familiar with Windows will have no trouble using Aloha and its layout can be easily customised to suit the needs of you and your staff.
Customer Experience Management
Aloha provides everything restaurant owners need to integrate their customer loyalty programs with the EPOS, as well as the means to customise orders and split bills easily.
Reporting and Analytics
Clear, actionable reporting and pertinent insights on inventory management, sales, and staffing costs are included.
Compatibility
The system integrates well with a range of other services and software such as payroll and accounting tools.
Revel EPOS System
For an all-purpose restaurant EPOS that’s easy to set up, frequently updated, and scalable, consider Revel. This POS system is designed to support both front-of-house and back-of-house operations.
It provides robust controls for menus, stock management ordering, and reporting.
In a market where point of sale systems are becoming increasingly overcomplicated, Revel’s simplicity is one of its greatest strengths.
Revel is optimised for order accuracy and provides tools for preventing delays and boosting customer satisfaction through tableside ordering.
More advanced features include the ability to map out a unique floor plan for individual sections of your restaurant for seamless order management, schedule management, and focused reporting.
Ease of Use
Revel’s design and user interface are simple and adaptable, with a personalised onboarding process that provides guidance on both the hardware and operating system.
Customer Experience Management
Customer retention is one of Revel’s primary concerns. The platform contains various tools for loyalty programs, customer relationship management, discounts, gift cards, and online ordering.
Reporting and Analytics
This restaurant EPOS Operations Report feature combines critical data on sales, order history, product mix, and more into one detailed report, providing a holistic view of the business’ performance.
Compatibility
Revel is designed for compatibility with your existing EPOS hardware, but replacing old systems with their solutions is recommended to get the most out of their impressive suite of features.
Pricing
The comprehensive monthly package comes in at around £80 per month.
CloudPOS
CloudPOS is an easy-to-use restaurant EPOS system with multiple features designed to assist order management, integrated payments, sales reports, online ordering, and more.
Better yet, CloudPOS kitchen display system and other user interfaces are built from the ground up for accessibility, dramatically reducing necessary staff training time.
An all-in-one order management tools allows users to easily edit and filter orders, make advance bookings, and take partial payments accordingly.
Speaking of payments, CloudPOS boasts some of the lowest payment processing rates available, as well as simple bill splitting, tipping, and gratuity features.
Ease of Use
The CloudPOS touch screen register is built for simplicity, while its manager dashboard includes straightforward customisations tools for catering the system to your staff.
Customer Experience Management
Every part of the CloudPOS platform is streamlined to smooth and speed up the checkout process, allowing customers to tip and sign directly on your device.
Reporting and Analytics
You can expect to receive daily sales reports, in-depth monthly summaries, and information on your top sellers, allowing you to tailor your operations for productivity and your menu for your customer’s tastes.
Compatibility
Their custom touch screen POS system is designed as the ideal replacement for traditional cash registers and takes minimal hassle to set up. It also integrates well with programs like QuickBooks, SHOGO, and XERO. Additionally, it won’t drop you when your wi-fi does.
Pricing
CloudPOS’ basic package runs at £16.65/MO, its Pro package at £41.65/MO, and its Enterprise package at £74.99/MO.
Square POS
The Square restaurant POS system implements numerous features specifically designed to cater to the restaurant industry, with a transparent pricing model, multi location management, reporting, and more.
It’s tool add-on system enables restaurant owners to pay for only what they need and cut costs in other areas. While the system is operational from any mobile device, the Square EPOS system also has a range of bespoke, optional hardware available.
The Square EPOS system is capable of processing customer payments in person, via mobile, or online, while their custom hardware requires little to no set up to get working.
Better yet, the system is built to easily customise menus, speed up the check out process, provide in-depth sales and product reports, and consolidate customer data into automated customer profiles.
Ease of Use
Navigating the Square user interface is intuitive from beginning to end and set up is painless, catering to operations of all sizes.
Customer Experience Management
Square allows restaurant owners to open direct lines of communication with customers for resolving any feedback, sending coupons, and delivering tailored service accordingly.
Reporting and Analytics
The interface lays all the groundwork for informed decision making by providing detailed reporting on best sellers, average customer spend, employee performance, and stock.
Compatibility
The Square dashboard is fully compatible with a wide range of devices, but your chosen point of sale device may limit the features you have access to.
Pricing
The Square POS platform begins as free-to-use, but charges when you begin taking payments, with 1.75% processing rate on chip and PIN or contactless payments, 2.5% for virtual terminal and invoices, and its hardware range beginning at £19, not including VAT.
Toast POS System
Toast is one of the most popular EPOS in the restaurant business for a reason.
It offers all-encompassing solutions for order and inventory management, menu management, payments, and more.
It provides seamless payment processing, menu customisation and profitability tools, CRM functionality, and thorough analytical reporting on performance and operations.
Ease of Use
Toast is arguably most well known for its excellent user interface. While the initial setup may contain a learning curve, everyday usage is quick and easy.
Customer Experience Management
The package contains all the features you’d expect for tableside payments and quick, bother-free feedback collection from your guests.
Reporting and Analytics
Toast provides key data points across all channels in real time, cutting out waiting times and directly emailing daily results to your inbox every night.
Compatibility
While Toast integrates well with a variety of hardware and software, it’s worth noting that the platform is Android inclusive and doesn’t work on iOS devices.
Pricing
The Starter package goes for £50, while the Essentials package, designed for restaurant owners looking to scale their business, is £150.
LightSpeed POS
Lightspeed’s features focus on saving time and automation. It offers personalised user support with various multilocation tools and integrations to get you up and running quickly and efficiently.
It offers all the features needed to manage your teams, inventories, and suppliers from one location.
It’s specifically designed to increase visibility in key areas for multilocation operations and offers plenty of customisation options to help you get your ideal experience and functionality.
Ease of Use
Its user interface is simple and intuitive and set up is no challenge, though getting to grips with its various features will take some time.
Customer Experience Management
A key feature here is Lightspeed’s ability to offer customers the same benefits online that they would when visiting your restaurant.
Reporting and Analytics
Its detailed reports give you everything you need to know about staff performance, popular items, and more via its interactive reporting dashboard.
Compatibility
The Lightspeed POS system is compatible with a range of devices, as well as both the Windows and Mac operating systems.
Pricing
Users can expect to pay anywhere between £50 and £300+ for the service, depending on their chosen package.
What To Look For in a EPOS System
When you sign up with a restaurant EPOS, you’re entrusting a huge part of your operations and performance onto software. In other words, it’s no small decision.
In fact, it’s something like choosing a business partner. As with any kind of relationship, there are a couple of key green flags you should be looking out for before making a choice.
Ease of Use
You want to lower the learning curve for you and your staff as much as possible. Something as simple as a receipt printer should never be a headache.
Restaurant POS should have an intuitive, logically laid out user interface. You’ll need simple functionality for tipping and splitting bills, modifying menus, loyalty programs, and a strong customer support team.
Reliable, advanced features will minimise errors and stress, lower training time, and ensure quicker service across the board.
Customer Experience Management
From online ordering to the self service kiosk, an ideal cloud based POS software is designed to improve the customer experience from beginning to end.
Look out for products that personalise the customer’s service, track customer feedback, and organise customer data clearly, allowing you to develop targeted insights about their behaviour.
These can be used to market more directly to existing customers or enhance your customer loyalty programs.
Reporting and Analytics
Data management and analysis is one of the key bedrocks to improving any business’ performance. Hospitality is no different.
Your POS system should tell you about sales trends, item popularity, customer preferences, and more.
Whether it’s a chain franchise or independent restaurant, collecting and analysing data is how you judge the performance and operations of your business.
That means your POS terminals are a centralised location for data-based decision making, boosting revenue and efficiency, managing expenses, and viewing sales reports.
Stock Control
Monitoring stock levels is a key touchstone for a good restaurant EPOS.
With the right features at hand, the restaurant’s point of sale system becomes the best way to get ahead of stocking issues via automated ordering or more accurately track the cost of your dishes.
Compatibility
You’ll need to understand early on exactly what you’ll need in terms of tablets, printers, payment devices, and the like.
The idea is to avoid any surprises that could slow down service in the future and ideally to opt for an EPOS system that easily integrates with your existing hardware.
The same consideration should be made for integration with other essential technologies, such as your chosen accounting software.
Pricing
The cost of restaurant EPOS systems can vary significantly, especially when considering both hardware and software, as well as the potential costs involved in integration.
Different softwares may be based on either monthly or yearly subscriptions. They may be tailored to the size of your restaurant or multi location restaurants.
Some provide various options when it comes to contracts, while others may lock you into uncomfortable terms or feature a wealth of hidden costs and transaction fees.
Conclusion
The best restaurant POS systems in 2024 are those that most seamlessly combine advanced tools with user-friendly interfaces.
They provide restaurant owners, managers, and staff with what they need to improve the quality and efficiency of their inventory management, customer engagement, payment, online orders, and more.
A robust EPOS system is one whose sales systems work with minimal input or set up, allow for both payments via portable card machines, mobile payments, or integration with any accounting software.
Tools that allow you to customise your floor plan, manage bookings, tailor your menu, or receive analytical sales reports are extremely valuable as well.
Once again, the ideal point of sale system for you is dependent on your needs and the nature of your business.
Contact NFS Hospitality for helping picking the best platform for your needs.