What Is a Restaurant POS System? POS vs Cash Register

What is a restaurant POS system?

A restaurant POS system runs the whole floor operation in one piece of software: taking the order at the table or the till, sending it to the kitchen, collecting payment and producing end-of-day reports. A classic cash register (yazar kasa) only handles payment and the fiscal receipt, whereas restaurant software keeps the menu, tables, stock and staff flow together. In this category Ritapos offers cloud-based restaurant automation.

POS stands for Point of Sale, the software used where the sale happens. In Turkish it also goes by adisyon program (guest check program), cafe bar automation or lokanta (eatery) system. All of these names describe the same need: keeping sales orderly and traceable.

Classic cash register vs restaurant POS

If the business has only a cash register, the waiter writes the order on paper or keeps it in their head, and the cashier keys the amount in all over again. With a restaurant POS the order is entered once and the amount reaches the device through the integration. We walk through this difference as a daily flow in the guide on how to use a POS device.

Which modules matter in restaurant automation?

A typical restaurant POS system package covers the following:

• Order and table management: the floor layout, open checks and delivery orders.
• Kitchen display or printer: makes delays visible to everyone.
• Payment and cash register link: keeps the fiscal side compliant.
• Reporting: hourly sales and performance by product.
• Stock tracking: controls cost through recipes and consumption.

In Ritapos, order management, the QR menu and delivery integrations all work in the same panel.

Advantages of a cloud-based restaurant POS

With classic installed systems, updates and backups are left to the business. With cloud-based restaurant software the data is kept in a data center and you reach it through a browser or the app. Branches and seasonal businesses can change plans without a commitment; you will find the details in the free POS article.

Who is it for?

It suits cafes, bars, eateries, patisseries and businesses that do most of their trade in delivery. Multi-branch operations need central reporting in restaurant POS and franchise scenarios. Grocery stores that are mainly retail may get by with a simpler POS.

Cloud POS and the Ritapos approach

Your restaurant took serious investment, time and effort, and with Ritapos you can easily see what is happening inside it. Running a restaurant well depends on following your order figures closely and keeping an eye on profitability at every moment. How much of each product sold, at what times of day, and how many women and men came through the door are all valuable pieces of information.

Following trending products and spotting the items whose sales rise or fall with the seasons is only possible with POS solutions like Ritapos.

Cloud-based systems are known to be on the rise in Turkey, just as they are around the world. So what is a cloud-based POS system? If that question has crossed your mind, and you want to know how classic and cloud-based POS systems differ and what the hybrid systems that combine them actually are, let us explain it quickly.

These systems solve the same problems, but they are built in completely different ways, so it pays to look at them from a technical angle first. The technical differences shape how each system is used, what it costs and what kind of support you can get, so don't decide without researching them properly.

Some classic systems can be reached over the internet, but that alone does not make them hybrid systems. Classic systems need an installation made just for you. "A setup made just for you" sounds nice, yet a custom setup also means custom bugs. You have to keep the system alive on your own computer or server, and you will be the one solving software bugs or the problems that appear as the data grows. Installing and updating a classic system means calling in the vendor, so however good the system is, you end up depending on one person and every fix becomes expensive and slow.

In hybrid systems, data is synced between your computer and the POS company's servers. You usually connect to those servers through a separate owner app to pull various reports, while the system itself mostly runs from your computer. These systems share many of the problems of classic ones; some of them use your computers less and try to cut the operating costs that classic systems carry.

Cloud-based POS systems use the most modern approach technology has to offer, working online first and offline at times. They deliver every operation from their own servers. With cloud-based solutions nothing is installed just for you. If a custom installation is being made for you in the cloud, it is hard to call that a true cloud solution.

In the cloud-based approach, also known as SaaS, software is offered to you as a service rather than as a product. Software that runs directly on the web, with no server or hardware requirement, makes up the cloud software category. The user can get the service from anywhere simply by connecting to the internet from a phone or computer.

Apart from optional helper programs, cloud-based POS systems install nothing on your computer. Because there is little or no field work involved, costs are much lower. These systems are usually sold as monthly licenses, and most of them require no commitment.

Costing less than classic systems is sometimes read as having fewer features, but that assumption is wrong. Because these systems are not built for one customer, they have many and varied features, yet a feature that only you would ask for usually doesn't make it into development. Even so, cloud-based systems keep improving and try to stay ahead of competitors with new features. Bugs get fixed and updates arrive often. Since nothing needs to be done on your computer for these updates, staying on the latest version is easy. How the updates are rolled out, of course, depends on how each POS company likes to do things.

The hardware and software behind a cloud-based system are shared by every cafe and restaurant that uses it, so any problem affects all of them. That is why these systems are monitored constantly and precautions are taken so problems don't happen. When something does go wrong, the response is quick. Since these systems don't even require a commitment, problems quickly send customers off to other POS solutions.

You may also hear it called point-of-sale software, which is the literal Turkish term. It means the same system, not a separate product category. Here is a detail that helps seasonal businesses: because cloud-based systems come without a commitment, you can move to a paid plan in the busy months and switch back to the free plan in the quiet season. That way you don't pay for a license you aren't using while you are closed.

Cloud software used over the internet also comes with a desktop app and apps for mobile devices, even if they are optional. In theory, cloud-based POS software can run on any device. If you want to run a cloud POS on the devices you already have, check that the helper apps are compatible with them, then open a free account and test the system.

Continue in the Academy

If you would like to see this step by step on screen, take a look at the related lessons in Ritapos Academy.

• What is cloud-based automation?
• Setup wizard
• Basics course

We sum up how a guest check program differs from a POS on the guest check software page.

To see how it works in a cafe or a restaurant, have a look at the cafe POS and restaurant POS pages.

You can review Ritapos packages, modules and pricing on the POS system page.