Restaurant Point of Sale System Q&A

How Many Restaurant POS Terminal Should I Use?

• Considering peak customer volume
  If you want to sufficiently handle large volume of customers, you must plan the number of POS stations based on peak business.
• Number of employees taking the orders
  For a table service environment we suggest 1 station for every 3-5 servers. You might want to have additional stations for handling high volume areas such as the bar and cashie stations. Switching from an ordinary cash register to a POS system, many people unintentionally forget that their POS system will not only be used to cash out customers, but will now be used for order entry as well.
• Restaurant layout
  If you have a bar you can bet the bartender will need his or her own station. Other stations should be located where servers can easily get at them.
• Assigning stations effectively where customers pay for their meals
  If you want your customers to pay for their meals though your servers carrying their own banks, then I suggest assigning fewer servers per station. But if you want them to pay at front, having 1 or 2 dedicated cashier stations would be better for quick transactions.

What type of POS computer would be best for my restaurant?

• Desktop: the standard desktop type.
  • Least expensive computer option
  • Has onsite warranty for 3 years
  • Can easily be kept hidden beneath a counter, so it will not cause delay for any transactions
  • Has greater flexibility for addition of extra ports
  • Latest CPU speeds and memory
  • Screen and computer are separate; so you can easily isolate which ones has technical difficulties.
• Small form factor: smaller than desktops.
  • Compared to the standard computer, SFF is more stylish
  • 3 Year Onsite Warranty Standard for this component
  • More Space Saving
  • Fewer options for expandability
  • Latest CPU speeds and memory
  • Screen and computer are separate; so you can easily isolate which ones has technical problems.
• All-in-one terminals: combined touchscreen and computer.
  • More efficient because it requires fewer wires least space, even more stylish
  • 1–2 Year Manufacturers 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.
  • Screen and Computer are one unit

How many cash drawers should I use?

• This is probably fairly self-evident, but unless your servers carry their own cash bank you should have a cash drawer at every station you want for ending transactions.

Credit card processing?

• Your POS systems can be used to process and keep records of all credit card transactions and allows you to store them in one convenient location.
• Can reduce seconds of transaction time with a high speed internet.
• If you do not have a high speed internet, we suggest using a standalone terminal for processing transactions.

How many kitchen/bar printers?

• Having one printer for your kitchen 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 starters print on one printer and all your entrees print on another.
• For kitchens and bars, it is highly recommended that you use impact 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.

Does having a back office computer helps in restaurant management?

• A back office computer helps managers to run reports and access POS systems to change, remove or add important data without disturbing servers.
• It’s not quite necessary to have a back office computer for your restaurant, if you only have 2-3 stations.. However, it’s a good idea that you use a back office computer to host your database if 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.