Bar Point Of Sale

A good Pub Point Of Sale solution can be a difficult task to find at times, especially if you are new to all of the technology.

There are many benefits from upgrading from a cash register or even more so upgrading from hand wirtten slips. A point of sale systems i unlike any cash register 20 years ago. You now have the ability to see a live inventory number of how many beers should be in your cooler, scheduale your employees, create gift cards like they do in the big restaurants, in depth reporting to keep your money in your pocke tand your expenses low.

A point of sale system can give you a whole new level of control over your system and your store. Increase your revenue, fine tune your inventory management, change prices on the fly, offer specials on the fly.

What are the components of a point of sale system?

In the old days you had your cash register and that's about it. Things have changed a little bit. You still have your cash register but it's broken down into more efficient products:

	Computer System: This is the heart of your point of sale solution, many times a restaurant will have multiple stations (behind bar, cashier, servers, backoffice)
	Touchscreen Monitor : The touch abilities gives your servers the ability to enter items in quicker, makes changes on the fly quicker, choose from a seating map. Sometimes in higher end systems the monitor and computer are integrated (all in one).
	Thermal Printer: Usually a thermal printer is at every station giving the servers the ability to print out bills, printing out cashier reports at the end of the night, giving copy of receipts. These printers print as fast as you blink at a speed of around 7.9"per second.
	Mag Swipe Readers : With a mag swipe you can issue swipe cards to all your staff allowing them to sign in and giving you the ability to lock certain people out of certain features (discounts, voids, etc). It also makes signing in alot more efficient then a 5 digit number to sign in.
	UPS : An uninterrupted Power Supply is cheap insurance for any POS System. provides enough backup power for you to work through short and medium length power outages. It also safeguards your equipment from damaging surges and spikes that travel along your utility and data lines
	Backoffice Station: This would be a system typically a computer with a normal monitor and keyboard and mouse and attached would be a laser printer. This is where you would be entering your product information, changing prices, updating specials, printing off reports. In a situation where there is only 1 terminal in the restaurant the station and the backoffice would be used for the same purpose.
	Cash Drawer: In a restaurant you may have your cash drawer with a cashier, bartender. In most situations the servers and bartender keep all cash in there purses and cash out that at the end of the night.
	Impact Printer: Impact printers are used to receive orders in the kitchen.These are similar to the thermal printers but the noticeable difference is the printing speed and the fact that it does not print onto thermal paper. Impact printers also include ribbons instead of a laser. These printers are used in kitchen for durability and the fact that the impact paper does not turn black when in hot environment like the thermal printers do.

What are the benefits of upgrading to a POS System over my cash register?

Speeding up the Order process if the foremost advantage of a restaurant point of sale system by reducing the time the staff spend time transferring the order to the kitchen and spending time in the kitchen by updating orders or error corrections. The gains of a POS system can be impressive especially in a busy establishment. If a restaurant has 25 active tables and the average check is 35$ can increase turnover by one party per table, that is a extra $875 per night.

Additional Benefits would include being able to reduce shrinkage. Being able to control what discounts, voids, error corrects are being used by each server. Being able to track exactly what discounts where used and the reason code for it. Simply by locking out the discounts or voids completely apon authorization eliminates that part of shrinkage.

Advanced reporting gives you alot more insight to your business including busy and slow periods giving you the ability to staff more efficiently for those periods. It also serves are a great tool to see what is selling like crazy and maybe what's not which if is the case you can replace with something that maybe more popular.