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Learn what features to look for when choosing the best bar POS system for your business.
You’ve opened your bar and are taking drink and snack orders with the help of a traditional point-of-sale (POS) system. Now your establishment is growing and you can benefit from a modern POS solution that goes beyond ringing up sales. What you really need, however, is not just a POS platform with better features but one specifically designed for food and beverage businesses. Learn how to choose the right POS system for your bar.
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When choosing the best POS system for your bar, you must first consider the POS features you need and your available budget. Now that your bar is established and building a regular clientele, your POS needs are likely different today than the day you opened. As you compare rival bar-specific POS systems, consider the following questions:
There are several solid options for a bar-specific POS system. Here are some of the best vendors to consider.
Our comprehensive review of Lightspeed found that it has POS software designed specifically for bar and restaurant owners. It has an array of services aimed at helping the hospitality industry run its businesses. The mobile app is a bonus, enabling you to stay on top of your business from anywhere.
Key features
Lightspeed pricing
Plan | Monthly fees |
---|---|
Starter | $69 per month |
Essential | $189 per month |
Premium | $399 per month |
Enterprise | Custom pricing |
Users can also add tools and services, like delivery, property management and accounting systems integrations, gift cards, customer-facing display systems, order pickup screens and kitchen display systems.
If you read our TouchBistro review, you’ll quickly understand why this vendor provides one of the best restaurant POS systems. It offers an affordable, easy-to-use system with many built-in features that bar owners will appreciate.
Key features
TouchBistro pricing
Our review of Toast shows that it has many features explicitly geared toward establishments in the hospitality industry, including food and beverage businesses. One such tool is Toast Now, which lets you accept online ordering without purchasing more hardware.
Key features
Toast pricing
Plan | Monthly fees |
---|---|
Quick-start bundle | Starting at $0 per month |
Core plan | Starting at $69 per month |
Growth plan | Starting at $165 per month |
Build your own | Custom pricing |
Thanks to its POS and credit card processing services, Clover is a one-stop shop for bar and restaurant owners. When investigating the vendor our review of Clover’s POS system, we found that it has a vast network of resellers, making its hardware affordable. Couple that with robust POS software, and you can see why it’s a top option for bars.
Key features
Clover pricing
For a bar POS system, you must either purchase or lease your hardware components, though industry experts recommend that you avoid leasing, as contracts are lengthy and noncancelable. A countertop POS station usually includes a tablet and stand, a receipt printer, and a cash register. You will also need a credit card terminal or card reader.
Depending on your needs and budget, you may want to incorporate other peripherals for a seamless POS station, including barcode scanners, scales and liquor control devices. Bars with kitchens and cocktail servers will need additional hardware. For example, if you serve food at your bar, you will need a kitchen printer or a kitchen display system.
“If you have cocktail servers, you will need a cocktail station or, even better, a mobile POS device to take orders at the table, but it is really a matter of personal preference or theme of the bar,” Ligan said.
Because bars are typically fast-paced environments that have occasional spills, smaller accessories, like waterproof tablet cases, can be a good investment to keep your equipment in good working condition. POS hardware options such as kiosks, digital menu boards and coin dispensers are available, but these items are not typically necessary for a bar POS system, though they may be worthwhile investments if your establishment grows significantly.
Most POS software is sold as software as a service (SaaS) and is either web-based or app-based, although you also have the choice of a local server-based option. The best POS software for your business will depend on your bar’s size and load.
Because of its affordability and ease of use, cloud-based POS software has become very popular in the business community. This type of software can be easily installed on your POS terminal or tablet and has a wide range of capabilities — notably, the ability to store and view your sales data online. The type of integrations you deploy with this software will depend on the plan you choose from your service provider. Although cloud-based software is easy for most bars to deploy and maintain, it can be slow and prone to crashing if you have an unstable internet connection.
Locally hosted POS software is the legacy way of operating a POS system. With this option, your data is stored on-site, which can cause problems for managers who need to access their data when they’re away from the bar. This option is more costly and typically beneficial only for the largest establishments. If you operate a small or midsize bar, cloud-based POS software is likely the best option for your business.
The size and speed of your bar will play a role in which features your POS system should have, but there are a few standard capabilities that can be beneficial for every bar:
Ligan said bar owners should also look for these attributes when choosing a POS system:
When determining how much a POS system will cost your business, you must first decide if you are going to lease or purchase your hardware. Many established businesses benefit from buying their POS hardware outright, since POS leases can be tied to credit card processing and have lengthy contracts. Merchants should choose POS equipment that is “unlocked” so they can use it with another vendor if they decide to switch providers.
Although the cost per hardware device varies by provider, restaurant tablets are currently the most popular POS equipment option and typically much less expensive than bulky legacy systems. Tablet-based systems are also beneficial for small bars that still have limited budgets.
Small bars typically benefit from cloud-based POS software offered on a month-to-month basis. Many companies offer discounts for merchants that pay annually in advance (usually 10 percent for one year or 20 percent for two years). Before taking advantage of these long-term discounts, you should be confident that you like the software enough and will still be in business for that length of time, because there are usually no refunds. In this case, you can close your account and switch software; you just won’t get your money back.
Ligan suggested looking for POS systems that are open source on merchant processing, which means they are compatible with almost any processor. This gives you the flexibility to change processors, if needed, and can ultimately save you money.
“When [a POS system] isn’t open source, it’s basically like buying a car and then having to buy gas from the person who sold you that car,” Ligan said. “The gas prices are forever set by whatever the seller of the car decides that month.”
There are many reasons to invest in a bar-focused POS system as your food and beverage business grows. They can streamline processes, thus freeing up time to keep customers happy and the business expanding. Here are some of the top benefits of using a POS system built especially for bars:
Donna Fuscaldo contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for previous versions of this article.