From legacy systems to all-in-one cloud solutions, restaurant technology has tremendously evolved in the past few decades. With a centralized system that seamlessly brings together all aspects of restaurant management – including front of house, back of house, back office, business intelligence, and accounting – merchants are empowered to focus on doing what they love, while technology does the rest.
The advantages of a fully-integrated restaurant management system are manifold. It eliminates the need to maneuver separate systems and do manual reconciliation. Furthermore, merchants can optimize staff productivity and increase revenue, while saving costs and keeping their OpEx in check.
Omnichannel Sales
One of the most important benefits of an all-in-one system is the ability to manage all your order channels in one centralized cloud POS. You can sell in-store through walk-in, take-away, dine-in orders, or even through self-ordering kiosks and QR-code solutions.
If you run your own online store or are partnered with online food delivery apps, you can fulfil all your online delivery orders centrally. Orders placed through your website, Facebook, Instagram or third-party apps are sent directly to your POS, eliminating manual data entry and the risk of incorrect orders. Say goodbye to maneuvering multiple tablets to run your in-house and online stores.
With contactless ordering now a necessity in the post-pandemic dining scene, leading cloud-based POS providers offer in-built self-ordering kiosks and QR code-based scan-order-pay solutions that are quick to set up and easy to use. No separate systems required, no IT headaches.
One-Click Menu Sync
A powerful integration lets you manage all aspects of your menu centrally including updating items, prices and item availability for multiple outlets – all in real time.
Moreover, syncing your POS menu to your respective online and partner store menus can be achieved within minutes with a few clicks. Menu items selected, along with their images, descriptions and modifiers, instantly reflect on your partner store.
If you’d like to update a menu item or mark it unavailable, and add store configurations or discounts, you won’t need to contact your provider. This can easily be done straight from your POS in real time so it’s always up to date; minimizing effort and maximizing resources.
Automated Order Fulfillment
Once an order is received from your sales channels, they are automatically routed to your kitchen via the kitchen display system (KDS). With a robust KDS, you can go paperless and digitize your kitchen to simplify communication and processes and improve efficiency, food quality, and speed of service.
When an in-store order is ready, you can have generated token numbers instantly flash on a digital screen above your counter. It’s great for quick service! An online order goes straight to your delivery manager for complete visibility of the order journey and unrivalled data integrity and accuracy.
Total Delivery Control
An efficient delivery management system gives you real-time insights into your entire order cycle as it happens – placement, preparation, pick-up, and delivery. You can monitor every stage, identify bottlenecks, and optimize operations.
Order details and driver information are visible at a glance. You can identify driver availability, assign them to orders and track deliveries, whether you have your own driver fleet or are partnered with last-mile logistics companies.
Inventory & Food Costing
With an all-in-one POS that works in sync with your back office management system, you can gain total control of your inventory, build recipes and sub-recipes, and get real-time visibility into your food costs. When an order is placed, ingredients instantly deduct from your inventory, so your stock levels are always up to date.
And, if you’re running low on stock below the re-order level, you can generate purchase orders to your suppliers directly from your POS. In addition to receiving and transferring stock between locations, running digital stock takes, and accounting for wastage.
In-Built CRM
Customer data is incredibly valuable to better understand, communicate and engage with your customers. With multiple sales channels, managing multiple databases can be overwhelming.
A powerful integrated solution ensures your entire customer database can be managed in one centralized CRM. When an existing customer orders over the phone, online or through your third-party partner store, their profile is automatically updated in your CRM. Should a new customer order, a new profile is instantly created.
Insights such as order history and preferences allow you to target customers and keep them within reach. Thus improving customer engagement and, ultimately, retention.
Business Intelligence
With a future-proof integration, data from all your sales channels are in sync with your POS. You can get insights and analytics of multi-channel performance in one powerful LIVE dashboard, eliminating end-of-day manual reconciliation.
Best-selling items, popular delivery areas, item profitability, outlet profitability, inactive customers, are a few of the many insights you gain – even on the go.
With intelligent reports and a daily business summary, you can identify and analyze trends, compare in-house and online store performance, and make informed business decisions.
Powerful Integrations
It is essential that your restaurant management system is partnered with leading third-party platforms worldwide – including accounting software, payment gateways, food ordering platforms and delivery partners – to streamline your business.
Leading POS systems are integrated with cloud accounting software like Xero. This means that daily sales data from your POS are automatically synced to your Xero accounting system. The out-of-the-box integration simplifies and streamlines your restaurant accounting and removes the need for manual entry and end-of-day reconciliation.
In conclusion, an all-in-one cloud POS and restaurant management system, powered by out-of-the-box integrations, is guaranteed to enhance all aspects of the restaurant experience – customer experience, front-of-house and back-of-house operations, back-office efficiency, business intelligence, and lots more.
