When you visit a café, did you notice if the waiter took your order on a tablet or smartphone? And instead of paying at the counter, the waiter now brings the card reader directly to your table?
If yes, congratulations! You’ve seen first-hand what a POS system is and how one part of it works in real life.
What is a POS?
POS refers to a point-of-sale or point of purchase. This is the space where all your business’s payments happen – online or offline. When you make a payment at the point of sale, the transaction is completed and recorded.
What is POS Software?
In the traditional sense of the term, a POS system is the place where customers make payments. The payment can be in the form of cash or a card. Here, the POS is the billing counter supported by a computer, bar-code scanner and card reader.
Through constant innovation, the POS system has evolved into an advanced system with many features. POS software is software that manages your business’s sales transactions completely. It streamlines all processes – online or offline – so that you can access everything in real-time.
Modern and sophisticated POS software has many features. It has:
– mobile payment options (GPay, Paytm, PhonePe)
– contactless payment options
– cashless payment options
– integrating e-commerce transactions into one cloud-based system.
And these are just the digital payment solutions we’ve covered. A high-grade POS system goes beyond payments – it uses data to make the business more efficient.
And these are just the digital payment solutions we’ve covered. A high-grade POS system goes beyond payments – it uses data to make the business more efficient. Keep reading to find out how POS software can transform your business.
1. Automate Manual Processes
With restaurant POS software, manual pen-and-paper tasks are a click or tap away. Let us explain. For software to work, it needs hardware. One cannot exist without the other. The hardware for POS systems for businesses includes:
– a computer monitor connected to a cloud-based POS system
– card reader
– receipt printer
– cash register
– mobile phones and tablets connected to a cloud-based POS system
With the aid of these devices, employees can perform a lot of tasks. They can check in, take orders, send orders, track tables, check open orders, show menus, prepare bills and accept payments.
This reduces the time your wait staff spends going back and forth between the tables, kitchen and billing counter.
This increases the efficiency of the wait staff and allows them to do their jobs conveniently. It makes it easy for them to attend to more customers and wait more tables. Customers are happy with the quick service as there are no long lines at the billing counter or waiting area.
POS software automatically increases the sales volume of your restaurant business!
2. Easy Inventory Management
Another great feature of a cloud POS system for restaurants is the inventory management system. Inventory management is key to making sure that your restaurant is running at full capacity. Inventory management systems record:
– available raw materials
– what’s running low
– what’s out of stock
– what needs to be ordered
Since every employee has a cloud POS system for restaurants on their device, every detail is recorded and updated in real-time.
Therefore, every employee has updated information regarding their department. This reduces frequent pantry trips by managers as they are made aware of everything through the POS system.
This helps the wait staff too. They can take a quick look at their tablet and inform customers of availability from the table itself. This cuts trips waiters would usually have to make to check the availability of a particular menu item.
If a restaurant has multiple branches, a POS system is great to access the inventory of each branch via cloud-connected software. The manager need not physically visit each branch to conduct an inventory check. All they have to do is log in to the cloud-based POS system and voilà! All the synchronized data from every branch is readily available right at their fingertips.
3. Payments Made Easy for Everyone
Back in the day, restaurant payments were limited to just cash or card transactions. Arguably, there are still many restaurants that follow the same system even today. But with the aid of POS software, restaurants can accept payments in several ways.
Cash, credit/debit cards, mobile payment apps (GPay, Paytm and PhonePe) and cashless payment are accepted by POS software systems today. This makes it convenient for customers as they don’t have to leave their tables to make payments.
Additionally, your POS software tracks each transaction’s payment. Digital payment methods are tracked and saved to the cloud server with each transaction.
If payment is made by cash, then the POS software automatically unlocks and locks the cash register. Apart from convenience, this reduces the risk of theft and fraud.
4. Online Orders Integration
Let’s say that you’ve listed your restaurant on food delivery sites like Zomato and Swiggy. Typically, all orders and payments are recorded manually in a register. This becomes a menial and time-consuming task. A POS system can eliminate the need for these manual registers.
Your online orders can be linked with and saved to a POS system. Once linked, your system will automatically record and track all your online orders. It will be updated to the cloud-based storage system in real-time.
Not only will your online orders now be integrated with your offline orders but online payments will also be tracked. This easy integration makes sure that you can keep tabs on orders (offline as well as online) and payments as and when they happen.
5. Get Reports and Data to Improve Your Business
The great thing about technology is that it always exceeds expectations. State-of-the-art technology just needs key data to be entered once and it does wonders for your business! It is pretty helpful as far as growing and diversifying your business goes.
With a POS system in restaurants, data such as order details and customer information is presented as analytical information. It provides great insights into your business like bestselling products, rush-hour timings, customer demographics, preferred payment modes, high-profit months and so on.
This makes it handy for managers and key stakeholders to use this data to make the necessary business decisions.
6. Manage Your Restaurant from Anywhere
If you opt for a cloud-based POS system, you can effortlessly access your restaurant’s information. You need not visit your restaurant to make sure that things are running smoothly.
You can access your POS software and track employee attendance, daily sales volume, footfall, and inventory among other things.
Arcitech – Comprehensible POS Systems for your Restaurant
Whether you want to integrate your payments, online orders or add contactless payment options, Arcitech has a POS system for all your needs. Built by a team of seasoned IT professionals, our POS software is made to give your business an edge. To know how our pricing works, contact us here.
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