Any good restaurateur knows the importance of doling out delicious food, as well as superlative customer service. If there is a deficit in either of these areas, customers are almost certain to take their appetites elsewhere. However, of equal importance is providing a solid business infrastructure to support your restaurant operations.
How a smart terminal can enhance your eatery.
Unless you only want to accept cash — a risky and limiting strategy in this era of electronic payments — your establishment should be equipped with a point of sale (POS) solution. This consists of payments hardware (tablets, card readers, receipt printers, barcode scanners, and cash drawers), as well as the software that runs the hardware and communicates with your payment processing company. After you choose the POS system that best suits your business, you can also streamline many other aspects of running your restaurant.
- Streamline inventory tracking for efficient re-ordering of what you need, when you need it.
- Easy, accurate employee time scheduling.
- Effortless generation of customized reports, enabling you to view profits and losses, sales trends, and other data.
- Reservations management.
- Customer loyalty programs.
Considering the many enhancements that a smart POS terminal can bring to your restaurant, you probably have only one question: What are the key features to look for in payment processing for restaurants?
Choosing the right hardware.
Be sure that the POS system you select has the necessary components you need to accept payments throughout your restaurant. These may include a mobile credit card terminal or tablet, cash register, computer, barcode scanner, receipt printer, and internet router.
The ability to generate reports.
Look for a system containing capabilities that allow you to effortlessly pull up documents about your restaurant, sales, and staff. You should be able to easily gather analytics-based data about total sales, sales by menu item or promotions, the average amount spent per customer, staff sales and tips, tax information, and end-of-day summaries just to name a few. Once you have these figures at your fingertips, you can make better decisions about the current and future running of your eatery.
Customer loyalty capabilities.
When customers are provided with the chance to join a loyalty rewards program, they are demonstrably more likely to return to your restaurant and to spend more money when they do. Once your loyalty program is in place, you can incentivize valued patrons to come back, communicate with people about new menu items and promotions, and continue to collect valuable customer information that you can use for future marketing initiatives.
Inventory management.
Look for a system that seamlessly integrates with your financial software. Once you find one, you can use it to determine the costs of all menu ingredients, calculate profit margins for each menu item, and track product quantities for efficient re-ordering while reducing food waste.
Employee management.
Invest in a smart terminal that eases your staffing burdens. Your system should keep track of employee hours, predict staffing requirements based on history, and help you determine who your least and most productive servers are.
Adding a smart terminal to your restaurant checkout can quickly elevate your efficiency, streamline staff functions, and help you provide a more positive customer experience. Best of all, these systems are affordable, secure, and easy to learn and use — even if you aren’t tech savvy!
