Choosing a POS: twelve questions, in order

Choosing a POS is one of the longest commitments a venue makes. The point of sale system will be used on every service, by every member of the team, for years. It decides how orders are taken, how they reach the kitchen, how bills are split and paid, and what the venue knows about its own trade. Changing it later is disruptive and expensive, so the decision deserves more care than it usually gets.

Most venues choose a POS from a demonstration. A salesperson shows a clean screen, a few taps, a smooth payment and a dashboard of charts. Everything works, because the demonstration was designed to work. What the demonstration rarely shows is how the system behaves at nine o'clock on a Saturday, with a full room, a kitchen behind, a table of twelve splitting the bill and the internet dropping for two minutes.

This guide sets out twelve questions for choosing a POS, in the order that saves the most time and regret. The early questions are about your service, because a system that cannot run your busiest night is the wrong system whatever it costs. The middle questions test the system in conditions like yours. The last questions are about money, contracts and getting out, because those are the ones that cause the longest regret.

Many venues start with price. They collect quotes, compare monthly fees and shortlist the cheapest. Then they discover, after signing, that the cheapest system cannot split a bill the way their guests want, or does not talk to their kitchen screens, or costs far more than quoted once the add-ons are counted.

Starting with your service avoids that. If you first decide what the system must do on your busiest night, you can rule out systems that cannot do it before you spend time on their pricing. If you then test the remaining systems in realistic conditions, you can compare the ones that genuinely work. Only then does price decide between them.

The order below follows that logic: needs first, then behaviour, then connections, then cost and contract. Skip ahead and you risk choosing a system that is cheap, signed and wrong.

Before looking at any system, write down what your busiest service demands. How many tables, covers and orders per hour? How many people take orders at once? Do servers take orders at the table, at a terminal or both? Do guests order from their phones? How many kitchen stations are there, and how do they receive orders? How do guests usually pay, and how often do large tables split the bill?

That list is your requirement. It describes your service, not a generic restaurant. A café with counter service needs different POS features from a restaurant with table service, coursed menus and a bar.

Mark each requirement as essential or useful. Essential ones rule systems in or out; useful ones help decide between the systems that remain.

The core of any restaurant POS is the journey of an order. Ask each supplier to show, step by step, how a server takes an order for a table of four with modifiers, an allergy and a held main course, and how that order appears in the kitchen.

Watch for how many taps it takes, how modifiers are chosen, how the allergy is shown to the kitchen, and how the held course is fired. Ask whether orders can be taken at the table on a handheld device, and whether guests can order from their own phones into the same check. Ask what the kitchen sees: a printed ticket, a screen at each station, or both.

This question reveals more about a system than any feature list. Our guide to order management from table to pass covers each handover the order goes through.

Every venue's internet fails sometimes, and it always seems to happen on a busy night. Ask each supplier exactly what happens to their system when the connection drops for two minutes, and for twenty. Can orders still be taken? Do they reach the kitchen? Can payments still be taken? What happens to orders entered during the outage when the connection returns?

The answers vary widely. Some systems keep working locally and catch up later; others stop. Some card terminals can take payments offline; others cannot. Ask to see it happen in the demonstration, by disconnecting the network.

Whatever the answer, plan for failure. A backup internet connection, such as a mobile data router, protects any system. Our guide to POS hardware covers the network a venue needs.

Service is full of awkward moments, and they are where systems differ most. Ask to see each of them:

Each one happens every week in most venues. A system that makes them slow or confusing will cost time on every busy night. Our guide to splitting the bill for a table of eight covers why splitting by item is often the one that matters most.

The kitchen is where a POS earns its keep or fails. Ask how orders are routed to stations, whether the kitchen uses screens or printers, how held courses appear and are fired, how a dish that runs out is taken off every terminal and menu, and how long each ticket has been waiting.

If you plan to use kitchen screens, ask whether the kitchen display is part of the same system or a separate product that has to be connected. A kitchen display that reads the same order as the point of sale avoids a second system to maintain. Our guide to how much a kitchen display system costs covers the options.

Ask what the kitchen display records, such as ticket times by station, because that record is how the kitchen improves.

Speed matters most when the room is full. Ask the supplier to demonstrate with your own menu, or a realistic version of it, rather than their sample menu. Time how long it takes to enter a typical order for a table of four, and a complicated one for a table of eight.

Ask about peak behaviour: how many terminals and orders the system handles at once, whether screens slow down when the kitchen is full of tickets, and how quickly changes, such as a dish running out, reach every device.

If possible, visit a venue similar to yours that uses the system, and watch a busy service. Ask the staff what frustrates them. Their answers are the most honest POS demo questions you will get.

A POS rarely works alone. It may need to connect to your booking system, your card payment provider, your accounting software, your digital menu, your guest database and your email marketing. Each connection either works smoothly or creates daily reconciliation work.

Ask which connections are built in, which need a third-party integration, and which do not exist. Ask who maintains each integration, what it costs and what happens when one side changes. Integrations that break quietly cause some of the worst problems: bookings that do not appear, payments that do not match, sales that never reach the accounts.

Consider whether one system covering more of the service, such as bookings, menus, ordering, the kitchen and payments, would reduce the number of connections you need. Our head-to-head guide to one bundle against separate systems compares the two approaches.

Ask what hardware the system requires, and whether you can use your own. Some systems run only on their own proprietary terminals; others run on standard tablets, phones and screens. The difference affects the up-front cost, the cost of replacing a broken device and what happens if you change system later.

Ask about card terminals separately. Some POS suppliers require you to use their payment processing and terminals; others let you choose any provider. That choice affects your card fees for years.

List every device the system needs for your service, and price it. Our guide to POS hardware covers the shortest list that runs a service.

Only now, with the systems that can run your service shortlisted, compare the money. Ask each supplier for every cost over three years: software subscriptions, per-terminal or per-user fees, hardware, installation, training, support, payment processing, integrations and add-ons. Ask how prices change as you add terminals, staff or venues.

Add them up. The total cost of ownership over three years is a far better comparison than the monthly fee on the first page of the quote. A system with a low monthly fee and high card processing charges may cost more than one with a higher fee and lower charges.

Our guide to how much a POS costs in the first year works through a first year for a single venue, line by line.

Read the POS contract before you sign, not after. Look for the length of the term, what happens at the end, how much notice you must give, what it costs to leave early and whether prices can rise during the term. Check whether hardware is owned, leased or rented, and what happens to it if you leave.

Look for clauses that tie you in: a requirement to use the supplier's payment processing, minimum transaction volumes, automatic renewals and fees for exporting your data. Each one makes leaving harder. The general problem of vendor lock-in, where switching costs keep a customer with a supplier, applies strongly to point of sale systems.

If anything is unclear, ask for it in writing. A supplier confident in their system rarely needs a long, hard-to-leave contract.

Something will go wrong at the worst possible moment. Ask each supplier what support they offer, when, and how. Is there a phone line or chat that answers at nine on a Saturday night? How quickly do they respond? Is support included in the price, or charged extra?

Ask about onboarding too. Who sets up the menu, the stations, the tables and the users? How is the team trained? What happens in the first week, when everyone is learning?

Ask other venues using the system about their experience of support. Suppliers describe their support generously; customers describe it accurately.

The last question is the one most often forgotten: if you leave, what happens to your data? Your sales history, menu, guest records and reports are valuable, and you may need them for accounting, tax and planning long after you change systems.

Ask what data you can export, in what format, at what cost and how easily. Ask whether you can export it at any time, not only when you leave. Ask what happens to your data after the contract ends.

A system that makes your data easy to take away is a system that is confident you will want to stay. One that makes it hard is relying on the difficulty of leaving.

A point of sale holds the record of every service, and the reports it produces decide how much a manager learns from that record. Before choosing, ask to see the reports a manager would use the morning after a busy night: sales by hour, sales by dish and category, payments by method, voids and comps by member of staff, and the busiest tables.

Ask how easy they are to read and how far back they go. Can you compare this Saturday with the last four? Can you see which dishes were voided most often, and by whom? Can you export the figures for your accountant? A system with good POS features at the till but weak reporting leaves the most useful information locked away.

Check who can see what. Managers need full reports; servers may need only their own sales. Good systems let you control access by role.

The demonstration is where most venues decide, so make it count. Send your requirements in advance, and ask the supplier to show your busiest scenarios with your own menu. Bring the people who will use the system every day: a server, a chef and a manager. Ask them to try it themselves rather than watching.

Use a list of POS demo questions drawn from the twelve above, and ask the same ones of every supplier, so the comparison is fair. Disconnect the network. Split a complicated bill. Void a dish. Run out of a dish. Ask to see the reports a manager would use the next morning.

Write down the answers during the demo, not afterwards. After three demonstrations, details blur, and the most confident presentation can seem better than it was.

By the end, you should have a short list of systems that can run your service, behave well at peak, connect to what you need and cost a known amount over three years, with contracts you understand. Choose between them on the things that will matter most day to day: how easy the system is for your team, how well it handles your awkward moments, and how good the support is.

Plan the change carefully. Choose a quiet period to switch, set up the menu and tables in advance, train the team before the first service and keep the old system available for a short time if you can. The first week on any new system is slower, and that is normal.

Review after three months. Ask the team what works and what does not, look at the reports, and take up any problems with the supplier while the relationship is new.

servearound's point of sale opens checks on the same floor plan the host seats from, so every check has its table. Servers send starters, hold the mains and fire them with one press, and tickets go to the station that cooks them, on a screen per station or one board for the pass. A dish taken off at the till is off every terminal and every guest's menu at once. Checks can be split by moving dishes onto a new check, merged, transferred to another server or moved to another table, and payment is recorded by cash or card, or as a transfer or an external terminal.

Bookings, menus, ordering from the table, the kitchen display and analytics are parts of the same system, so there is less to connect. servearound runs in a browser and on iPhone, iPad and Android, and it is priced per venue, per month, with no per-cover, per-order, per-screen or per-user fees. See fulfillment and pricing.

Usually a few weeks: a week to write down requirements, two or three weeks of demonstrations and visits, and time to read contracts.

Only if it still fits. Your new venue's service may be different. Run the same twelve questions.

Each has strengths. Ask how each behaves when the internet drops, what hardware it needs and what it costs over three years.

Three is usually enough to compare properly without the demonstrations blurring together.

Yes. The people who use the system every day will spot problems a manager might miss.

What happens on your busiest night. A system that cannot run it is the wrong system at any price.

Ask. Some suppliers offer a trial or a short first term. Even a few days of running real services shows more than any demonstration.

Ask how the system handles a group: shared menus with local prices, reports across venues, and staff who work at more than one site. Check how pricing changes with each extra venue.

Choosing a POS is a long commitment, so ask the questions in the right order. Start with what the system must do on your busiest night, then test how it takes an order to the kitchen, copes with an internet failure, handles awkward moments, serves the kitchen and performs at peak. Only then look at connections, hardware and the total cost of ownership over three years.

Read the POS contract carefully, check support at the hours you need it, and make sure you can get your data out. Run demonstrations with your own menu and your own staff, ask every supplier the same POS demo questions, and choose the system your team can run well on the busiest night of the week.