Restaurant POS System has truly revolutionized restaurant management. Apart from taking customer orders, the system sends those requests to the kitchen, and keeps track of the menu being dished to the tables.
It also allows the businesses to know how much of sales goals it’s achieving for the week, month, or year. Unlike cash registers, it gives you tools to control the more delicate details of your business. However, this level of control does come with a price tag.
However, price should not be considered as the ultimate deciding factor for choosing a point of sale system for the restaurant. On the contrary, its cost undoubtedly plays a significant role.
Point of sale software comes up with a good number of hardware components like touch screen monitors, tablets, receipt printers, cash drawers – all such elements combine together to determine the total cost of the ownership.
The usual restaurant system cost is a couple of dollars a day, which means tens of thousands of dollars a year. So, how much should I invest on a POS system? Well, considering the drastic difference in price, it would be best for small business to pay no more than 1-4 percent of their overall annual revenue on a point of sale solution.
How much does a restaurant POS system cost? Let’s delve into depth:
The Cost of POS System:
First, we need to know about the software. POS software is essentially at the core of the operation. It is where you will have all the features and functionality. For instance, inventory management allows one to manage all the menu items. Similarly, POS system also allows one to manage one’s staff and shifts for payroll reporting and track customer visits to keep things in order.
It’s also a tool that simplifies reporting and analysis as well as provides valuable insight into the performance of the business, enabling one to make a smarter, data-driven decision.
While selecting this software, consider these two choices:
Legacy POS Software:
This type of software is usually installed on an internal back office server that hosts a network of computers. With the help of the computers, you will be able to connect with the point of sale software. This means you have to save the software as a file in your computer. Hence, you won’t be able to access the file without being at your desktop.
How much you may need to spend for the software depends on the specific needs of your restaurant. Usually, the cost range happens to be from $600 – $1000.
Cloud Based POS Software:
Unlike software, this is installed locally with data, meaning you can’t access when you are not in the building. Needless to mention, cloud technology has opened new horizon for the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model.
Due to the emergence of this software, cafe POS software companies have been able to bring down the start-up cost without compromising with functionality. Apart from hosting the solution, they securely store the data in the cloud, and allow one to access it easily by means of a native app or web-based system.