How Many Restaurant POS Stations Will I Need?
- Considering peak customer volume
When handling peak customer volume, you need to have a plan to be able to efficiently serve them all. - Number of employees taking the orders
One station per 3-5 servers would be sufficient in a table service environment. You may want to have additional stations for handling high volume areas such as the bar and cashie stations. When switching from an ordinary cash register to a POS system, many people tend to forget that their POS system will not only be used for cashing people out, but will now be used for order entry as well. - Restaurant layout
A proper restaurant layout affects your employees service. So if you have a bar, assigning a separate station for your bar tender would be easier since he can serve customers from there quickly. - Assigning stations effectively where customers pay for their meals
If you plan to have customers pay at the front you should have one or two dedicated cashier stations to allow speedy transactions. If the servers are going to carry their own banks, we suggest fewer servers per station.
What type of POS computer should I use for my business?
- Desktop PC: the standard desktop type.
- Least expensive computer option
- 3 Year Onsite Warranty Standard for this component
- take more span but can easily be positioned so it can’t cause any hassle for your paying customers
- Has greater flexibility for addition of extra ports
- Latest CPU speeds and memory
- Screen and computer are separate; if ever technical difficulties accur, it’ll be isolated.
- Small form factor (SFF): smaller than desktops.
- Compared to the standard computer, SFF is more stylish
- Has 3 years standard onsite warranty
- More Space Saving
- Fewer options for expandability
- Latest CPU speeds and memory
- Screen and computer are separate; in case of technical problems problems are isolated.
- All-in-one terminals: the combination of computer with touchscreen technology.
- Stylish, space-saving terminal with fewer wires required
- Manufacturers warranty: 1-2 years (Not onsite)
- Comes standard with sufficient ports for almost any operation
- CPU speed is generally slower than the other two options but sufficient for the Point of Sale needs.
- Combined screen and computer
How many cash is ideal for my retail business?
- This is probably fairly self-evident, but unless your servers carry their own cash bank you should have a cash drawer at every station you want to use to end transactions.
Integrated credit cards?
- Your POS systems can be used to process and keep records of all credit card transactions and allows you to store them in one convenient location.
- Can reduce seconds of transaction time with a high speed internet.
- In case high speed internet is not available we suggest using a standalone terminal for processing.
How many kitchen/bar printers?
- Having one printer for your kitchen would be enough for your restaurant, not unless you have different sections serving different dishes inside your kitchen then it would be better if you place printers on all sections.
- As an example, you can have all your starters print on one printer and all your entrees print on another.
- For kitchens and bars, it is highly recommended that you use impact printers instead of thermal printers. Because their loud printing alerts cooks and bartenders that an order is coming through, and since tickets printed on thermal printers becomes unreadable when exposed to heat.
Is it essential to have more than 1 receipt printer?
- Since you’re going to have more than one station, you would likely need more than just one receipt printer.
Do I need a back office computer?
- A back office computer is good for allowing managers to run reports, access the system to make changes to menu, check inventory levels, or adjust employee time clock times, without disturbing servers and cashiers.
- It’s not quite necessary to have a back office computer for your restaurant, if you have less than 4 stations.. It is however a great idea that you host your database on a back office computer when you have 4 or more stations so that none of the stations has the additional load of running the database.
More information is available at POS-For-Restaurants.com
The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types and sizes throughout the U.S.
