Those in the nightlife business know all too well that there are other metrics for measuring success other than large crowds and high sales. Ultimately, the goal of every business in the nightlife industry is to achieve the “hottest venue” status. However, not many know that the best POS system for a bar, cafe, and nightclub is a crucial tool for consistently offering guests the most memorable experiences.
That’s the one thing that sets venues apart, your staffs’ ability to consistently provide top-notch and exceptional services that guests can tell their friends about. This kind of service beats marketing every time because it sparks positive word-of-mouth. Hence, instead of spending a fortune doing print ads and other marketing campaigns, maybe what your nightclub or bar needs is the best POS system for bar businesses.
Mind you, once you have the right bar management technology in place, you can expect a significant increase in your profit margins. Also, you’ll have a better understanding of your customers and business as a whole. More importantly, the best POS system for bar will enable your bar staff to spend more time in front of customers and less time in front of the screen.
Therefore, if you don’t have the best bar pos system yet, maybe it’s time you got one. But how do you choose? Because, to say there are many options in the POS market is an understatement. In this article, you’ll find help to choose the best POS system for bar and nightclub by concentrating on the must-have features you need to look for.
10 Top Features for the Best POS System for Bar
Customizability
Should you ever ask a bartender about the most challenging aspect of their job, you are likely to get a variety of answers depending on the guy answering the question. However, we can all agree that juggling many drinks, giving customers changes and looking charming at the same time isn’t an easy job.
But that’s just some of the daily duties of your average bartender, as such, all the customer service skills they have are crucial. Hence, many bars and nightclubs currently have apprenticeship training programs. However, what most businesses neglect are the skills necessary to ring up order on the bar POS system.
Therefore, the best POS system for bar was designed to understand the need for a simple user interface that’s easy to use. Also, such systems come well built to handle the high volume of customers bars serve. Furthermore, a bartender can easily customize drink combinations that guests request. In the bar and nightlife industry, customization is vital. Thus, you shouldn’t have any difficulties entering a bloody mary with basil or mint instead of vodka.
Debit and Credit Cards Preauthorization
With debit and credit card preauthorization also called “preauth”, you can securely swipe a customer’s credit card, save the information and quickly find out if the card is authentic with a preconfigured amount of money in it.
But why is this process so important? It’s a fast-paced world for those in the nightclub or bar business. Hence, you have other things apart from fake IDs to look out for. Fake credit cards are also very common. Therefore, the preauth feature enables you to save the trouble and time of accepting payments that you can never process.
Hence, you limit the number of unpaid and large checks resulting from insufficient funds on cards. Also, you reduce the number of stolen cards people use in your establishment. Apart from this advantage, the feature also allows you to customize the preauthorization amount. This way, your bar POS system only authorizes cards with a predetermined amount of funds on them.
You can make this amount $5, $50 or the specific amount on the check to be processed.
Furthermore, you can considerably speed up service and checkout since you only need a simple tap to preauth. Hence, your staff gets to spend more time making and pouring drinks and less time at the point of sale.
Bar or nightclub POS software that allows you to preauthorize credit and debit cards simultaneously encrypt and tokenize customer credit card information the moment it’s swiped. This way, you don’t store any sensitive or personal information on the device. Thus, taking care of customer retention without having to worry about security and liability from credit card fraud.
Tip Percentages Suggestions
It’s an undeniable fact that servers, bartenders and other hospitality workers can make a considerable amount of money from tips - and rightfully so!
Many mixologists, in a sense, are artists. Often, they are very dedicated to their craft and deserve all the money they make from their performance. Hence, the livelihood of many bartenders come largely from their tips. Therefore, a restaurant owner who aims to keep bartenders financially satisfied must find a way to implement suggested tip percentages. This helps give your servers their deserved percentage of tips.
Be it an iPad POS system or a check, you can make suggestions for the tip percentages. This way, your customers do not have to figure it out for themselves. Also, their likelihood to tip goes up when they see suggested tip percentage on their check or your tablet POS system.
User Access Permissions
The user access permission is quite a common feature among POS systems. With this feature, you can dictate which employee gets to access information on your point of sale system. Also, the features help you control the specific actions each individual user of the system gets to complete.
When talking of user access permission, there are primarily two ways to control permissions. These are individual personnel permissions and job-based permissions. Job-based permissions allow you to put in place default configurations for all employees per their respective roles. For example, you can set your bartender’s job-based permission such that the bartender can only offer voids and comps with the approval of the manager.
On the other hand, individual personnel permissions assign permissions to particular employees based on your configurations. Provided one of your bartenders is undergoing management training, you may use this feature to this specific bartender access to employee and customer reports. With the individual personnel permission, all other bartenders will not get this access as you will be able to single out the only bartender that’s eligible for this access.
As such, you know all other data, statistics and reports are securely kept from unauthorized access.
Liquor and Bar Inventory
The average cost for liquor in the restaurant and bar industry is about 18% to 20% of total liquor sales. Thus, you get to significantly make more money for your business when you successfully optimize your liquor cost percentage.
Therefore, you want to choose the best POS system for bar; you can have the ability to track your liquor sales and costs. Also, these features allow you to exercise robust inventory management. Such that you know your suppliers, prices, and units all through your phone, tablet or computer. Hence, you are aware of which items to reorder and what’s almost out of stock.
Here, you’re at an advantage, because you’ll not be surprised by shortages in stock when demands are very high.
Apart from these features, the best POS for bar should have other indispensable features like:
- Cash drawer management
- Mobile POS Hardware
- Comprehensive Sales & Customer Reporting
- Easy Menu Management
- Ability to Move and Split the Check
Final Thoughts
Usually, there are so many things going on at bars or nightclubs. Thus, it’s easy to report minor flaws in employee performance and guest experiences. However, you shouldn’t overlook certain things like cash flow management or allow them to fall through the cracks. Hence, you want to choose the best POS system for bar to help streamline operations.
We hope these features help you determine the best options for your business with accuracy and precision. You can spare yourself the guesswork and time wasted trying out an endless line of POS by getting started with Sygnio today! Our POS system will serve your guests with modern-day solutions you can trust.
