Any good restaurateur knows the importance of delivering delicious food as well as excellent customer service. If there is a shortfall in either of these areas, customers will almost certainly take their appetites elsewhere. Equally important, however, is providing a solid business infrastructure to support your restaurant’s operations.

How a smart terminal can improve your restaurant

Unless you only want to accept cash, a risky and limiting strategy in this age of electronic payments, your establishment should be equipped with a point-of-sale (POS) solution. This consists of payment hardware (tablets, card readers, receipt printers, barcode scanners, and cash registers), as well as the software that runs the hardware and communicates with your payment processing company. After choosing the POS system that best suits your business, you can also optimize many other aspects of your restaurant operation.

Optimize inventory tracking to efficiently reorder what you need when you need it.
Easily and accurately schedule employee time.
Effortless generation of customized reports, allowing you to view profit and loss, sales trends, and other data.
Reservation management.
Customer loyalty programs.
Considering the many enhancements a smart POS system can bring to your restaurant, you probably have only one question: What are the key features to look for in-restaurant payment processing?

Choose the right hardware

Make sure the POS system you select has the necessary components to accept payments throughout your restaurant. These may include a mobile or tablet credit card terminal, cash register, computer, barcode scanner, receipt printer, and Internet router.

The ability to generate reports

Look for a system that contains capabilities that allow you to effortlessly pull documents about your restaurant, sales, and staff. You should be able to easily compile analytics-based data on 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 operation of your restaurant.

Customer loyalty capabilities

When customers are given the opportunity to join a loyalty rewards program, they are more likely to return to your restaurant and spend more money when they do. Once your loyalty program is in place, you can incentivize valuable customers to return, 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 integrates seamlessly with your financial software. Once you find one, you can use it to determine costs for all menu ingredients, calculate profit margins for each menu item, and track product quantities for efficient reordering while reducing food waste.

Employee management

Invest in a smart terminal that eases your staffing burden. Your system should track 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’s cash register can quickly increase your efficiency, streamline staff functions and help you deliver a more positive customer experience. Best of all, these systems are affordable, secure, and easy to learn and use, even if you’re not tech-savvy!