Do You Need A Restaurant POS System?

Aug. 28, 2009 - PRLog -- Do You Need A Restaurant POS System?

   * POS stands for Point Of Sale.

A type of system that is used throughout the restaurant and retail industry. This computerized system allows business owners to track sales, the money that comes in, food inventory and helps simplify your bookkeeping enormously. Why it’s good for a restaurant: The high volume of cash and credit cards that pass through a restaurant each day make a POS system a necessary. POS systems doesn't only keep track of your sales but it can also run useful programs the the ones that can process credit cards. Which makes credit card swiping easier, faster and safer for both the customers and your employee. Servers are accountable for all their sales, and it is impossible make changes on checks in the computer unless you have authorization. This helps cut down on employee theft.

   * Benefits of a restaurant POS system

One benefit of a POS system is that it simplifies communications between the kitchen and the waiter. All orders go through the POS computer sending it to the kitchen printer. Another benefit of a restaurant POS programs is that it can track everything from food usage, to the most popular menu items. Because the POS system acts as a time clock, it can also help prepare payroll. It saves you a hefty amount of money in your bookkeeping department. Along with the daily operations of running a restaurant, a POS system can organize profit and loss statement and sales tax.

   * Any reasons to devalue a restaurant POS system?

Your POS systems is still a computer, subject to all technological problems. And if it suddenly crashed and you don't have any back up, then you risk losing all your business documents, not just sales, but profit and loss statements as well as your payroll statements. All the important information that the IRS may need to check up some day. So, it's always important to have a back up.

   * Do you need a warranty extension?

Remember all that money you saved on bookkeeping? You could end up spending it on your tech guy, to help set up the POS and perform any trouble shooting. A POS system doesn’t have the same usable life span as good old fashioned cash registers. You will need to replace parts, update software and eventually need to replace it entirely with a new model. New POS systems come with limited warranties and tech support, but just like every other piece of equipment, the problems always seem to begin after the warranty has worn off. For these kinds of problems, you can always buy extra tech support for your POS systems.

   * Need help from some of the most popular software providers?

Here are some of the great POS software providers.

• Aldelo
• POS Digital Dining
• POSitouch
• Radiant Systems
• Squirrel Systems

If you are planning a very small operation, such as bread or a sweets shop, you may not need a POS system at first, especially if you aren’t going to take credit cards (and there are plenty of places that still don’t accept credit cards). However, if you have dreams of expanding or franchising, then you may want to figure in the purchase of a POS into your opening costs.

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The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at http://www.pos-for-restaurants.com with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types throughout the U.S.

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