Posts Tagged ‘restaurant automation’

Can My Business Grow With A POS System?

I know a lot of you may think “Do I really need a point of sale system?”. You may not mind relying on your cash register and sales ledger for your transactions because it’s affordable and reliable. But is it really the most efficient way to run your business?

While it’s true that POS requires an initial investment, it’s important to understand the vast benefits a POS can bring to your business. Regardless of what industry you are in, the goal is to gain more sales and generate more revenue. POS can be your first step when achieving your goals – and many others. Here are some of what POS systems can do for your particular business:

Focus on your business - POS systems allow companies to concentrate on growing the business. When you’re not worrying about how your transactions are processed, you can spend your valuable time working on new techniques, promotions, and other initiatives to take your company to the next level.

Functionality - Your POS system is not just a cash register! With its advanced features, it can take reservations, process special orders and provides guest beeper systems to keep your business running smoothly.

Streamline Your Operations - With a POS system, there’s little room for error. Every information is entered and recorded accurately so the lines of communication are always clearly outlined. With a POS, orders are quickly served to customers with improved accuracy! In return, it also improves your productivity and level of customer service your retail business can offer.

Inventory Management - This is particularly important in food service industries where you need enough supply to serve all of your customers but don’t want them to go to waste if they’re not sold. With a POS, you’ll always be informed when you’re running low on stock and which items are best sellers so you can plan ahead.

Reducing Shrinkage – With a POS system, you can keep your employees honest all the time. With paper receipts and an old-fashioned cash register, it’ll be hard to handle temptations like pocketing a few dollars or giving out free meals and special discounts to friends. With a POS, your business is in good hands by providing exact records which traces your merchandise (and money) and where they are going.

Decreases The Chance For Errors – If you’re in the food service industry, you no longer need to decipher chicken scratch from busy wait staff! POS allows you to easily key in orders, including specifics, to decrease the chances that it will come out wrong. By this, you can keep your customers happy by serving them the right order. You will never have to re-cook orders and waste food, plus it’ll save you a great amount of money.

Track Costs - If you don’t have prices clearly entered in a database, you might as well let customers shop with their own pricing gun. You can use price stickers and label each item, but this doesn’t prevent witty thieves from swapping their price stickers. With a POS, every item you sell is bar coded and tracked so you always know each item will sell for the right price. And if changes are needed to be done, your POS terminal can do all the changes at once!

Increasing Patronage - Get more customers in the door by limiting the time other customers wait in line. When customers don’t have to wait for wait staff to calculate checks, collect payment, and clear tables, you can serve more customers and increase your sales.

Get Accurate Reports - POS allows you to do more than you could with multiple ledgers and spreadsheets. You can record, track, sort, and organize data in any format and make revisions whenever necessary. Reporting is an important. By using it, you can track what is sold, see what items needs to be restocked and reordered, and help you plan for the next few months of business and beyond. You can use it as a reminder tool when supplies are running low.

Track Customers’ Data - You can also build customer loyalty by using POS systems. Consider this, every customer that enters your restaurant will be entered into your POS system when they order something. Keep tabs of the food they order and how often they visit your store. You can use this data to compile information for targeted sales and advertising campaigns. This inforamtion is also helpful to limit the poor selling merchandise you keep in stock and earmark funds for more popular items.

There are several critical things in restauratn POS systems purchase in any industry. Just be sure to meet with at least 3-4 qualified vendors before making this important decision. In any case, you can always request for a free POS system quote, where vendors will be able to meet your needs once you supply them the details of your POS needs. Provide them with the details of the information you wish to track and the features that are important to you. Always be aware when the software appears to MAKE you do things unexpectedly. Follow this simple procedure in order to find the right software that can improve your business’ efficiency. With proper planning you will have a POS solution that makes your business more efficient, more profitable, more enjoyable, and keep your customers coming back!

Need more information or an online resource?

Go to POS-For-Restaurants.com

The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types throughout the U.S.

Still relying on your business’ old-fashioned cash registers and hand-written books handed down to you by your father and his father before him? You do no longer need a manual business system, because today is a different world! New technologies have been develop for Point of Sale Systems to help every retail business grow bigger. So say goodbye to your tiring, time-consuming manual business system and say hello to the new POS systems that will help boost your profit and make your customers happier than before.

As any retail establishment owner would do, ensuring the safety of your profit is a tough task. You can easily loose money from simple customer’s change mistakes and from an abusive staff of yours that keeps helping themselves to a few extra dollars or giving away free meals!

If the above issues have already happened to you, well don’t let it happen again! Now would be the best time to consider having a POS system. With the features a POS can offer your business, you can prevent these issues from happening and may even be able to completely eliminate them:

• Long lines which prevent you from working with as many customers as possible
• Frequent customer complaints
• Limited staff
• Overstocking of poor performing items
• Shrinkage (lost or stolen inventory that eats into your profit margins)
• Wasting too much time going over the books
• Financial inaccuracies (overbilling, underbilling, thin profit margins)
• Poor data organization

For as long as money is involved, a quality POS system can improve your business’ efficiencies as well as take good care of your customers. So buying cheap, poor quality POS systems can lead to the downfall of your business. You’ll risk loosing more money because of its poor features.

A good and reliable POS vendor can tailor the appropriate POS solution for your needs, which can enhance your business’ performance and making more customers satisfied. So requesting for a free POS system quote would be a great idea, since expert POS vendors can provide exactly what your business needs, complete with the features that will make your business boost its sales, without spending more money.

Questions to consider

When you request for a free POS system quote, below are some of the things you might want to consider asking to a POS vendor. What’s great about this service is that when you submit your details, it will be matched to the most qualified POS vendors serving your area. And only they will be able to acquire your details which in return prepare the proper POS solution that fits your business needs and give you their offers. Below are some of the questions you might consider asking:

• Is the software user-friendly? Will I be able to make changes on my own?
• Is POS software compatible with my current business management applications?
• Can I have a try out of the POS system before purchasing it?
• Do I need extra POS terminals? What about POS cash registers?
• Can I use the same POS for other marketing strategies such as gift card systems?
• How robust are the reporting features?
• Will I be able to point out where my profit losses are coming from?
• Can a POS system be set up immediately?
• Does it require extensive staff training?
• What level of customer support should I consider?
• Is lender available if my equipment repairs can’t be made on-site?
• Are there POS all-in-one solutions available or do I have to buy everything ala carte?

More information and an online resource

If you wish to know more about restaurant POS system, please visit POS-For-Restaurants.com

The author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations for POS-For-estaurants.com with its 20 years and more of restaurant POS systems experience serving all types of restaurants in the U.S. with their automation needs

Restaurant POS Software

To be able to run your business to success, let’s go back to the basics: good location, good food, good service. But today, there’s an addition to these basics: a reliable restaurant software to run your POS systems.

Even though physical components like the monitors and computers are the most visible, the software is the core of your POS system. Doing a careful evaluation of restaurant POS software is key to getting a system that will greatly satisfy both your staff and customers.

Looking for the right restaurant software
First, it’s important to know what exactly you need the software to do. Your restaurant POS software is able to handle checks per customer or per table, track orders per server, move diners from the bar to a table, manage waiting lists and reservations, and many more.

Once you’re satisfied that a particular piece of restaurant software can meet your basic requirements, try it yourself to see how easy it is to use. Even though there would be a learning curve for your staff when you adopt a new POS system, and since a POS software is easy to learn and navigate it can save you time on staff training.

You may have a couple of your servers to accompany you in the evaluation of the software while giving it a test drive. They may try different kinds of inputs and changes to the system that may end up causing problems to the software so you’d know what to look out for.

• Security – you may need to create accounts for each employee for safety reasons. With this you can limit your employees’ access to some reports as well as the functions (such as comping meals) to managers, if desired.
• Flexibility – your servers are able to control checks to match your patrons’ whims: easily splitting checks and tracking special orders, for example.
• Reporting – a POS software can create detailed report which is a great advantage for restaurant owners. So you better make sure the software you choose gets the neccessary detailed information on your business transactions either by per server or over all sales from day to day or to annual.
• Multiple location support – if applicable, make sure that your POS system is able to track and record on multiple locations, including local differences in staffing and pricing.

Looking for the best hardware
Of course you’ll need to invest in restaurant POS hardware as well: computers to run the restaurant software on, touch-screen displays for servers to enter order, and printers to produce order slips for the kitchen. The POS software you decide to use will require hardware – the biggest hardware decision you’re going to to make is how many stations you need.

Ready to start contacting restaurant software vendors? Find more information at POS-For-Restaurants.com and get free unbiased quotes from the Restaurant POS professionals serving your area.

The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience meeting the automation needs of many restaurants in the U.S.

Bar and Restaurant: POS software features

Product shrinkage or lack of inventory shouldn’t be that much problem to a Bar or restaurant owner. When you have the right bar POS software, you can say goodbye to these worries and focus more on your business and growing profits.

With a bar POS software, handling any customer transaction is just a cinch. Your POS can display information like the average bar tab you get every night, the number of open tabs, returns or invalid tabs, and debit card processing details. Using this software allows you to easily manage inventory, determine which top-selling items to keep in stock, and track the performance of new products.

Bar POS software features
The liquor inventory control is considered the most important feature a bar POS software have. It can track all the liquor, wine, and beer in stock as well as inform you if it’s time to re-stock running low resources. It can even track how much liquor goes into each drink, so you can have an idea how much money you can earn. With this feature, it helps keep your staff honest when serving liquor – since they know supplies are monitored, they’ll be less likely to give their friends free drinks.

This POS software also offers other cool features to help you streamline your operations and track overall sales performance (you may want to request for a free POS system quote where a bar Point of Sale expert can tailor the right POS solution to meet your needs):

• Secured login– Requires authorized staff to log in each time they use the software.
• Liquor control devices (LCDs) – This helps reduce shrinkage by tracking the exact amount of alcohol a staff pour on bottles or glasses.
• Recipe lookup – A sort of “cheat sheet” for bartenders where they can quickly look up for ingredients needed to prepare a certain drink.
• Data import and export – Downloads reports into your word processing or spreadsheet software for your personal bookkeeping efforts.
• Email list maintenance – Helps build your customer loyalty efforts by sending customers emails about limited offers, new product releases, and special events at your establishment.
• Gift card management – Supports your bar or restaurant with its gift card capabilities that can bring in repeat business.
• Schedule promotions – This bar POS software feature automatically manages price changes on liquor, wine and beer under limited time promotions like “happy hour.”
• Barcode readers – Can quickly serve customers by easily scanning barcodes on beer and malt beverage bottles.
• Employee scheduling – Can help you determine the right number of employees needed for certain shifts based on your sales history.
• Customer management tools – Help manage open bar tabs, check split requests, and gratuities.
• Food service integration – A very useful feature that lets your process both food and drink orders on the same screen.
• Menu management – Toggles between different liquors so you can accurately track the amount of liquor that goes into certain drinks.

Need more information or an online resource?

Go to POS-For-Restaurants.com

The author of this article is the Vice-President on Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types throughout the U.S.

How Many Restaurant POS Stations Will I Be Needing?

• Considering peak customer volume
  If you want to sufficiently handle large volume of customers, you need to plan for the number of POS stations based on peak business.
• Number of employees taking orders
  One station per 3-5 servers would be sufficient in a table service environment. You might want to have additional stations for handling high volume areas such as the bar and cashie stations. When switching to a POS system from a cash register many people tend to forget that their POS system will not only be used for cashing people out, but will now be used for order entry as well.
• The layout of your restaurant
  A good restaurant layout affects your employees service. So if you have a bar, assigning a separate station for your bar tender would be easier since he can serve customers from there quickly.
• How and where you plan to have customers pay for their meals
  If you plan to have customers pay at the front you should have one or two dedicated cashier stations to allow speedy transactions. If you want to have your servers carry their own banks, we suggest fewer servers per station.

What type of POS computer should I use for my restaurant?

• Desktop PC: the standard desktop type.
  • Least expensive computer option
  • Has onsite warranty for 3 years
  • Takes more space but can be hidden away beneath a counter
  • Has greater flexibility for addition of extra ports
  • Latest CPU speeds and memory
  • Screen and computer are separate; in case of technical difficulties problems are isolated.
• Small form factor: smaller than desktops.
  • More stylish than the desktop
  • 3 Year Onsite Warranty Standard for this component
  • Saves more space
  • Fewer options for expandability
  • Latest CPU speeds and memory
  • Screen and computer are separate; in case of technical problems problems are isolated.
• All-in-ones: combining touchscreen technology and computer.
  • More efficient because it requires fewer wires least space, even more stylish
  • Has 1-2 years warranty (Not onsite)
  • Comes standard with sufficient ports for almost any operation
  • CPU speed is generally slower than the other two options but sufficient for the Point of Sale needs.
  • Combined screen and computer

How many cash is ideal for my retail business?

• You can easily notice how many cash drawers your restaurant will need, unless your servers carry their own cash banks you should have a cash drawer at every station for ending transactions.

Debit card processing?

• Using your POS systems to process credit card transactions allows you to keep records of every transaction you process in one convenient location.
• You can reduce 3-4 seconds per transaction using with the advance of high speed internet.
• If high speed internet is not available we suggest using a standalone terminal for processing.

How many printers must a typical restaurant?

• One kitchen printer will probably be sufficient for many restaurants; however, if you have different sections in your kitchen which handle different dishes you may want a printer for each section.
• For example, you can have all your appetizers print on one printer and all your main dish printed on another.
• For kitchens and bars, it is highly recommended that you use impact (dot-matrix) printers instead of thermal printers. Because their loud printing alerts cooks and bartenders that an order is coming through, and since tickets printed on thermal printers becomes unreadable when exposed to heat.

Do I need more that one receipt printer?

• Since you’re going to have more than one station, you would likely need more than just one receipt printer.

Should I have a back office computer?

• A back office computer is good for allowing managers to run reports, access the system to make changes to menu, check inventory levels, or adjust employee time clock times, without disturbing servers and cashiers.
• It’s not quite necessary to have a back office computer for your restaurant, if you only have 2-3 stations.. It is however a good idea that you host your database on a back office computer when you have 4 or more stations so none of your stations will suffer the extra load of running your database.

More information is available at POS-For-Restaurants.com

The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types and sizes throughout the U.S.

Restaurant POS Systems has many factors you must consider in order to run a successful business. Let our POS professionals teach you how you can increase your profits and get control of your business.

Having A Control Over Your Business

Having the right POS system will provide a new level of control over your operations, increasing profits, efficiency as well as fine-tuning your business model. The wrong system, however, is just wasting time and money, and giving yourself a huge frustration.

In a sense, a POS system is a glorified cash register. The basic POS system can see in any quick service restaurants, that consists of a computer, cash drawer, receipt printer, keyboard and/or a scanner. In addition to being more efficient than cash registers, POS systems are able to create detailed reports which can help you plan ahead for your business’ future.

A POS system saves money, provide productivity gains, and can lessens the amount of time you spend away from the primary focus of your business.

Save more money, gain more control over your business, and being more productive; sounds like an easy and achievable plan, right? Well here are some of the best ways a modern point of sale (POS) system can help your business.

Eliminate shrinkage

A computerized point of sale system can drastically cut down on shrinkage, the inventory missing from your store or restaurant due to theft, waste and employee misuse. And since your employees will know that inventory is carefully tracked, internal shrinkage will dwindle.

Accuracy

When it comes to pricing, you need to make sure that have the right price on every item you sold, a POS system can help ensure this. Your staff will never have to guess prices again, and you can change prices with just one tweak in the computer.

Getting margins

With a detailed sales report, you can focus more on the higher-margin items. By moving items within a retail location, or promoting poor-performing dishes in a restaurant, you can help boost sales of high-profit items.

Know where you stand

Using a POS system, you can instantly know how much money you have in your cash drawer, how much of that money is profit, as well as how many of a particular item you have sold today, yesterday, last week or even last month.

Better inventory management

Detailed sales reports make it much easier for you to keep the right stock on hand. Track your remaining inventory, spot sales trends, and use historical data to better forecast your needs. Your POS software can be set to alert you when when stocks run low so you can reorder for them. There are many store owners who are caught by surprises when they have this data, because they think that they know exactly what trends affect them.

Build a customer list

Collecting names and address of your regular customers may come in handy in the long run. You may use this list for targeted advertising or for announcing incentive programs.

Reducing paperwork

POS systems can dramatically reduce the time you have to spend doing inventory, sales figures, and other repetitive but important paperwork. The savings here: time and peace of mind.

More efficient transactions

In a retail settings, barcode scanners and other POS features make checkout much, much faster. Restaurants will find their order process greatly streamlined as orders are relayed automatically to the kitchen from the dining room. With either of the two, your customers get faster, more accurate service.

You have to keep in mind that these benefits requires a commitment to utilizing the POS system capabilities to their fullest. Without appropriate training and ongoing analysis, even the most sophisticated POS system will be no more useful than a basic cash register.

Retail needs vs. Hospitality needs

The POS market is divided into two segments with very different needs: restaurants, bars, and hotels and other retail operations and hospitality businesses.

Retail

Of the two above, retails are the ones who uses simpler POS. Their transactions are completed all at once, and there is often less variation in the types of products they sell. Some POS features retailers may specifically want include the ability to support kits (e.g. 3 for deals), returns and exchanges, and support for digital scales. Your POS system will have to support matrixes if you sell items that come in a variety of styles, like clothing or shoes. As an example, matrixes ables yout to create one inventory and price entry for a particular sweater, but can still track sales according to size and color of the sweater.

Hospitality

Restaurants and other hospitality businesses differ in requirements.

Efficiency is the main focus for casual restaurants. For sub shops and other retail-style restaurants, a POS system can greatly increase accuracy and cut down on time-per-transaction unlike with hastily-scrawled order tabs sent to the kitchen. And for quick-service style restaurants, a POS system would be required to meet success: a customers’ order is entered on the terminal at the front which sends the order and displays them on a monitor in the food preparation area where the order is assembled and delivered to the appropriate customer.

For table-service restaurants and fine dining, POS requirements are somewhat different. They need to know which waiter is handling which table, and being able to create and store open checks. The efficiency gains from better management can be impressive. If a restaurant with 20 tables and an average check of can increase turnover by one party per table, that would be an extra 0 on one busy night.

Return of Investment (ROI)

Migrating from your old system to a computers POS system isn’t that easy. There are several factors you need to consider and pitfalls to avoid. But the return of investment (ROI) can really make it worth the time and effort.

Need more information or an online resource?

Go to POS-For-Restaurants.com

The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types throughout the U.S.

A Restaurant POS System (or Point of Service System) could be any POS terminal, hardware and software combined which is the the equivalent of an electronic cash register, used to process a transaction. A restaurant has many factors which makes the whole business function effectively. A restaurant POS terminal is used to accelerate sales transactions and secure the customers payment. Point of Sale means the transaction point, any location within a retail establishment where transaction occurs.

For a restaurant, there are lots of moving parts that’s involved for it’s performance. Having a restaurant POS Software can greatly help in managing staff attendance and performance, the inventory system, accounting and customers’ details, is a big help for any retail business owner improve his business’ performance. How? With features that provides powerful tools to help manage employee and customer data, a restaurant POS system increases both efficiency and profits.

Customer Satisfaction Increases Profit

Customer satisfaction is one of the most important factors you must be aware of, by meeting your customers’ expectations on your products or services, you’ll get a higher chance of customer return. The more customer returns you get, the higher your profit is! So your job, as the owner, is to make sure your employees are properly and accurately giving orders, provide assistance to customers and make an overall great performance all the time. Using a POS software, with touch screen technology, can greatly increase ordering accuracy and decrease ordering time by 50%.

Because your goal is to increase your profit, many retail POS vendors have developed systems that when combined can produce excellent results like the POS systems that enables you to integrate your accounting software such as QuickBooks and Peachtree. With a POS software like these, you can rest assured that all your financial data will be up to date, accurate and can even print sales report on any POS terminal just with the touch of a button!

Improving inventory management can be a hassle. Manual handling and updating of your inventory can be a lot of hassle, it’s both time consuming and costly. Install a proper POS software that can help accelerate inventory management, you will see and increase in efficiency with its advance management features, you can associate any information with the items as well, such as purchase date or date of expiry, you will never have to back to manual system ever again.

Difficulties with ordering system. Placing an order should have the right timing, order too late  and you will run out of an item, order too soon can cause a risk of the item going bad. Installing automated inventory management enables you to increase the efficiency of your products orders, set a special alert to notify you and your staff when you’re running low of items so you’d be able to re-order for them, as well as setting up notifications to alert you on nearing expiration dates. So if your restaurant still doesn’t have POS software for inventory management the time is now to do so.

Having Restaurant POS Solutions Fights Leakage

Having a good restaurant POS solution for your business can decrease shrinkage up to 10%. Since all data is digitally recorded, you can easily view reports, see every sales transaction made by your employees, and check if it’s accurate. By this, can ensure the safety of your profit and also ensure an easier way to investigate profit loss.

The information above is just the introduction of what a restaurant POS systems is and the advantages a good POS software can do for your business. I recommend you go online and do researchbefore purchasing any POS terminal as there are many comparison shopping sites that offer a wealth of information. You may also request for a free POS system quote where suppliers serving your area can send you their competitive price lists.

For more information or to have a local POS professional serving the restaurant industry in your area help you go to POS-For-Restaurants.com

Spam e-mails are not just annoying, they are also time consuming, but they’re also becoming more dangerous to your personal privacy and the security of your computer.Think twice when you’re about to open e-mails from unknown senders, especially if you’re using a computer from the office where all your important business files are instored. Millions of computer users and restaurant owners are getting infected, spoofed, and tricked by spam e-mails every year, forcing them to pay heavy fees for cleaning and restoring their computer POS systems back to normal.

There are the 3 most common dangers that all PC users must be aware of:

1. Hijacking and spoofed e-mails. Spammers has a new technology that effortlessly allows them to fool you by making it appear as though their spam e-mails are coming from YOUR computer. This could result in having your Internet connection cut or put on hold by your ISP – all without your knowledge. That is why good spam blocking software will not only block inbound spam e-mails from your inbox, but also the outbound spam e-mails from your server.

2. Virus infected spam e-mails. Accidentally open a virus-infected spam e-mail and you can end up with big problems ranging from the slowing of your system to more serious threats such as system crashes, data loss, identity theft, endless popping of unapproved sites, and more.

3. Phishing spam. Also called phishing scam. The attempt to acquire sensitive information of an individual either to steal money from their bacnk accounts or use the money to spend it online shops without the owners knowledge. A phishing spam e-mail sends some kind of bogus notification or warning to an individual asking for his or her online bank account, social security numbers, passwords, and credit card information. To be able to make someone believe that their spam e-mail is from a trusted website, phishing sites mimics the exact same look of the authentic website..

Here are some few simple tips you can do to prevent this:

First and foremost, install a sam blocking software as this will serve as your first line of defense, and make sure it’s a good one.

Many retail business owner over look into this, so their restaruant POS system is the one who suffers the most.

Next, you better make sure you don’t get on a spammers list in the first place. Once you’re on a spammer’s list, you’ll never remove it; and changing your e-mail address can be a big hassle especially if you’re using it to stay in touch with important business and personal contacts.

Here are some useful tips you can follow to prevent ending up on a spammer’s list:

1. Using disposable e-mail accounts.

Using a free e-mail address like with Yahoo or Gmail can reduce your chance on getting listed on a spammer’s list. If you want to avoid ending up on a spammer’s broadcast list, always use free e-mail accounts whether it’s Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail so don’t think that it’s just a waste of time registering for them.

2. Never forget to double-check those selection boxes or tick boxes that automatically opt you in.

Make sure you don’t check on the box that says “Yes! I would like to get third party discount offers.” when shopping online. There’s a big chance your e-mail address will be sent to every online advertiser.

3. Refrain yourself from posting your primary e-mail address in public places like your website or blog.

Spammers uses a special program that can collect e-mail addresses from web sites without your consent. If you really want to post an e-mail address on your home page, use “info@” so all replies will be forwarder to a folder in your in-box that won’t interfere with your main address.

4. Don’t open, reply to or try to opt-out of obvious spam e-mails.

Replying or clicking a link on a bogus opt-out link in an obvious spam e-mail signals that your e-mail address is active, and they’ll send you more spam e-mails.

The only time it is safe to click on the opt-out link or reply to the e-mail is when the message was sent from a company you know or do business with (for example, a company that you purchase from or a newsletter you subscribed to).

For more information or to have a local POS professional serving the restaurant industry and your location see more information at POS-For-Restaurants.com.

Looking for the right computer system for your restaurant? Regardless of whether you are looking at a system for your office or restaurant, there are a couple of things you must keep in mind when installing systems that will handle all your office data and help you operate your business properly.

1. Network cabling. Most systems are PC-based, designed to run on Microsoft Windows technology. This means that the workstations and computer equipments communicates over standard Ethernet networking. Although wireless communications have been the talk of the town these days, it is still highly recommended to “hardwire” your computer stations. Some vendors include this service in their bid; others specify that cabling must be arranged with a third-party vendor.

Inspite of who will work on the cabling, make sure all cables are properly plugged and tested before installing any equipment. Each computer equipment needs to have a cable drop. A cable drop is the wiring between a your equipment and its Ethernet transceiver.

For POS systems, the restaurant should be wired with CAT 5 or 6 network cabling that runs from every conceivable POS workstation, remote printer or KDS, office computer, hostess station, delivery order desks, cashier stations and network server to a “home run” area such as a central patch panel, preferably located in your telephone or electrical room or closet. Cabling routes need to ensure that cables are at least 24 inches from fluorescent fixtures, neon transformers and electrical motors, as these devices can sometimes interfere with communication.

2. Electrical. Installing a dedicated and isolated circuits for your equipmments such as your POS computers, network devices such as hubs and routers, and phone systems that can share. No other electrical equipment should be placed in this circuitry. I would prefer having your network, phone, and electrical service to be near to each other. An isolated circuit means that its ground is separated from the main electrical service. This helps prevent spikes and surges that can destroy motherboards and hard drives. Note, however, you may still want to use surge protectors at each workstation.

3. Properly designed workspace. When it comes to designing workstation areas, be sure to leave ample space to comfortably fit the equipment needed there. Tabletop space for server stations should be large enough to place your computer monitor, guest check printer, and possibly a credit card terminal if you plan to use separate credit card equipment. Make sure you leave enough space below the tabletop to hold your computer, the surge protector, power strip and a battery backup (UPS).

If you’re planning to place your workstations on millwork surfaces such as granite or woodwork, have your contractor pre-drill holes if needed to run cables or power cords beneath the surface. A 2-inch hole should give sufficient space for cords and cables on most POS systems.

For your cashier and bartender stations, the tabletop space should also be ample enough to fit a cash drawer and an order confirmation customer display. Most cash drawers have a footprint (space requirement) of 15- to 17-inch depth; 16- to 20-inch width; and 3.5 to 4 inch height. Be sure to get the drawer specifications from your supplier in advance if you are building a custom countertop so that the drawer is recessed into or underneath the counter.

4. Service Plans. Most vendors may offer service plans as part of your original purchase. The fact is, business grade systems are composed of hardware that will not last forever especially in retail establishments like a restaurant. POS printers will eventually break, fans will slowl fail, and hard drives will crash. How often is dependent upon the conditions under which they operate. Dirt, dust, heat and moisture are the most common threat to office and restaruant POS equipment.

There are those people who rarely experience problems wih their computers while others continue to deal with same problems. The best thing a retail business owner can do is to invest in good equipment and maintain it to reduce future damages. Many restaurant POS solutions provider will offer ongoing service contracts that are basically extended warranties. The annual cost for these services usually ranges from 10%-20% of the original purchase price.

Remember that your computer systems represents as a sizable investment. But if you dedicate the time and planning required to properly put in place and maintain the system, you are more apt to be rewarded a return on your investment by getting the most from your system in cost reduction, labor savings, and ensuring that you can account for all cash.

The Author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-for-Restaurants.com — With over 20 years of restaurant experience helping businesses like yours to use your technology more efficient and make your business more profitable .

For such a long time, most retail business owners thought of their point of sale system as a fancy cash register. With technology becoming more advanced, many innovations have become standard features within the POS industry.

1. Wireless Hand Held POS Devices. Wireless hand held devices has become one of the first-rate restaurant handheld POS equipment that can serve your customers faster and with improved accuracy. Your servers are able to present daily specials to your customers on the spot, process credit cards while walking to the next table, send a quick bread requests to the kitchen, and be able to add walk-ins to the waiting list – straight from the handheld device. With this, your servers are able to spend more time interacting with more customers keeping them happy and keeping them coming back.

2. “Sticky” Paper Printers. One of the newest innovations are the printers that uses “sticky” paper. These printers use paper that is similar to a Post-It that will allow you to reposition the receipt to different positions or locations over and over again. You can print the paper to whatever length you want, and then stuck to any surface where it will stay until it is removed and, even, placed elsewhere. With printers like these, the paper can stay with the order through the entire order process. The new paper is also liner-free so no need to manage non-recyclable waste and can be easily removed and restuck to a different surface – again and again. Use it for all orders, instant and special orders, as bag tags or any combination.

3. Digital Menu Board/Signage. Want to deliver media rich content, using video, audio and pictures to your customers using your POS system? Many POS packages have fully integrated and seamless digital menu board software that allow you to create content using the same database. Menu titles, pages, menu items, and prices can all be interlaced with high-quality multimedia to give your restaurant menu board a dramatic, interactive display without having to purchase an additional system.

With a digital menu board, you can easily sent to display content from your restaruant’s database in real-time, so the menu board continually updates throughout the day!

4. Self-Service or interactive Kiosk. Ever thought about getting a customer self-service kiosk for your business’ restaurant POS solutions? A self-service kiosk or interactive kiosk, first came to prominence with the photo kiosk machines from Kodak — from wikipedia. Later on adopted by consumers who mixed it with advanced technologies such as touch-screens monitors. This very useful piece of device, a self-service hardware combined with a self-service software, can be used to cut down on labor costs and speed up the ordering process. Aside from that, most POS packages can enhance the customer’s user experience even further, using sound and motion graphics, to engage your customer.

5. Cell Phone Paging. Some restaurants are choosing to take the more modern approach by paging customers’ personal cell phones. The restaurant host or hostess simply takes the customer’s cell phone number and list it into the cell phone paging system keypad. When the table is ready, the paging system sends a call to the cell phone with an automated voice message to notify the guest to report to the front of the restaurant to be seated. This can be a convenient way for guests who want to roam around farther than conventional pagers will allow and you won’t fear of the customer walking away with your pager.

This small list is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to restaurant technology. Loads more to come…

Michael Tash is VP of Customer Relations of POS-for-Restaurants.com — helping retail business owners use their technology to be more efficient and more profitable with over 20 years of its restaurant experience.