POS Advice For Setting Up A New Restaurant: Define Your Restaurant POS System

Defining your Restaurant POS system includes the hardware and software that your restaurant will need.  This is the important first step, without a good understanding of your POS requirements you will waste a lot of time investigating POS solutions that do not satisfy your needs.  You must have a good understanding of your POS requirements before you can request POS quotes from providers.

Here are some things to consider when Defining your Restaurant POS System:

Type of restaurant:

• Fine dining
• Quick serve
• Eat-in or
• Take-out

Location
Floor plan
Menu items
Management style
and Staffing needs

Next, consider your restaurant POS system must have requirements, features and options needed to operate efficiently.  Here are a few things to consider:

Number of POS terminals, tablets and handhelds

Number of cash drawers for bar, cashier and drive-thru

Number of customer displays at POS terminals (optional)

Drive-thru order confirmation board (optional)

Caller ID interface for phone-in ordering

Back office PC with report printer (optional)

POS network, wireless access and DSL requirements

Reservations and wait list module

Liquor control and monitoring interface

Time keeping and labor scheduling module

Online ordering from your website interface

Credit card merchant provider and loyalty interfaces

Mobile payments, pay at the table and gift card interfaces

Once this is complete, you can begin investigating restaurant POS systems, scheduling demonstrations and requesting quotes from qualified POS providers.