What is a POS, and what it is not

What is a POS? In a restaurant, the point of sale is the system where orders are taken, checks are built and payments are recorded. It holds the menu and its prices, knows which table ordered what, sends orders to the kitchen and the bar, and produces the record of every sale at the end of the day. In plain terms, it is the venue's record of every order.

That record makes the POS one of the most important systems in a restaurant. But it is also one of the most misunderstood. Owners often expect it to do jobs it was never built for: run the accounts, manage stock, write the rota, process card payments on its own, or market to guests. Some POS systems include some of these; many do not; and even the ones that do are rarely the best at all of them.

This guide explains what a POS is, the five jobs it does, the five things it is often wrongly expected to do, the POS features that matter, how payment processing actually works, and how the POS fits into order management from the table to the pass. It ends with what to think about when choosing a POS.

A point of sale is the place where a sale is made, and, by extension, the system that records it. In a restaurant, a POS is usually software on tablets, phones or terminals, where servers open checks, add dishes and drinks, send orders to the kitchen, and close checks when guests pay.

Older systems used dedicated terminals and a server in the back office. Many modern ones run in a browser or an app on ordinary devices.

The simplest way to think about a POS is as the venue's record of every order. Each check holds the table, the guests, the items, the changes, the discounts, the payment and the time. Together, the checks are the record of the day's trade: what sold, when, to whom, for how much and how it was paid.

Everything else the POS does follows from that record.

A restaurant POS does five jobs:

The sections that follow take each in turn.

The POS holds the menu: every dish and drink, its price, its options and its allergens. Servers choose from it to build orders. When the menu changes, the POS must change too, or the kitchen receives the wrong orders and guests are charged the wrong prices.

Modifiers, such as a choice of side or a cooking temperature, and allergen tags make the menu in the POS more detailed than the printed menu. They are what the kitchen relies on.

The POS builds a check for each table or guest: opened when they sit down, added to as they order, and closed when they pay. A check can be split, merged, moved to another table or transferred to another server. Discounts, comps and voids are recorded on it, usually with a reason and a name.

The check is the heart of the system. A POS that makes checks slow to build or hard to change slows the whole service.

The POS sends each order to the places that need to prepare it: dishes to the right kitchen stations, drinks to the bar. It does so on printed tickets or on kitchen screens, often with courses that can be held and fired when the table is ready.

This is the start of order management, the flow from the table to the kitchen and back. Our guide to order management from table to pass covers the whole flow.

When guests pay, the POS records the payment against the check: how much, by what method, and by whom. It may be connected to a card terminal, so the amount is sent automatically, or the card terminal may be used separately, with the payment recorded on the POS.

Either way, the POS should show at the end of the day how much was taken by each method, so it can be checked against the card terminal and the cash.

At the end of the day and the period, the POS produces the record of sales: total sales, sales by item and category, sales by hour, discounts, voids, payments by method, covers and checks. That record feeds the cash-up, the reports, the accounts and the tax returns.

A POS whose reports are hard to read or do not match the payments creates hours of work later.

A POS is often expected to do jobs it was not built for. Five common myths:

Some systems include some of these jobs. Knowing which, and how well, prevents disappointment.

The POS records sales; it does not keep the venue's accounts. Accounts include purchases, wages, rent, tax, assets and liabilities, and they are kept in accounting software, usually chosen by the accountant. The POS provides the sales figures that go into the accounts, ideally in a form the accountant can use directly.

Do not try to run the accounts from the POS reports alone.

The POS records payments, but it does not process card payments on its own. Payment processing is the work of moving money from the guest's card to the venue's bank account, done by a payment provider and the card networks through the card terminal. The venue pays fees for that work, often a percentage of each payment.

Some POS systems come bundled with their own payment processing; others work alongside a separate card terminal and provider. Either way, the processing is a separate service, with its own fees and contract.

When a guest pays by card, the card terminal sends the payment to the venue's payment provider, which passes it through the card network to the guest's bank for approval. If approved, the money is later settled into the venue's account, minus fees. Those fees usually include an interchange fee paid to the card issuer, network fees and the provider's own margin.

Card payments must also meet the payment card industry security standards, which the payment provider usually handles. Compare providers on their full fees, not just the headline rate.

Many POS systems record what is sold but do not track what is in stock. A stock system needs recipes, purchases, counts and waste, as well as sales. Some POS systems include stock features; many leave it to a separate tool or a spreadsheet.

If stock matters, check whether the POS records sales by item in a form the stock system or spreadsheet can use.

Some POS systems include clocking in and out, and a few include basic rotas. But scheduling staff against the trade, managing holidays and running payroll are separate jobs, often done in dedicated tools or by an accountant or payroll service.

Staff logins on the POS, so each server signs in with their own code, are a different thing: they record who took each order and payment.

A POS can show that voids are rising, that a server's discounts are unusual or that a dish is not selling. It cannot decide what to do about any of them. The reports are only useful if a manager reads them and acts.

The best POS in the world will not fix a venue with no routine for reading its numbers.

The POS features that matter most in a restaurant are:

Some features look impressive and matter less in practice: elaborate dashboards nobody reads, loyalty schemes nobody joins, complex automations, and options that add taps for every order. A POS should be judged by how quickly a server can take a real order on a busy night, not by its feature list.

A floor plan on the POS shows the room as it is: each table, its status and its check. Servers open checks by tapping a table, see which tables are waiting for food or the bill, and move guests from one table to another. It makes the POS match how the floor actually works.

A POS without a floor plan forces servers to remember table numbers and look up checks by name.

Splitting the bill is one of the hardest moments for any POS. Guests want to pay separately, by item or in equal shares, with different methods. A good POS lets the server move items onto new checks quickly, split evenly, and take several payments on one check without confusion.

Our guide to splitting the bill for a table of eight covers how to make it easy.

Voids remove an item from a check, comps give it free, and discounts reduce the price. Each is necessary sometimes and risky if uncontrolled. A good POS records each with a reason and the name of the person who did it, and lets the venue decide who can approve them.

Reports on voids and comps by member of staff help managers spot patterns early.

Every member of staff should sign in to the POS with their own login or code, not a shared one. That records who took each order, applied each discount and took each payment. It also lets the venue limit what each role can do: a new server may take orders but not void them.

The POS and the kitchen must work together. Orders must reach the right station, with changes and allergies clear, and courses timed with the table. A POS that sends unclear tickets or cannot hold courses causes problems in the kitchen however good it is at the front.

Our guide to what is a KDS explains kitchen screens in plain terms.

In many venues, the POS and the booking system are separate. That means the check does not know who the guest is, and allergies noted at booking may not reach the order. In others, the two are one system, so a booking becomes a table and a check for the same guest.

Ask whether the POS and the bookings share guest records before choosing.

A POS that knows which guest is at each table can do more than record a sale. It can show the server that the guest is a regular, has an allergy, or always orders the same wine. It can add the visit and the spend to the guest's record, so the venue knows who its best guests are.

A POS that only knows table numbers cannot. Every check is anonymous, and the venue's knowledge of its guests stays in people's heads.

Tips are often recorded on the POS, either added to a card payment or entered as cash. How tips are recorded matters for sharing them fairly among the team, for payroll, and in some countries for tax. Make sure the POS records tips clearly and separately from sales, and that the end-of-day report shows them.

Agree how tips are shared before the first shift, and write it down. Unclear tip arrangements cause more resentment than almost anything else in a restaurant, and they are among the easiest problems to prevent.

Modern POS systems often run on ordinary tablets and phones, which are cheaper and easier to replace than specialist terminals. Some still need dedicated hardware. Check what the system needs, what you already have, and what it costs to add or replace devices.

Our guide to POS hardware covers what a venue actually needs.

A cloud POS stores its data online and updates automatically; an on-site POS runs on a local server. Each has strengths and risks, especially around updates, remote access and what happens when the internet drops. Our guide to cloud POS vs traditional POS compares them.

Choosing a POS is easier once you know what it is and is not. Test it against your own busiest shift: take a real order with modifiers and an allergy, send it to the kitchen, split a bill, move a table, void an item and run the cash-up. Check the full cost, including payment processing and hardware, and what happens to your data if you leave.

Our guide to choosing a POS: twelve questions in order sets out the questions to ask, and our guide to how much a POS costs in the first year covers the full cost.

Here is an illustrative venue that expected too much of its POS. The details are examples.

The fix: the accountant took the daily sales summary from the POS into proper accounting software; card and POS totals were reconciled every night; each server got their own login; and voids required a reason.

In servearound, the point of sale runs in a browser, on iPhone and iPad and on Android, and staff sign in with their own PIN. Checks open on the floor plan; courses can be sent, held and fired; and orders reach each kitchen station with allergies, seats and removed ingredients shown. Checks can be split by moving items onto a new one, merged, transferred or moved, and items can be comped or voided. Payments are recorded against each check as cash, card, bank transfer, UPI, an external POS or other, with cards taken on your own terminal.

Payment analytics shows how each check was tendered, voids and comps by member, and who collected what. servearound is not an accounting system, does not process card payments and does not connect to receipt printers or cash drawers. See Order Fulfillment.

The system where orders are taken, checks are built and payments are recorded: the venue's record of every order.

It holds the menu, builds checks, sends orders to the kitchen and bar, records payments and produces the record of sales.

No. It provides the sales figures; the accounts are kept in accounting software.

Not on its own. Payment processing is done by a payment provider through the card terminal, with its own fees.

Some do; many do not. Check before choosing if stock matters to you.

Speed, a floor plan, clear modifiers and allergens, holding and firing courses, splitting and moving checks, controlled voids, staff logins and clear reports.

No. Each person should have their own, so every action has a name.

Test it on your own busiest shift, check the full cost including payment processing, and ask what happens to your data if you leave.

The POS summary of the day's trade: sales, discounts, voids, payments by method and tips, used to cash up and to check the card terminal's totals. Read it every night, before the team goes home, while any difference can still be explained by the people who were there. Keep the reports for as long as the accountant asks.

What is a POS? The point of sale is the venue's record of every order. It does five jobs: holding the menu, building checks, sending orders to the kitchen and bar as part of order management, recording payments, and producing the record of sales. It is not an accounting system, a payment processor on its own, a stock system unless it includes one, a rota, or a manager.

Judge POS features by how quickly a server can take a real order on a busy night, understand how payment processing works and what it costs, reconcile the POS with the card terminal every night, give every member of staff their own login, and use these principles when choosing a POS for your venue.