The local coffee shop is perhaps one of the fastest-growing businesses in the retail and foodservice industry. Irrespective of how good the taste of your lattes are, you want to ensure that customers receive the best possible experience when they visit your cafe. This necessitates the best POS system for cafe, since this is one of the single most influential tools you can add to your business.
The speed of service is essential to the success of your coffee shop. You get to maximize your profits if you can accelerate turnover. Undoubtedly, the best POS system for cafe helps to keep things moving smoothly. Your cash flow and sales reports are all accessible under the same robust reporting features once you can choose the right POS system for your cafe.
It makes a world of difference if you have to deal with glitchy software that lacks the necessary model features to unleash the full potential of your staff. Hence, you want a system that has both the right POS hardware and software. Such as the POS system is easy to use, looks sleek, and has the right aesthetics.
To many, all POS systems are the same. However, there are many things you’ll discover about the point-of-sale that you won’t see at first glance. Therefore, you don’t need to rush into any decisions. First, we recommend that you do thorough research before making any expensive commitments to any particular POS solution. This will help you know what to expect.
What to Expect from the Best POS system for cafe
To begin, let’s briefly consider some of the features you can expect from the best POS system for cafe.
Inventory Management
Your cafe is probably used to going through lots of products within short periods. It’s really about the size of the menu or the cafe. The number of ingredients that are available and those running out can vary based on demand. Hence you want to ensure that shortages in stock do not take you by surprise. In this case, the inventory management feature of the best POS system for the cafe will alert you to items before they finish.
Also, you’ll know if there are items responsible for negative effects on your bottom line. Thanks to the boom in the cafe industry, the competition is fierce. And the POS market is no different. Therefore it benefits no one if you settle for that doesn’t give you a robust inventory management feature. Or at least you can integrate it with good third-party inventory software.
Ease of Use
In the world of cafes and coffee shops, things can get very completed such that both employees and customers register high turnover. Thus, the best POS system for the cafe needs to be easy to use. It shouldn’t take long classes to teach new staff on how to use the system. The POS system is a helping hand. Therefore, it shouldn’t make life more difficult for waiters.
As such, the interface needs to be clean and modern, with an aesthetic and intuitive design. With these features, your employees can drastically reduce ordering errors and cut down long queues. In this case, you don’t have to worry too much about customer retention since you know your customers like your service and cafes.
Reporting
You will need stellar reporting features if you want to make smart decisions moving forward in your business. These reports need to be easily accessible, simple, and easy to read. There is no need to get a headache before the data collected by your POS system becomes useful and actionable.
As such, the best POS system for cafe is capable of analyzing data for trends. Therefore, you can find out interesting facts about your business, such as the most efficient employees, the best selling items, and the peak times of the day. Such information can be precious if put to good use.
Usually, the best POS for small cafe comes with this feature. Hence, you’ll need to choose a system that offers you the option to access this feature right at the POS cash register or from a remote mobile device.
Onscreen Tipping
The cafe business thrives on gratuity. Hence a POS the provides the feature for your customers to leave a tip through its onscreen interface can be instrumental in boosting your bottom line. This is especially effective if your system helps with credit card processing due to the cashless payment options used by customers.
With this feature, you can preset a tipping percentage. This could either be percentage-based (12%, 20$ or 30%) or in amounts ($2, $3, $5). This setting helps increase the chances of your staff getting the tips they deserve for the excellent customer service they provide. However, you’ll have some type of customer-facing display if you’ll use tipping and onscreen signatures.
Usually, this a tablet that you turn around to face the customer during checkout.
Minimal Footprint
Normally, coffee shops have relatively small spaces. Therefore the best POS system of the cafe must help you make the most of every available space. This means the best POS hardware should be tablet POS system and minimalist iPads. These two due not only help you save space. They also help represent a customer-facing POS solution that’s modern looking with an attractive and customer-friendly appearance.
These attributes are essential if you desire to aim to have a system that also appeals to your customers. Usually, many owners of small coffee carts think going cashless is a smart move. However, many iPad based POS systems and tablets support cash drawers, compact printers, and other multipurpose accessories that save space.
Loyalty Rewards
Do gift cards help boost revenue? Certainly! This is because a very rewarding loyalty program endears your business to its customers. Plus, it’s a good bonus that ensures they keep coming back for more. Instead of randomly visiting any other cafe simply because it’s with the right distance.
However, you need to know that this feature comes as an extra addition to the primary feature set in the POS system.
Choosing the Best POS for Small Cafe Businesses
You find that many of the top coffee and cafe POS systems have a lot to offer the businesses that choose them. However, you can know you have the best if you can also get some additional features such as good customer support, order management, cloud connectivity, affordable pricing, month-to-mouth contracts, and offline mode.
At times you can even get advanced features such as online ordering, touchscreen kiosks, and kitchen display systems. irrespective of the features you encounter on your search for the best POS system, you always want to remember that it all depends on the specific needs of your business.
Therefore, make your decision only after you’ll carefully assess your budget and the future possibilities for growth. With a doubt, the month-to-month contracts can come in handy when you realize you don’t like your POS after a month of subscribing for service.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re looking to upgrade your current POS system or simply looking for a new POS for your new coffee place, it makes all the difference if you can get the best possible option. This is why the best POS system for cafe should be your only alternative. Having agreed on this, you can try Sygnio’s POS design explicitly designed for cafe and coffee shop businesses. Don’t let your search for the best overwhelm you into making a rash decision; you can try Sygnio’s free demo today.
