Opening a new restaurant, setting up a quick service food stall or even opening chain stores, a Point-of-Sale (POS) system is crucial to your business. It is not your typical old-school cash register, where you only punch in the amount and a paper receipt is printed for your customers. No records, no reports. Technology has evolved and grown so much in the last few years.
A year ago, we spoke and researched on the ‘5 Must Have Features for Restaurant POS’. Now, we are back again adding to the list, evincing the evolving technology world. Today, you almost never see these traditional, bulky and obsolete systems sitting on the countertops of restaurants or food stalls. Instead, you see a well-lighted, touch screen, sleek POS system when you make your payment. Given that the operation of an F&B business may not be as straightforward as you ‘pay and go’, here are another five essential features you need to look out for in a F&B POS System Singapore when you venture into this business.
Digital or Contactless Payments
Just like its name suggests, the POS system records transactions and payments and reports are generated based on that information. Recognising Covid-19 as a worldwide endemic, the government has been encouraging businesses to adopt digital solutions. In the past year, the government has launched more than 20 programmes and initiatives to help SMEs and MNCs to be more digitalised. Not only that, many companies, like Grab and Shopee, have also come up with e-wallet for consumers to make payments for their purchases, rewarding them with certain incentives.
It is, therefore, important for your POS system to be able to hold contactless transactions. At the end of the day, transactions need to be recorded, payments have to be accepted and reports are required for auditing purposes.
A POS system should not only come with a cash drawer to receive cash, but it must be able to record other cashless payments, especially with Master, Visa, Nets and PayNow. One of the new introductions of a cashless payment method would be PayNow. As we stroll down the stalls at food courts or hawker centres now, we see each stall has an SGQR code pasted for patrons to make e-payments, encouraging contactless exchange.
There is a difference between static and dynamic Quick Response (QR) code. A static QR code that is used for PayNow requires the cashier to visually verify that the payment has been received. Not only that, he has to ensure that the amount paid is correct. With a dynamic QR code, the cashier does not need to worry about the wrong amount made or unreceived payment. Choose a POS system that supports dynamic QR code for PayNow.
Let the POS system work for you by verifying and recording all contactless payments!
QR or Mobile Ordering
Coupled with contactless payments, contactless ordering is something you would need for your F&B business too. Wouldn’t it be great if your customers could take a seat, have a sip of water, slowly look through the menu, and place their orders whenever they are ready? Instead of having your staff swimming around them waiting to take their orders, have a quick response (QR) code displayed on the table or standee for your customers. They will be able to scan with their mobile phones and place the orders online. This not only saves labour cost but also encourages digitalisation of businesses. Then the orders will be sent directly to the POS system.
All you need for this is a printer to print out the orders and kitchen preparations can be done immediately. When the orders are ready, you may have a queue display to flash the order number and customers could collect the food themselves. Alternatively, you may also have your servers send it to them. It would be perfect if customers could make payment on the same page too after placing the order. Of course, provided that you would like to bill them after each order.
Additional Tip: One good idea could be to have a QR pasted on the buzzer, and ring the buzzer when the order is ready!
Set Menu, Happy Hour, Promotions
Who doesn’t like cheap deals? Happy hour promotions and set menu during stipulated time are one of the most effective programs to increase sales and overall traffic. Having promotions for your F&B sets your business apart from your competitors. It gives you an edge over your competitors as the menu and prices may be more attractive with the on-going promotions you have. Promotions like set menu during meal times, discounts during off-peak hours and happy-hour specials, are some of the great ideas you can start with. Additionally, your menu can be in conjunction with the national calendar to bring out the festive celebrations.
Have a F&B POS system that can help you adjust the prices and menu whenever the promotion is active. This would save a huge amount of hassle if you decide on a POS system that is able to meet this important requirement. Imagine the angry customers you might see if you forgot to manually switch on the promotions when it was time!
Prompt Technical Support
How infuriating would it be if your POS system is down during the busiest period of your service? A POS system is a heavily used and relied system. It operates 12-hours a day, 7 days a week, at high transaction volume and instant cloud sync. Like any other system, it may experience glitches at any point in time. It is paramount to buy from a company that has great support. Ideally, a highly efficient and easily reachable team.
You definitely want those glitches to be fixed instantaneously, and that comes down to how quickly you are able to get in touch with them and how quickly the problem can be resolved. Having a local support team will greatly increase the chance of this.
Firstly, you will be dialling a local number, which saves cost and waiting time as no line transfer is needed. Secondly, you do not have to worry about time differences or miscommunication due to language barriers. Thirdly, if the problem warrants a site visit, it can be done ASAP. Most vendors may promise you all bugs can be fixed behind their screens, but when it comes to technical issues, we can never be sure if ALL can be remotely resolved. It would be best to ensure that there is a local support team backing you up, especially during your peak periods.
Delivery Integrations
When Singapore underwent circuit breaker last year, the only two options for food purchases were food delivery or buying takeaways. Since then, there has been a surge in food delivery, especially when many more people are working from home. Some companies even provide food delivery allowance for their employees to order food from the comfort of their homes.
As Singapore curbs the spread of the Covid-19, the government encourages people to stay home as much as possible. That means we could expect more orders coming from online deliveries, especially when we dabble between dine-in and takeaway. Therefore, it is very useful to get a F&B POS system that has direct integration with the various delivery partners, like GrabFood and FoodPanda.
What do I mean by direct delivery integration? It means that orders coming in from delivery platforms should be sent to the POS system, where the cashier could immediately be notified of a brand new order. In this way, there would be no mistake in the POS records and no delay in preparation. It will be so troublesome if you need a secondary device to receive these orders and key them into your F&B POS system then your kitchen crew can start to prepare. It will be more frustrating especially during peak hours where you have to entertain customers, delivery riders and online orders.
Get a POS that can help in your business operations to be fuss-free!
In conclusion, having these features in our F&B POS system may elevate your business greatly. These up-to-date features may give your customers and diners a good impression of your digitised business model, increase efficiency and manage your busy crowds perfectly. EPOS provides all these solutions. We appreciate feedback and constantly improve our systems to meet our ever-changing clientele needs. We have served many F&B clients like Orchid Live Seafood and Select Group and been receiving good reviews.
Let us help you in growing your business. Give us a call today at 84821888 or leave your contact details for us to reach out to you!
