The Restaurant Biz Blog

I imagine that in the current economy restaurant owners aren't lined up with cash in hand waiting to spend money on a new POS system, but maybe you are opening a new store or your old system isn't quite giving you what you need. If this is you, then I encourage you to consider a few things while you're shopping around.

1) The Hardware Trap
If you're upgrading your existing POS system and your terminals are in decent shape, you should definitely try to find a POS system that will work on the hardware you already own. There are a few companies out there that force you to buy their hardware. Even if you're buying a brand new system, think carefully before using one of these companies, it's always best to give yourself options.

2) Closed Systems
I can speak as one of many businesses offering third party add-ons and back-office products for restaurants. We spend lots of development time integrating our software with our clients' POS systems. Many POS systems (especially the bigger ones) often make it difficult and expensive for you to use another company's solution with their system. They would rather have you buy their inventory system, scheduling program, or gift card solution and so they put up barriers to keep you from using other solutions. Again, don't limit your options, you never know what new shiny gizmo you'll want to incorporate down the road, wouldn't you rather be with a POS provider that is open to all those new ideas.

*** Free business advice for POS companies: First, if you're not on the web, get on the web. Second, if you're on the web, publish an API and build an app store like Apple has for the iPhone. This would be groundbreaking.

3) Recycle
Unfortunately, restaurants go out of business every day, so there are opportunities for you to pick up a barely used system for a great price. You still need to do your homework about the system so that you can avoid #2 above and also some POS companies require a license that is not transferable should you buy used equipment, so research this to make sure you can use the POS software after the purchase.

4) Help Me
The good news is you're great at operating a restaurant, the bad news is that you're not as skilled at operating a computer system. Well lucky for you, there are lots of companies out there that will help you find a great POS system, and companies to help you set it up and help you fix it when things go wrong. Ask for references and see how they've helped other customers at 3am on a Saturday night.

5) Upgrading
Software companies are always fixing bugs and adding new features so find out how often your prospective POS provider releases upgrades, how much the upgrades cost, and how easy or difficult the process is (i.e. can you do it yourself or do you need a consultant to help).

*** Web-based POS systems usually have a big advantage here, since updates are regular, often free, and can happen without you needing to lift a finger.

It's easy to be near-sighted, but make sure you think long-term before making your POS investment. The wrong choice will definitely haunt you and your staff for a long time.

These days there are several vendors offering web-based solutions for restaurants. The more units a  restaurant has, the more benefit to using an online solution. In my next post, I will dive into the details regarding all the benefits to using software as a service (SaaS), but first let's take a look at what is out there.

1. Labor Scheduling - this is the first place for any restaurant to start. Let's face it, you're online and your employees are online. With online scheduling, everyone can get their schedules via the web, email, or cell phone. They can make requests, trade shifts, and just basically communicate with  the staff. At WhenToManage, this was our first product that we launched. HotSchedules is another company that offers a solution.
   
   
2. Inventory Management - one great thing about web-based inventory is that more and more suppliers are offering online ordering, so it only makes sense to allow these systems to talk to each other. For a restaurant company with more than one unit, an online solution allows them to manage their recipes from a central location as well as manage the entire supply chain from any laptop in the world. WhenToManage offers online inventory, if anyone knows of another web-based solution out there, please let me know.
   
   
3. Reporting - getting the numbers from a single location is one thing, but when you start multiplying it by 5, 10, or 50, you really need a system to pull everything together from your POS systems, inventory systems, payroll systems, etc. Just imagine automatically getting an email on your Blackberry every morning at 7am with all your sales data from all your stores for the previous day. WhenToManage offers this as does a company called Guest Metrics.
   
   
4. Marketing - this should actually be #1, but I thought it was too obvious. Unfortunately, it's probably not obvious enough for a lot of companies out there. There is not an easier or cheaper way to reach your customers than email. At the very least, you should have a customer database and send them an occasional email about your latest and greatest promotion. From there, you can upgrade to a loyalty program and stored value cards. There are lots of great companies that offer these services. Fishbowl and Stored Value Solutions are two that come to mind, but there are many others.
   
   
5. POS (Point-of Sale) - POS systems are the core of any restaurant operation, and a web-based POS solution may strike fear into your heart, but rest assured, there are some amazing products out there and they all have systems to secure your data and keep everything working when the Internet goes down. How great would it be to update a price a) from home b) for 20 stores at the touch of a button? How great would it be to open the store in the morning with the latest POS upgrade that installed itself before you got in (and did I mention that your other 20 stores were also automatically upgraded at the same time)? NetPOS offers a fantastic solution that I know quite well, and Halo also offers a web-based POS.

Hopefully, this will get you thinking about making the next step in the evolution of your restaurant.