What a restaurant point-of-sale system does, the features that matter for your service style, hardware and payment processing costs, security, integrations with labor and accounting tools and how to evaluate vendors.
| Concept | Top priorities |
|---|---|
| Quick service and fast casual | Speed at the counter, kiosk or online ordering, kitchen display, loyalty |
| Full service | Table management, coursing, split checks, handheld ordering, tip handling |
| Bar and nightclub | Tabs, fast reorders, pre-authorizations, age checks |
| Café and bakery | Simple counter flow, modifiers, retail items, loyalty |
| Food truck and pop-up | Mobile hardware, offline mode, cellular connectivity |
| Multi-location group | Central menu management, consolidated reporting, permissions |
Walk through a busy service step by step: how guests order, how orders reach each kitchen station, how changes and voids are handled, how checks are split and closed, how tips are entered and how the shift is closed out. Note every pain point in your current setup. These become your test scenarios when you see demonstrations. Involve a server, a bartender, a cook and a manager; each sees different problems.
| Cost | What to ask |
|---|---|
| Software subscription | Per terminal, per location or tiered plans? What features are in each tier? |
| Hardware | Terminals, handhelds, kitchen displays, printers, cash drawers; buy or lease? |
| Payment processing | Flat rate or interchange-plus? Are you required to use their processor? |
| Installation and training | One-time fees, on-site help |
| Add-ons | Online ordering, loyalty, inventory, advanced reporting |
| Contract terms | Length, early termination fees, hardware ownership |
Payment processing is often the largest long-term cost. Ask for a written quote based on your actual card volume and average ticket, and model the cost over three years. A system with cheap software but expensive processing, or one that locks you into its processor, may cost more overall.
A POS sits at the center of restaurant data. Check how it connects with:
Ask whether integrations are built in, available through a marketplace or require custom work, and whether they cost extra.
Ask for a trial or a pilot at one location, ideally during a real service rather than a quiet afternoon. Have staff enter real orders, split checks, process refunds and close out. Time how long common actions take, and ask staff to rate usability. Check that reports match your expectations and that kitchen tickets arrive correctly at each station.
Most restaurants use only a fraction of their POS reports. Decide in advance which few you will review every week: sales by hour and day part, item mix and margins, average check, voids and discounts by employee, and tips by server. Sales by hour is especially valuable when compared with labor hours, because it shows exactly where you are overstaffed or short. Voids and discounts by employee can reveal training gaps or misuse. Ask vendors to show these reports with sample data, check that they can be filtered by location and date range, and confirm that they can be exported to a spreadsheet or your accounting system. A POS with strong, simple reports pays for itself in better decisions long after the novelty of new hardware wears off.
A 70-seat full-service restaurant uses an older POS that cannot split checks by item and has no handhelds. During a two-week pilot of a new system, servers use handhelds on the patio, orders reach the kitchen display immediately and check splitting takes seconds. The owner negotiates processing rates based on actual volume and confirms that card tips can be exported by server for payroll before signing.
EZTime is not a POS system. It handles restaurant scheduling, time clocks on a tablet kiosk or the mobile app, break tracking, tip pooling and payroll-ready labor reports. Many restaurants run EZTime alongside their POS. See EZTime for restaurants.
It takes orders, sends them to the kitchen, processes payments, handles tips and reports sales.
Costs include software subscriptions, hardware, payment processing, installation and add-ons. Processing is often the largest long-term cost.
Some systems require it; others let you choose. Ask before signing.
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a set of security requirements for businesses that handle card payments.
Many offer an offline mode, but features and payment handling vary. Test it.
Comparing sales by hour with labor helps staffing decisions, so integration or regular exports are valuable.
Breaks are recorded in EZTime alongside the shift, with reminders for employees and an alert when a required break is skipped. See current plans and what each one includes on the pricing page.