POS demo questions vendors hope you forget

A point of sale demo is a performance. The presenter knows the system perfectly, the menu is simple, the screen is fast and every feature appears exactly when it is mentioned. In forty-five minutes, you see the best of the system and almost none of the moments that will matter on a busy night.

That is not dishonest; it is what demos are for. But it means the buyer has to steer. The questions that reveal the most are the ones a presenter rarely volunteers answers to: what happens when the internet fails, what the contract really costs over three years, how you get your data out if you leave, and how quickly support answers on a Saturday night.

This guide sets out fifteen POS demo questions, grouped by service, money and data, what a good answer sounds like, and the three answers that should end the conversation. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

A demo shows what the presenter chooses to show. The features that look impressive on a screen, such as dashboards, charts and loyalty schemes, get the most time. The features that decide whether a busy service runs smoothly, such as splitting a check, sending a held course or recovering from a dropped connection, get the least.

Steering the demo means asking the presenter to do your work, not theirs: your menu, your awkward orders, your end of night. It also means asking about the parts of the relationship that never appear on screen: the contract, the support and your data.

Write your questions down before the call, and ask every vendor the same ones. Comparing answers side by side is far easier than comparing impressions.

Bring the people who will use the system. A manager sees the reports and the end of night; a senior server sees the ordering and the splitting; the head chef sees the kitchen tickets. Each notices problems the others miss.

Agree before the call who will ask which questions, and who will watch which part of the screen. A demo watched by three people from three angles reveals far more than one watched by the owner alone.

Before any question, ask the vendor to show the system with your own menu, or at least a part of it. A demo menu with eight dishes and no options makes every system look fast. Your menu, with its forty drinks, its modifiers and its set menus, shows how the system really behaves.

If the vendor cannot set up even a sample of your menu for the demo, ask for a trial instead. Choosing a POS on the strength of someone else's menu is choosing it on the strength of someone else's service.

Ask the presenter to ring in a hard order, live: a table of six, two with allergies, a steak cooked medium rare with a side swapped, a dish with an ingredient removed, and mains held for later. Count the taps, and watch how long it takes.

Then ask to see what the kitchen receives. Are the changes under their dishes? Do the allergies stand out? Are the held mains clearly marked? A system that is quick at the till but sends an unclear ticket has only moved the problem.

Ask the presenter to split a check four ways: two guests paying for their own dishes, two sharing the rest. Then ask them to move one dish from one guest to another, and take one payment by card and one in cash.

Splitting is one of the most common tasks in table service and one of the most awkward in many systems. If it takes the presenter more than a minute, it will take a busy server longer.

Ask exactly what works without a connection. Can servers take orders? Do orders reach the kitchen? Can payments be recorded? What happens to orders taken offline when the connection returns?

A good answer is specific, and the presenter will offer to show it. A vague answer, such as "it hardly ever happens", is a warning. Our guide to POS offline mode: the night the internet died covers what to expect.

Ask how a server holds the mains and fires them when the table is ready, and how a dish sent back is remade without charging the guest twice. Ask how the kitchen sees held courses and remakes.

In a sit-down venue, these happen at every table, every night. A system that handles them clumsily slows every service.

Ask how long it takes a new server to learn the system well enough for a busy shift. Then test the answer: ask someone from your team who has never seen the system to ring in a few orders during the demo, without help.

Staff turnover means the system will be learned again and again. A system that takes an hour to learn saves days of training every year compared with one that takes a week.

Ask for the total cost over three years: software, hardware, installation, training, support, extra modules, card processing and anything else you will pay. A monthly price on its own says little.

Ask specifically about the costs that appear later: adding a device, adding a venue, adding staff, upgrading a plan or replacing hardware. Our guide to how much does a POS cost in the first year covers the full sum.

Ask what the quoted price includes and what costs extra. Kitchen screens, reports, online ordering, bookings, staff management and integrations are sometimes included and sometimes sold separately.

Ask the presenter to point to the price of every feature they showed. A demo that shows ten features and a price that includes four is a common source of surprises.

Ask whether you must use the vendor's own card processing, or whether you can use your own provider. Ask the rate, any monthly fees and how long you are committed.

Some systems are cheap because they make their money on card processing, with rates that are higher than you could get elsewhere and contracts that are hard to leave. That can be a fair deal, but you should know which deal you are making.

Ask how long the POS contract runs, how much notice you must give to leave, whether it renews automatically and how the price can change during it. Ask for the contract before the end of the demo, and read it before you sign anything.

Pay attention to automatic renewals, price increases at the vendor's discretion and early termination fees. A three-year contract that renews for another three years unless cancelled in a narrow window is common, and costly to discover late.

Ask whether you buy the hardware, lease it or rent it, and whether it works with other systems if you leave. Dedicated terminals that only work with one vendor's software tie you to that vendor as surely as any contract.

Ordinary tablets and computers that you own outright give you more freedom, though they bring their own costs. Our guide to tablet POS: cheaper until it is not covers the trade-off.

Ask what POS data you can export: sales, payments, menus, guests, staff and history. Ask in what form, how often and at what cost. Ask to see an export during the demo.

Your data is the record of your business. A system that makes it hard to export makes it hard to leave, and that is a form of vendor lock-in worth avoiding.

Ask who owns the data, what the vendor may do with it, whether it is shared with partners and where it is stored. Ask what happens to it if you leave, and how long the vendor keeps it.

The answers should be in the contract, not only in the presenter's words. If they are not, ask for them in writing.

Ask about pos uptime: how often the system has been unavailable in the past year, for how long and at what times of day. Ask how customers are told about problems, and when maintenance and updates happen.

A good vendor answers openly, with figures and examples. No system is perfect; what matters is how often it fails, how quickly it recovers and how honestly the vendor talks about it.

Ask when support is available, how you reach it and how quickly it answers. A venue that trades until midnight needs support until midnight, and at weekends, because that is when problems happen.

Ask other venues using the system how support has treated them. Their experience is a better guide than any promise in the demo.

Ask which other systems it connects to: bookings, accounting, delivery platforms, payroll, loyalty. Ask who builds and maintains each connection, what each costs and what happens when one side updates.

Our guide to POS integration: the four systems it must talk to covers the connections that matter most.

Ask how the system grows. What does it cost to add a device, a member of staff, a second venue? Can menus and reports be shared across venues? Are there limits on the number of items, tables or users in each plan?

A system that suits one venue today may be expensive or awkward at three. You do not need to buy for growth now, but you should know what it will cost when it comes.

Ask what happens after you sign. Who sets up the menu, the tables and the devices: you, the vendor or both? Is training included, and how is it delivered? Will someone be available on the first night, and how quickly will problems in the first month be fixed?

The first month decides whether a new system succeeds. A vendor who leaves you alone after the contract is signed will make it harder; one who helps through the switch will make it easier. Our guide to POS migration without losing a Saturday covers the switch itself.

How a vendor answers matters as much as what it says. Specific answers, offered with a demonstration, suggest a system that does what is claimed. Vague answers, promises of features coming later and quick changes of subject suggest it does not.

Note which questions the presenter wanted to move past, and come back to them. The question a vendor hopes you forget is often the one that matters most to your venue.

Ask what guests see: the receipt, the bill presented at the table, any menu guests open on their phones and any booking page. These are part of your brand, and they should look like your venue, not like the vendor.

Ask how a guest asks for the bill, how a split bill is shown to them and how a receipt reaches them. Small details here shape how guests remember the end of the meal.

Ask how staff sign in, how managers' accounts are protected, what happens when a device is lost and how the vendor protects your data. Ask how often the vendor reviews its security, and how it would tell you about a problem.

A vendor who answers clearly, and treats your data with care, is a vendor you can trust with your takings and your guests.

Ask what happens if you decide to leave. How much notice do you give, what do you take with you, how long does the vendor keep your data and is there a fee? Ask as if you were already planning to go.

The answer shows how the vendor thinks about its customers. One that makes leaving simple is confident you will stay.

Some answers should end the conversation, however good the rest of the demo looked. First, any answer that means you cannot get your data out, or can only do so at a high price. Your data is your business; a vendor who holds it hostage will hold you hostage too.

Second, support that is not available when you trade. A system you cannot get help with on a Saturday night is a system that will one day close your Saturday night.

Third, a contract you cannot leave: long terms, automatic renewal, price increases at will and heavy fees for leaving early, especially when combined with hardware that only works with that vendor. Any one of those is worth negotiating; all of them together is a trap.

A demo is the start, not the end. Ask for a trial in your own venue, with your own menu, your own staff and your own connection, during a real service. Watch how the team gets on, what the kitchen receives and how the end of the night adds up.

Then compare the trial with the demo. Where they agree, you can trust the demo. Where they differ, trust the trial.

Ask the vendor for two or three venues like yours that use the system, and call them. Ask what they like, what they would change, how support has treated them and whether they would choose the system again.

References chosen by the vendor will be its happiest customers, so ask specific questions: the last time the system failed, the last support call, the biggest surprise after signing. Honest answers to those tell you a great deal.

After each demo, score the vendor on the same sheet: each of the fifteen questions, with a mark for the quality of the answer and a note of anything that worried you. Add the total cost over three years and the contract terms.

Compare the sheets side by side before deciding. The system that impressed most on the call is not always the one that scores best on paper.

An invented restaurant group invites three vendors to demo. Each demo is impressive. Before the second round, the owner writes down fifteen questions and asks every vendor the same ones, with the group's own menu.

The answers differ sharply. One vendor's system cannot export menus or guest data without a fee. Another offers support only on weekdays. The third answers every question specifically, offers a trial and sends the contract the same day. Its demo had been the least polished of the three.

The group runs a two-week trial with the third vendor, finds two small problems that are fixed during the trial, and signs a one-year contract with a clear notice period and a full data export.

Ask us these too. Some of the answers, plainly: servearound runs in a browser, on tablets and computers you already own, and it has no offline mode, so a backup line and a paper fallback belong in your setup. It does not process card payments: payments are recorded against the check, and cards are taken on your own terminal. It does not print kitchen tickets today, and ticket printing is coming. It does not connect to accounting software or delivery platforms, and bills for any range of dates can be downloaded as a spreadsheet.

Bookings, the point of sale, the kitchen screens, guest records and reports are one system, guests can be brought in from a spreadsheet, and plans are priced per venue. For the rest, including the contract, see pricing or get in touch.

Questions on service, money and data: hard orders, splits, offline working, courses, training, the three-year cost, what is included, card processing, the contract, hardware, data export, data ownership, uptime, support and connections.

A demo menu makes every system look fast. Your own menu shows how the system behaves with your real orders.

The total cost over three years, including hardware, extras and card processing.

Its length, the notice to leave, whether it renews automatically and how the price can change.

Your data is your business. A system that makes it hard to export makes it hard to leave.

No way to export your data, support not available when you trade, and a contract you cannot leave.

No. Ask for a trial in your own venue, with your own menu, staff and connection.

Ask every vendor the same written questions, and compare the answers side by side.

A POS demo shows the system at its best, so the buyer has to steer. Bring your own menu and ask fifteen questions: five on service, five on money and five on data. Watch a hard order, a four-way split and the offline answer; get the three-year cost, the card processing terms and the contract in writing; and see a data export, the uptime record and the support hours.

End the conversation if you cannot get your data out, if support is not there when you trade or if the contract is built to keep you. Then trial the system that answers best, in your own venue, before you sign.