How to choose a restaurant POS

Start with your restaurant, not the features

Write down how your restaurant works before you look at any system:

• How you serve: counter, table service, takeaway, delivery, or a mix.
• How many devices: counters, waiters' handhelds, kitchen stations.
• Who does what: owner, managers, cashiers, waiters, cooks, storekeeper, accountant.
• What you need from the numbers: daily sales, tax for your returns, stock, staff hours.
• Where you are going: a second outlet, a second brand, delivery.

Then judge each POS against that list. A long feature list you will never use is not worth paying for.

The twelve questions

1. What happens when the internet goes down?

Ask for specifics. Can it take orders, send them to the kitchen, print the bill and take cash with no connection? For how long? What waits until it is back? Then test it: unplug the router during the demo. Our guide to handling an outage lists what to prepare.

2. How do orders reach the kitchen?

Printed tickets per station, a kitchen screen, or both? Can each station see only its own dishes? What happens when a dish is cancelled after the kitchen started it?

3. Which printers and devices does it work with?

Can it use the hardware you already have — your tablets, phones, laptop, printers? Does it need its own hardware, and what does that cost? See our printer guide.

4. Does each person have their own sign-in?

A PIN per person, roles by job, and a manager's approval for voids, discounts and refunds. If everyone shares one login, you can't tell who did what. See staff PINs and permissions.

5. Does it get your tax right?

Your country's rates, prices including or before tax, a different rate for takeaway where your country needs it, and the bill your tax authority expects. Ask to see a sample bill for your country.

6. Can it track stock from your recipes?

If food cost matters to you, ask whether sales take ingredients out of stock by recipe, whether it records waste and stock counts, and whether it shows what each dish costs.

7. What reports do you get — and can you export them?

Daily sales, payments, tax, voids and discounts, menu performance. Can you download them for your accountant? Can you see one outlet or all of them?

8. How are payments taken?

Does the POS take card payments itself, or record payments made on your own card machine? What are the processing fees, and are you tied to one provider? Which local payment methods are supported?

9. What will it really cost?

Ask for the full price for your setup: software per month or year, per device or per outlet, hardware, kitchen screens, add-on modules, payment fees, setup and training. Prices change; write down the date you were quoted.

10. What is the contract?

How long are you committed? What happens at the end of the term — does it renew and charge by itself? Is there a free trial on your real menu?

11. Can you take your data with you?

Your menu, your customers, your sales history. Ask how you export them, in what format, and what happens to your data if you leave.

12. Who helps when something breaks?

Ask how support works, in which language, at what hours, and whether there are guides you can read at 11 pm on a Saturday.

Try it before you decide

A demo is a sales pitch. A trial on your own menu, with your own staff, during a real service, tells you far more. Take one order of each kind you serve, split a bill, void a dish, take a refund, close the day, and read the report.

Comparing systems

Make one table: your twelve questions down the side, each system across the top, and fill it in with what each vendor's own pages and contract say — with the date you read them. Our comparison pages do this for BillDine and five other systems, with each fact's source and date.

How BillDine answers these questions

• Offline: the POS keeps taking orders, sending kitchen tickets, printing bills and taking cash without the internet, and sends everything when the connection returns. See the offline app.
• Kitchen: one ticket per kitchen section, on a kitchen screen, a printer or both. See the kitchen screen.
• Devices: the web in any modern browser, and an Android app for phones and tablets; printing from the app to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth printers, or from the browser to any printer the computer can use. See printing.
• Staff: a 6-digit PIN per person, roles you can adjust, and a manager's PIN for voids and complimentary dishes. See staff PINs.
• Tax: ready-made taxes for the countries BillDine is open in (in the US you type your state and local rates), with prices including or before tax. See the country pages.
• Stock, reports, loyalty: recipes that take stock down, reports by outlet, brand or business with CSV and PDF exports, and points kept against a guest's phone number. See inventory, reports and loyalty.
• Payments: BillDine records card payments taken on your own card machine.
• Price and contract: plans are paid for a term at a time and BillDine never charges by itself when a term ends; the current prices and what each plan includes are on the pricing page.

The short version

1. Write down how your restaurant works.
2. Ask every system the twelve questions.
3. Test offline, the kitchen, a refund and a day close yourself.
4. Get the full price and the contract in writing, with a date.
5. Choose the one that fits your restaurant, not the longest feature list.