Opening a café: the systems checklist

Before you start: the paperwork

Every country — and often every city — has its own registrations, food-safety rules, licences and tax registration for a food business. They take time, and some must be in place before you sell anything. This guide doesn't list them, because they differ so much; ask your local authority and your accountant early, and put the dates in your plan. For tax on bills, see our guides for India, the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Singapore and Malaysia.

Six weeks out: the menu and the prices

• Keep the first menu short. Fewer items means less stock, less waste and faster service while the team learns.
• Cost every item. Work out what one portion of each drink and dish costs in ingredients, including milk, syrups, cups and lids. Our guide to food cost percentage shows how.
• Set prices with tax in mind. Decide whether your menu prices include tax or have it added, and keep the menu board and the POS the same.
• Plan modifiers. Coffee lives on choices — milk, size, extra shot, syrup. List them, with their prices, before you type the menu in.
• Plan combos. A coffee-and-pastry deal is easier to sell when it has one price.

Four weeks out: the counter setup

• Choose your POS. Decide what you need it to do on day one: take orders fast, print or show the order for whoever makes it, take payment, and keep working if the internet drops. See our guide to choosing a restaurant POS.
• Choose the device. A café can run on a tablet or a phone at the counter. A second device helps at busy times.
• Choose the printer. One receipt printer may be enough. Our printer guide explains 58 mm and 80 mm and the connections.
• Payments. Arrange your card machine and any local payment methods early: setting them up can take time.
• Internet. Check the connection at the counter, and plan what happens when it drops.

Three weeks out: staff

• Write the jobs down. Who opens, who closes, who counts the cash, who orders stock.
• Give each person their own PIN on the POS, with access for their job. See staff PINs and permissions.
• Train on the real system. Practice orders, payments, a refund, a void that needs a manager, and a cash-up.

Two weeks out: stock and suppliers

• Choose suppliers for coffee, milk, bakery and dry goods, with delivery days that match your opening hours.
• Set reorder levels for the things you can't run out of: milk, beans, cups.
• Write recipes for your main drinks, so you can see what each sale uses.
• Plan the first order to cover the first week, not the first month — you don't know your sales yet.

One week out: a soft opening

Open for friends, neighbours or a limited menu before the real first day. Use it to:

• time how long an order takes, from order to hand-over;
• check that every item rings up at the right price and tax;
• see where the queue forms, and where people wait for their drink;
• run a full end-of-day: count the drawer, close the day, read the report.

Fix what you learned, then open.

Day one and after

• Count the float before the first sale.
• Keep a short note of everything that went wrong.
• Close the day properly, even when you are tired: count, close, read the report. See our cash-up guide.
• After the first week, look at what sold and what didn't, and trim the menu.
• When regulars appear, consider a simple loyalty scheme.

How BillDine fits a café

• A phone or tablet and one printer. The BillDine app on an Android phone or tablet runs the POS and prints to a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi printer; a browser on a laptop prints from day one.
• A quick start. BillDine makes your restaurant from the sign-up form. You add the menu by hand, from a spreadsheet, or from a photo of your printed menu that you check before anything is added. Modifiers handle milk, size and extras; combos give a coffee and pastry one price.
• Orders ready when you call them. Paid takeaways wait in a To collect list until handed over, and the counter hears a chime when the kitchen finishes an order. Sold out today stops anyone ordering the croissants once they are gone.
• Regulars. Find a guest by phone at the counter; they earn loyalty points on paid bills and spend them later, with no app or card needed.
• Stock that follows your recipes. Give a latte its recipe, and every sale takes the milk and the coffee out of stock; low-stock alerts tell you what to order.
• Practice first. A new business starts in practice mode, where everything works like the real thing, so the team can train on the real system before you go live.

See BillDine for cafés, and the lessons Set up your restaurant and Add your menu.

The checklist

1. Registrations, licences and tax: ask early.
2. A short menu, every item costed, prices set with tax in mind.
3. POS, device, printer, payments and internet chosen and tested.
4. Jobs written down; a PIN per person; training on the real system.
5. Suppliers, reorder levels, recipes and a one-week first order.
6. A soft opening with a full end-of-day.