3 Point of Sale Software Features Every Small Café Needs
While every type of establishment in the food service industry can benefit from a robust point of sale (POS) system, this software is not “one size fits all.” Different kinds of restaurants and bars have unique needs: the features most required for a frozen yogurt shop won’t be the same as those for a table service restaurant. Cafés and coffee shops need point of sale software that will help employees fulfill potentially complex, highly customized drink orders quickly and accurately to meet the demands of the morning and lunchtime rushes. Here are three key POS features that are particularly useful for cafés.
Automatic Price Changes
Cafés and coffee shops frequently offer special seasonal drinks, such as pumpkin spice latte or candy-cane cocoa. Or you might want to run a limited-time promotion such as a “buy one, get one to share” deal on caramel macchiatos for Friendship Day. Being able to add or adjust pricing for these special items is critical. You’ll want point of sale software that is equipped to handle changes like these effortlessly and on the fly. Streamlining this process improves your baristas’ order-taking efficiency and keeps customers moving through the line — which improves their experiences and your sales.
Cup Counts for Tracking Inventory
Careful inventory tracking is vital for several reasons. You don’t want to run out of key ingredients and disappoint customers or order too many perishables that end up going to waste. You also want to ensure you aren’t losing inventory to employee theft or shrinkage. You need to track how much of a product you used in order to calculate profit margin and ensure that product used matches product sold.
One way that cafés can track inventory is through cup counts. Café point of sale software can track quantities sold as customers’ orders are rung up. If you have 50 large cups and 75 small cups on hand at the start of the day, and you sell 20 large and 30 small drinks, you should have 30 large and 45 small cups in inventory at the end of the day. If you don’t have that many cups left, or if you’ve used more product than would fill the cups sold, then your POS software has alerted you to a problem you can address to protect your profits.
Fingerprint Recognition for Access Control
An especially desirable feature for a café point of sale software system is a touchscreen display with plenty of screens and buttons to ring up a huge variety of drink, modifier, and add-on combinations. But you don’t necessarily want all employees having access to all of the POS system functions. Having fingerprint recognition for access control allows you to set up user roles and permissions — so that, for example, only managers or admins can void a transaction, access employee scheduling, or change menu prices or items. Using fingerprint recognition can also help to prevent theft and shrinkage.
There are a lot of point of sale software options out there. Focus POS has more than two decades of experience working with a variety of industries and understanding the unique needs of each type of hospitality establishment. Contact us for help choosing a coffee shop solution or to request a demo.
