Top Restaurant POS Systems for Small and Mid-sized Businesses

What is a POS System?

A point of sale, or POS system, is a hardware and software suite that allows a business to keep track of sales and receive customer payments. It works differently for an online business and for a physical storefront, letting you adjust the solution to your needs. A POS system makes it possible for a business to transact via cash, credit cards, or digital payment modes. With a point-of-sale system, it is easy for a business to track purchases and balance out finances.

A traditional POS system is typically operated through a single desktop computer at the cash register. However, over time the POS system has evolved dramatically with technological advancements and continuous innovation. As a result, modern POS systems are cloud based, which means you can check out a customer wherever you are, with nothing more than an internet-enabled device like a tablet or a phone. Now, if you operate a small business or mid-sized business where most of your billing is online, you know this will work well for you because the system offers your business flexibility, mobility and cost control.

Most new-age POS systems can record orders and have in-built data analytics features to crunch your sales data. Besides, this payment processing center can easily integrate with your inventory management system to help you better manage your inventory.

How Will a POS System Make You Profitable?

The best restaurant POS system will make your business stand out in a crowd, while enabling new clients to bond with your brand at the same time. You can cut costs by investing in a pre-paid card or mobile app, but you'll have to do everything manually. Alternatively, you could boost business by investing in a POS system that may seem costly initially, but will offer you more control over the business's workflow and reputation management over time.

If you operate a small business with a limited workforce and a lean budget, executing every task within a stipulated time can be difficult. There's so much to do at a restaurant every day -- take orders, ring up sales, oversee table management, and manage the line -- an automated system that simplifies these processes will free up employee time and save them a great deal of effort. An efficient and effective point of sale (POS) system will do just that.

1. The best POS system helps streamline your sales and Order Management process, allowing your staff more time to focus on customer service.
   
2. An efficient POS system helps you track important sales data and reduces, or completely eliminates, the need for manual bookkeeping or record-keeping.
3. Modern POS software can monitor sales and inventory in real time, thanks to which you can order new supplies without delay, manage invoices, and prepare tax records for the week or month.
4. The best POS systems provide ease of use and make customization and personalization easy for a restaurant's specific needs and processes.
   
5. A POS system makes the payment process (via credit cards, debit cards and cashless modes) easy for your customers. Satisfied customers mean better business.
   

No. 1 - Plum POS

It is important for a growing restaurant business to implement software solutions that simplify and streamline operations. Plum POS can help you achieve just that. Plum POS is easy to use, which means your staff will have no problem navigating it. It facilitates quick and easy payment processing, helping wait staff and cashiers spend less time on the screen and more time engaging with customers.

A restaurant typically uses different software solutions for various functions. Having multiple systems and different logins will ultimately lead to chaos. Plum POS can easily integrate with third party software via Plum Any Connector, a bridging platform. Plum POS also syncs beautifully with other Plum products like Plum Kiosk, Plum Digital Signage, and Plum Handheld (all of which are available on Hubworks, the app store for restaurants).

These peripherals give you more flexibility and additional options when advertising your specials, rewarding your customers, or enabling your staff to accept mobile payments wherever they go. If you're looking for a self-service kiosk at your quick service restaurant that gives customers a convenient way to order and pay, or if you want savvy signage announcing what's new at your restaurant, or even if you want to give your wait staff the freedom to accept orders from their phones -- Plum POS makes all of this possible through a single platform.

A traditional point of sale system's data is usually stored on a local server, making access difficult when the connection is down. With Plum POS, however, you can access your sales data anytime, anywhere thanks to its cloud based system. It can help you make timely business decisions for any location, whether or not you are on site. Plum POS is also easy to set up with a few pre-identified workable menus for different restaurants. You can start transacting almost as soon as you set up this POS system.

The Plum POS starter bundle comes at $1302.98 and includes a POS terminal, credit card reader, and cash drawer.

No. 2 - Toast POS

Toast, another great point of sale system, has several hardware options that cater to restaurants of all types and sizes. It comes with various features that make it easy for restaurants to accept, manage, track, and prioritize food orders.

Toast POS is compatible with a touch-screen monitor and handheld device, giving customers various options to place their orders, including ordering online. Once an order is placed, it is swiftly displayed on a custom-built kitchen display screen that comes with this brand's hardware bundle.

Toast offers several other features that compliment its point-of-sale system for restaurants. These include a loyalty program, email marketing, scheduling and payroll systems, food delivery services, reporting (including real time sales and guest feedback), and discounts and sales by location or store. Toast POS also allows for integration with third party platforms, like food delivery apps Grubhub and DoorDash, and table reservation services like OpenTable or Tock.

Toast offers quote-based pricing for hardware and custom software packages, and has a free trial version too.

No. 3 - Square for Restaurants

Square for Restaurants is a comprehensive, cloud based point of sale system that makes it easy to get your business up and running in no time. Square allows you to accept payments in various ways, including via cash, check, and credit card. This Pos System has features that cater to both, quick service restaurants and full service eateries. With Square, you can scale up easily as your business grows, customizing its unique user interface to add menu items (with descriptions and photos) as you go along.

Square allows you to feed your flooring plan into the system, and enables you to cancel checks and assign orders not just to tables, but to individual seats as well. It lets you integrate with your kitchen display unit at no extra cost, and has advanced reporting tools that make it easy to analyze sales data. In addition, it has a 24-hour customer support service that can help you out of a jam at any time.

Square POS offers two product plans- a free and a paid plan. The free plan lets you create a website through Square online, offers online ordering options, and supports tips. It alerts servers when an item is out of stock, and has basic reporting tools.

Square POS has a free version with limited features. The paid plan, Restaurant Plus, costs $60 a month for one device, and $40 per month per device on the account. Any other add-on such as Kitchen Display Units or card readers are available at an additional cost. The hardware starts at $299.

No. 4 - Lightspeed POS System

Lightspeed Restaurant is a versatile iPad-based point of sale system that allows businesses to create the best possible user experience through a clean and intuitive interface. Setting up a Lightspeed Restaurant POS is simple. The system can work with just one iPad, payment terminal, cash drawer, and a few printers.

This POS software can be used for restaurant businesses of all sizes -- from small and mid-sized businesses, to larger and more complex setups like full service restaurants. With add ons, it can integrate well with self-ordering kiosks, workforce management software, and more. Full flexibility eliminates the need for different systems across the business.

Lightspeed's hardware product may not be cheap, but restaurant owners don't have to buy all their hardware solutions from the company. The source code is open source, so it is compatible with third party hardware (it has a list of hardware it supports). Modify it as needed and customize it for your specific functions. To help you manage your restaurant smoothly, Lightspeed has 24/7 customer service.

This POS System has a 14-day free trial. After that, its single POS register costs $39 per month, and additional registers cost $39 per month, per device. The hardware cost is quote-based.

No. 5 - TouchBistro POS System

TouchBistro is a point-of-sale system designed specifically for restaurants. It can take care of menu, table, staff, and inventory management. Features like online ordering, gift cards and customer loyalty programs are also available at an additional cost.

When it comes to managing the point of sale on a busy day, TouchBistro lets you effortlessly supervise multiple cash drawers. Also, add-on products for employee management, inventory management, and so on can seamlessly integrate with this POS system.

TouchBistro's table management software helps a restaurant operator manage and quickly alter their floor plan as and when needed. For instance, with its versatile tableside ordering system, you can group certain tables or move customers from one table to another without hassle. Its easy to use interface allows you to access and modify the menu in minutes.

TouchBistro POS's basic plan starts at $69 per month. The other plans and hardware support are quote-based.

At the end of it, the best Pos systems should anticipate your needs and run on autopilot, while freeing up your staff's time to focus on sales. Choose your point of sale system after evaluating the specific needs of your business. Every business is special, and your POS system should be too.