With the rapid rise of food technology, restaurant software has evolved to an extent that most of a restaurant’s everyday functions are now automated, machine-managed. The modern day restaurant management setup allows you to get a single dashboard view on the functioning of your restaurant, across outlets. There is a growing popularity over the usage of one system as compared to multiple systems to manage the functions of a restaurant.
There are a lot of contributing factors that lead to the success of a restaurant management system. One is Operations – which ensures all the ticketing and billing happens timely and also leads to a sound database of all your customers. Two is Marketing – this includes spreading brand awareness and retaining customers through well crafted CRM campaigns. Three is Analytics and Reporting, which encourages you to make the needed changes to your business by making informed decisions. On the back of a sound data platform. To make all this possible, a robust restaurant management system is the need of the hour.
The modern day restaurant management system is the complete set of all the important restaurant functions that are needed to be carried out on a day to day basis. Be it Data collection, Billing and Printing receipts, Data management , Restaurant CRM, Loyalty and Feedback Management , Restaurant Analytics – all these functions are part of your full stack restaurant management system.
So where does the Restaurant POS come in? Why is a restaurant POS software is at the centre of your entire restaurant management strategy?
A restaurant POS system is the data power-house of your restaurant . When customers come to your outlet or order online – POS gets all the data. All customer information is collected centrally on the POS. Let us now jump into the various restaurant management features and the role which a POS plays in the success of a restaurant.
1. Restaurant Operations + Integrations
Your restaurant POS operations includes the routine activities of punching in customers, billing, ticketing, invoicing, KOT forwarding, takeaway online ordering system – all handled by your restaurant POS. Restaurant Cloud POS softwares help simplify and automate the entire data management arm of your business. A cloud POS is superior to its traditional counterpart in terms of data security, data storage on remote servers, ease of usage and accessibility. More on this later.
2. Seamless Integrations
To make your POS “relay” the data to the other system of your restaurant, it must be seamlessly integrate with Restaurant CRM, Loyalty, Inventory Management and Analytics and thus becomes the central hub for data at your restaurant.
3. Marketing & CRM modules
In order to excel in the restaurant business you should ensure that
- You acquire new customers
- You retain and engage your existing customers
Engaging existing customers begins once their data enters your systems on your restaurant POS, once they have punched in on your outlet or have made an online order. After a few segmentations are made, automated restaurant CRM campaigns can be auto-played to them to solidify your band and reel them in through your offers and discounts.
4. Centralization
Restaurants have multiple outlets and centralising information to a single dashboard from all outlets is critical to sound management. The POS software takes in data and passes it on to the server so that all data is available centrally at all times.
5. Should be Scalable
If you are looking to expand business into new areas/countries, the restaurant management system should be scalable so that the system can accommodate new outlets
Now that we have discussed how a restaurant POS takes centre stage when it comes to restaurant management, we will now discuss why a modern day Cloud Restaurant POS should be preferred over the traditional POS
A restaurant POS is critical across the various everyday functions. An investment in the right POS software will help your business management. A Cloud Restaurant POS can drive you towards this goal .
Cloud Restaurant POS
Cloud Restaurant POS softwares offer a series of benefits that make it superior to its legacy counterpart.
The traditional POS softwares are the ones which are hosted on local servers, are present on-site. Few of the issues faced in a Cloud POS is data loss risk, data security risk and high costs of setting up.
On the other hand, a Cloud Restaurant POS software allows data to be pulled in from remote servers (such as AWS) – instead of local servers. Also cloud POS systems can be installed on your mobiles and changes can be made real-time to your menu and display items.
It links excellently with all the important functions of your business hence becoming the central unit to your restaurant’s business.
Benefits of a Cloud Restaurant POS
Cloud POS has a number of benefits that makes it triumph over its legacy counterpart. We are listing down the key points below.
High Security & low maintenance requirements
Cloud restaurant POS keeps your data safe. The data is stored on remote servers. You do not need to depend upon local data storage which is both unsafe and unreliable. Also you do not need to manually maintain the software, or incur the high costs associated for doing so.
Real Time Updates
Legacy POS software systems require you to manually make updates to the server online which is time consuming and inconvenient. On the other hand, automatic updates happen on your cloud POS to keep your POS up to date with the latest versions of the software.
Remote Accessibility
Modern Cloud POS softwares ensure you can tune in to your system from anywhere, anytime. You can get updates on employee clock-in time, orders punched by your staff and other operational details real time on your mobile phones. All you need is an active internet connection.
Lower costs
Cloud restaurant POS softwares offer you staggered monthly payments (based on monthly subscription costs). Setting up traditional POS softwares result in heavy up-front costs.
Integrations compliant
Cloud POS is integrated to all your other systems – Operations, Analytics, CRM, Loyalty and Feedback – this helps data to flow in to all systems becoming the source of intelligence for your intelligence.
No hardware dependance
Cloud POS softwares are loaded onto your mobiles and tablets and now you can supervise your business – even at the stores you can punch in orders from the convenience of your devices.
Here is a quick tabulation of the key differences between a Traditional POS system and a Cloud POS system.
| Function | Legacy Restaurant POS | Cloud Restaurant POS |
| Cost/Payment Structures | One-time set-up followed by monthly payments | Monthly payment – subscription |
| Software | Loaded at the facility/outlet | Cloud |
| Hardware | Immobile and bulky | Loaded on your device – Mobiles and Tablets |
| Data Security & Accessibility | High (local servers) | Low (remote servers) |
Summing Up
A cloud restaurant POS system is at the heart of a successful restaurant management strategy. It is the central point for all intelligence and a cloud POS has many benefits of its own as mentioned in this write-up.
Do ensure that you conduct a through research and check up on all the features on your cloud POS before making an investment.
Over to you!
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Author Bio:
The author is Aditya Sarkar, Marketing Manager at LimeTray. He is a food-tech enthusiast and likes to write about restaurants and technology.
