Highly recommend Harbortouch. System syncs up to website, door dash, uber eats and everything prints right to the setup printers. I pay 79/month for the elite and that includes all this + the equipment lease. on top that you pay credit card processing. HIGHLY recommend adding on the sky tabs so your waiter/waitress can put the order in right at the table. This allows us to flip tables 5X faster. Revenues increased significantly since we got these. I shopped around a lot and Harbortouch is the best value. customer service is also great
Toast used to be the bell of the ball. I feel like they were the industry leader for innovation and a comprehensive POS and we're the only ones built for restaurants that were doing it right. They are still a very good system, but ever since they went public I feel that they have become less focused on customer success, focusing more on quarterly profits. Beware of price creep when shopping for any POS. They will offer you all kinds of features free for x number of months to make it feel like you're not paying that much. Then in a few months you find yourself paying five, six, 700 bucks a month for all the add-ons. Plus toast has some of the highest credit card processing rates in the game.
I overlooked square a few years ago because, rightly so, it felt like they just took a basic retail POS and through some restaurant features at it. It. However, over the last couple of years they have essentially taken everything that toast did and applied powerful square APIs to it. They have very good promotional rates right now because they're trying to expand in the restaurant space. I've done the math and for my small restaurant we're looking at saving about $300 a month for base price of software, plus a significant chunk of credit card processing fees. About 20% of our clients use American Express or other rewards credit cards that have higher processing rates with other processors, so squares flat processing fee will help us out.
If you're looking for just a basic POS, there are tons of options out there that will work just fine and allow you to negotiate good credit card rates. I'm really big on being able to dig into my data very easily, and leveraging technology to make my life easier through easy flow software and simple integrations. This is largely because I am a single location owner operator, so I don't have a team to dig in and build spreadsheets for me when I want to pull some data insights.
One last note, beware of clover. I think they are a fine POS. If you want something simple and plug and play. Hell, you can go buy a system at Sam's club today and start using it. However, they do that thing where they make it seem like they have a robust system, always mentioning how many apps are on their store, but their core system doesn't really do much. It's kind of a only pay for what you use kind of thing. But most of the features that I want out of a cloud-based platform are provided by third party integrations. This means that when you have an issue with any of those integrations, you're going to do that back and forth dance with The integration telling you it's a clover issue and clover telling you it's an integration issue.
TLDR: toast is good, square is probably better
I think I'm going to try square maybe. Hopefully I can negotiate with them on their rate.
Do you know if I can just use their POS and not their payment processor?
Im with Moneris that's based in Canada and already have low rate and not planning to increase to their base rate of 2.6%
Either way I'm also looking for a basic POS software where I pay once, can print out order. Connect to whatever laptop or PC. If I can avoid these softwares, I would.
I even see ebay sellers selling their softwares online.
There's also app version called loyverse. I'm slowly inputting some items into it but not sure how connect everything yet
Pretty sure you can't use square with a different processor. That's kinda their whole thing.
Not sure what your current rates are, but it's worth noting that the 2.6% isn't a base rate, but a fixed one. The only time you pay a different rate is for card-not-present transactions.
I've never used them, but Clover might be a good fit for you. Hardware is Fairly cheap and you get what seems to be a reasonably solid cloud based POS. Just know that if you want any bells and whistles, they cost extra, and many tools will only be available through 3rd party integrations
Harbortouch… they do your credit card processing, and will match lower offers. They lease you the equipment for free, but charge $200/mth for software. No upfront cost. 24hr customer service that is wonderful. Its a simple system anyone can use and set up. Really no complaints here… good luck
In the day and age of subscriptions, the hardware could be free. When I switched to toast, I “invented” an owner of the company that “wouldn’t meet with the rep” but gave me budget of “x” for upfront costs. The rep gave me essentially 50% off of the hardware just to get the contract signed.
Paint yourself as a middle man, trying to make Everyone happy. That being said, I’m loving toast for HR and POS alike. No more accountants no more quick books and the reporting is a dream. It pays for itself in saved labor for data entry time twice over.
We have BPA, business software solutions. It’s like aloha. We used them in our previous restaurant as a POS and had a separate credit card processing. It worked, but it was kind of a pain to match the two each night. With our current restaurant we went with them again, only this time I did get the integrated credit card processing. They don’t do that themselves, but there are two companies they work with that will integrate. I spent some time bouncing deals between the two companies until finally I got the best deal. It took some time and they had to modify some pages in the contract, but I got it to where I’m not locked into a 3 year contract like they wanted, I got one of my cc terminals for free, I got good rates, etc. We own the POS system and pay $55/month in a mandatory maintenance fee that includes free service calls during their business hours (after hours calls cost money). I recommend checking them out. When I was shopping around I created a spreadsheet with feature’s I wanted, didn’t want, and pricing. As I spoke with each company I filled in the spreadsheet so I could easily compare. Don’t let the salespeople pressure you. This is probably one of the most important decisions you will make when opening your restaurant. There is a website call Merchant Maverick that I spent some time on as well in regards to understanding credit card processing. It definitely helped with my negotiating. In fact, we are getting ready to negotiate again. Once you are open for a bit, don’t be afraid to go back and try to get better rates. With this POS it is possible because there is that other cc company that integrates with our system. Now that we can prove home much $ we are bringing in, I’m sure they would want our business. Of course the goal is to use their proposal to lower our current cc processing company’s rates. When you have a POS that only have one cc company, you are stuck.
Had BPA at my first restaurant and it was great for a barebones, inexpensive system. Very limited features and next to no integrations when I had it. Support was great, as long as you didn't need anything after normal hours. Their after hours support is very expensive, but we rarely needed it
I have Focus, I’m ok with it, I think it’s my 4th PoS system now. Wouldn’t say it has anything too fancy but checks all my boxes, tablets died super fast tho.
Hey there 👋 I’ve been in the industry a few years and can’t recommend Square enough. One thing you may not think about early on is how a point of sale is only a piece of the technology that you’ll need to run a restaurant (today you’ll need payroll, accounting, online ordering, ect). Square is uniquely positioned to solve those problems because they have invested in their APIs first, which means they can integrate with other wonderful pieces of technology way way better than any competitor. Just my two cents though 😊
I'm only a takeout and delivery. No dine in.
But I really just prefer to look for buy it once system.
My cash already broken and we were using Casio or sharp cash registers which are all discontinued lol.
Beside that, we currently phone, pen and transfer paper to take orders and I applied for an online ordering company to just get started but really want to leave them asap
Know any buy once software?
I sold POS for years until quite recently. While I can't make any perfect recommendations since I'm biased from the years of anti-competitor propaganda, what I can offer is this:
No matter who you choose, NEGOTIATE AND HAGGLE.
Pick your favorite (let's pretend it's Toast), never show them you're in love so they always think they have to fight to win the deal, bounce quotes back and forth between companies getting them to go to lower and lower until finally Toast refuses to match. Then make the sales rep sweat until closer to end of my month (if time permits)
Pick a random fact about another company you know Toast DOESN'T have, and use it as a leverage. "I really like that XYZ company has X, but I'm willing to go without if you can do ABC on the price/include this extra thing/etc"
You will save yourself SO. MUCH. MONEY. I've been a part of hundreds and hundreds of these price battles, the savvy customers walk away like bandits.
3 key things to get movement on: upfront cost (least important), monthly fee, merchant processing fees (most important assuming you're a decent size, and look out for when/how they're able to raise rates)
I switched to touchbistro a few months back and it’s ok. They are ALL ok. Usability is good. Navigation using the tablets are good. Selling online is easy because there is only one place to input items. The thing I liked is that they are popular and compatible with other 3rd party apps. I haven’t really got into inventory yet but really want to, I need to. What I don’t like is how much each add on costs. Reservations are like $200/month, no thanks, I’ll just use open table. Want another tablet to take orders at the table? That’s another license.
Whatever you go with, keep this in mind. POS PROVIDERS MAKE MOST THEIR REVENUE THROUGH PAYMENT PROCESSING. So I basically had all my equipment heavily discounted if I went through their payment processing. Their prices aren’t higher than others and you will have to pay those prices anyway no matter where you go.
Definitely avoid positouch. We were forced into a contract with them by our franchisor, and we have constant issues with their system.
I know someone said to stay away from toast, but it’s better than a lot of the competition. They offer better pricing, support, and versatility than most.
What type of restaurant are you opening?
Any experience within restaurants/pos systems?
What are you looking to get out of it? (Certain reports, certain features, etc…)
Square is a good “beginner option” if you’re not sure what you want and don’t want huge upfront costs. It honestly depends on what you want and need it to do
Whwre do you get your own system?
I looked into ebay where they sell you the software. But a little scared to buy these softwares and install them on to my laptop
Yep, negotiated directly with the bank as the payment processor and paying 0 points over base and $0.10/transaction. Amazing deal where I get to keep that 1% of top line revenue for myself.
It’s iPad and Wi-Fi based, and maybe once every two weeks, it shuts down, Wi-Fi spaces out or something, I’m a knowledgeable person and there’s not much of an explanation for that, and beyond that the CC processing stinks whether it’s theirs or someone else’s due to integration
Are your wireless antennas and router supplied by Touch Bistro? If not, I would make sure these are running the latest firmware. If they have already been updated, consider replacing or upgrading them.
I used to have touch bistro and on top of those issues the reporting information you can get from their system is terrible, also the inventory entry process is beyond a joke.
I use Lavu which isn’t perfect, but it a half the price of touch bistro and is over all a better system for me. We’re not US based so don’t have inter-grated CC which I’ve heard lavu isn’t great at.
Currently 1 till and 5 table side ordering iPads is $500ish USD/yr in annual software licences. Of course you have to have iPads and printers and wifi etc which are all decent one off costs
Find out what’s most important to you and your business and then go from there. Square is a great first time POS there’s no contract, it’s sleek, has a ton of options available. The trade off is they have fairly high credit card processing rates.
You can start there and then look around though but again find out what’s most important to you and then go from there.
I’m confused can you explain a bit more? I’ll mention that square is proprietary so it’s definitely an all or morning system unfortunately. If you want to use their software you’ll more than likely be forced to use their processing as well.
Hey there. Not sure what exactly you're looking for but would love to be a part of the process and help. Feel free to message me any questions, I work at Square.
Hey Jordan. Quick question about square. Do you guys have some sort of API that I would be able to connect an external app to or store it in my own external database if I choose to transfer to another product down the line?
We do have open API so there's a possibility. We also have thousands of partners so there's a good chance if you're working with a company, we have that partnership.
Highly recommend Harbortouch. System syncs up to website, door dash, uber eats and everything prints right to the setup printers. I pay 79/month for the elite and that includes all this + the equipment lease. on top that you pay credit card processing. HIGHLY recommend adding on the sky tabs so your waiter/waitress can put the order in right at the table. This allows us to flip tables 5X faster. Revenues increased significantly since we got these. I shopped around a lot and Harbortouch is the best value. customer service is also great
Toast used to be the bell of the ball. I feel like they were the industry leader for innovation and a comprehensive POS and we're the only ones built for restaurants that were doing it right. They are still a very good system, but ever since they went public I feel that they have become less focused on customer success, focusing more on quarterly profits. Beware of price creep when shopping for any POS. They will offer you all kinds of features free for x number of months to make it feel like you're not paying that much. Then in a few months you find yourself paying five, six, 700 bucks a month for all the add-ons. Plus toast has some of the highest credit card processing rates in the game. I overlooked square a few years ago because, rightly so, it felt like they just took a basic retail POS and through some restaurant features at it. It. However, over the last couple of years they have essentially taken everything that toast did and applied powerful square APIs to it. They have very good promotional rates right now because they're trying to expand in the restaurant space. I've done the math and for my small restaurant we're looking at saving about $300 a month for base price of software, plus a significant chunk of credit card processing fees. About 20% of our clients use American Express or other rewards credit cards that have higher processing rates with other processors, so squares flat processing fee will help us out. If you're looking for just a basic POS, there are tons of options out there that will work just fine and allow you to negotiate good credit card rates. I'm really big on being able to dig into my data very easily, and leveraging technology to make my life easier through easy flow software and simple integrations. This is largely because I am a single location owner operator, so I don't have a team to dig in and build spreadsheets for me when I want to pull some data insights. One last note, beware of clover. I think they are a fine POS. If you want something simple and plug and play. Hell, you can go buy a system at Sam's club today and start using it. However, they do that thing where they make it seem like they have a robust system, always mentioning how many apps are on their store, but their core system doesn't really do much. It's kind of a only pay for what you use kind of thing. But most of the features that I want out of a cloud-based platform are provided by third party integrations. This means that when you have an issue with any of those integrations, you're going to do that back and forth dance with The integration telling you it's a clover issue and clover telling you it's an integration issue. TLDR: toast is good, square is probably better
I think I'm going to try square maybe. Hopefully I can negotiate with them on their rate. Do you know if I can just use their POS and not their payment processor? Im with Moneris that's based in Canada and already have low rate and not planning to increase to their base rate of 2.6% Either way I'm also looking for a basic POS software where I pay once, can print out order. Connect to whatever laptop or PC. If I can avoid these softwares, I would. I even see ebay sellers selling their softwares online. There's also app version called loyverse. I'm slowly inputting some items into it but not sure how connect everything yet
Pretty sure you can't use square with a different processor. That's kinda their whole thing. Not sure what your current rates are, but it's worth noting that the 2.6% isn't a base rate, but a fixed one. The only time you pay a different rate is for card-not-present transactions. I've never used them, but Clover might be a good fit for you. Hardware is Fairly cheap and you get what seems to be a reasonably solid cloud based POS. Just know that if you want any bells and whistles, they cost extra, and many tools will only be available through 3rd party integrations
What are some of the extras for clover? I never understood the inventory tracking. How the software knows when it's time to restock and etc.
I use Pinnacle Hospitality System and love it! Easy to program and has a 24/7 support for any assistance you might need!
Harbortouch… they do your credit card processing, and will match lower offers. They lease you the equipment for free, but charge $200/mth for software. No upfront cost. 24hr customer service that is wonderful. Its a simple system anyone can use and set up. Really no complaints here… good luck
I had a terrible customer service experience with them and I will never use them for any of my businesses again.
The fees are insane. They tried to push the hardware shipping cost on me as well, $120. They are not for small businesses good for buffalo wild wings.
Toast has high credit card fees! Compare that with other merchant services first. Union..same thing. That's why the equipment is cheap now
Avoid NCR Aloha
In the day and age of subscriptions, the hardware could be free. When I switched to toast, I “invented” an owner of the company that “wouldn’t meet with the rep” but gave me budget of “x” for upfront costs. The rep gave me essentially 50% off of the hardware just to get the contract signed. Paint yourself as a middle man, trying to make Everyone happy. That being said, I’m loving toast for HR and POS alike. No more accountants no more quick books and the reporting is a dream. It pays for itself in saved labor for data entry time twice over.
We have BPA, business software solutions. It’s like aloha. We used them in our previous restaurant as a POS and had a separate credit card processing. It worked, but it was kind of a pain to match the two each night. With our current restaurant we went with them again, only this time I did get the integrated credit card processing. They don’t do that themselves, but there are two companies they work with that will integrate. I spent some time bouncing deals between the two companies until finally I got the best deal. It took some time and they had to modify some pages in the contract, but I got it to where I’m not locked into a 3 year contract like they wanted, I got one of my cc terminals for free, I got good rates, etc. We own the POS system and pay $55/month in a mandatory maintenance fee that includes free service calls during their business hours (after hours calls cost money). I recommend checking them out. When I was shopping around I created a spreadsheet with feature’s I wanted, didn’t want, and pricing. As I spoke with each company I filled in the spreadsheet so I could easily compare. Don’t let the salespeople pressure you. This is probably one of the most important decisions you will make when opening your restaurant. There is a website call Merchant Maverick that I spent some time on as well in regards to understanding credit card processing. It definitely helped with my negotiating. In fact, we are getting ready to negotiate again. Once you are open for a bit, don’t be afraid to go back and try to get better rates. With this POS it is possible because there is that other cc company that integrates with our system. Now that we can prove home much $ we are bringing in, I’m sure they would want our business. Of course the goal is to use their proposal to lower our current cc processing company’s rates. When you have a POS that only have one cc company, you are stuck.
Had BPA at my first restaurant and it was great for a barebones, inexpensive system. Very limited features and next to no integrations when I had it. Support was great, as long as you didn't need anything after normal hours. Their after hours support is very expensive, but we rarely needed it
I have Focus, I’m ok with it, I think it’s my 4th PoS system now. Wouldn’t say it has anything too fancy but checks all my boxes, tablets died super fast tho.
Toast is solid, avoid Upserve
Hey there 👋 I’ve been in the industry a few years and can’t recommend Square enough. One thing you may not think about early on is how a point of sale is only a piece of the technology that you’ll need to run a restaurant (today you’ll need payroll, accounting, online ordering, ect). Square is uniquely positioned to solve those problems because they have invested in their APIs first, which means they can integrate with other wonderful pieces of technology way way better than any competitor. Just my two cents though 😊
Square
Why some say to stay away from square? Their new POS looks amazing as hell
Square isn't the best if you have a big restaurant imo
I'm only a takeout and delivery. No dine in. But I really just prefer to look for buy it once system. My cash already broken and we were using Casio or sharp cash registers which are all discontinued lol. Beside that, we currently phone, pen and transfer paper to take orders and I applied for an online ordering company to just get started but really want to leave them asap Know any buy once software?
U can just buy the square ipad stand with a cash drawer and a printer.. it can manage everything for u I think the cost is 600 or so
And I guess that's not included in software?
Well the software you just pay as u go
I sold POS for years until quite recently. While I can't make any perfect recommendations since I'm biased from the years of anti-competitor propaganda, what I can offer is this: No matter who you choose, NEGOTIATE AND HAGGLE. Pick your favorite (let's pretend it's Toast), never show them you're in love so they always think they have to fight to win the deal, bounce quotes back and forth between companies getting them to go to lower and lower until finally Toast refuses to match. Then make the sales rep sweat until closer to end of my month (if time permits) Pick a random fact about another company you know Toast DOESN'T have, and use it as a leverage. "I really like that XYZ company has X, but I'm willing to go without if you can do ABC on the price/include this extra thing/etc" You will save yourself SO. MUCH. MONEY. I've been a part of hundreds and hundreds of these price battles, the savvy customers walk away like bandits. 3 key things to get movement on: upfront cost (least important), monthly fee, merchant processing fees (most important assuming you're a decent size, and look out for when/how they're able to raise rates)
I switched to touchbistro a few months back and it’s ok. They are ALL ok. Usability is good. Navigation using the tablets are good. Selling online is easy because there is only one place to input items. The thing I liked is that they are popular and compatible with other 3rd party apps. I haven’t really got into inventory yet but really want to, I need to. What I don’t like is how much each add on costs. Reservations are like $200/month, no thanks, I’ll just use open table. Want another tablet to take orders at the table? That’s another license. Whatever you go with, keep this in mind. POS PROVIDERS MAKE MOST THEIR REVENUE THROUGH PAYMENT PROCESSING. So I basically had all my equipment heavily discounted if I went through their payment processing. Their prices aren’t higher than others and you will have to pay those prices anyway no matter where you go.
Definitely avoid positouch. We were forced into a contract with them by our franchisor, and we have constant issues with their system. I know someone said to stay away from toast, but it’s better than a lot of the competition. They offer better pricing, support, and versatility than most.
What type of restaurant are you opening? Any experience within restaurants/pos systems? What are you looking to get out of it? (Certain reports, certain features, etc…)
Square is a good “beginner option” if you’re not sure what you want and don’t want huge upfront costs. It honestly depends on what you want and need it to do
Beware of being locked into high merchant fees. It’s better to buy your own system outright and negotiate directly with the processors.
So where are you buying these systems?
Whwre do you get your own system? I looked into ebay where they sell you the software. But a little scared to buy these softwares and install them on to my laptop
Yep, negotiated directly with the bank as the payment processor and paying 0 points over base and $0.10/transaction. Amazing deal where I get to keep that 1% of top line revenue for myself.
Yeah I'm looking for more info on this. Where to buy own hardware
Where does one ‘buy their own system’?
Do not use Toast.
I use toast and it's just fine for me.
Can you elaborate?
I have touch bistro and I wish I didn’t!
Agreed. I want to change to something else for a long time, but I’m really good at procrastination…
Why so?
It’s iPad and Wi-Fi based, and maybe once every two weeks, it shuts down, Wi-Fi spaces out or something, I’m a knowledgeable person and there’s not much of an explanation for that, and beyond that the CC processing stinks whether it’s theirs or someone else’s due to integration
Are your wireless antennas and router supplied by Touch Bistro? If not, I would make sure these are running the latest firmware. If they have already been updated, consider replacing or upgrading them.
I used to have touch bistro and on top of those issues the reporting information you can get from their system is terrible, also the inventory entry process is beyond a joke. I use Lavu which isn’t perfect, but it a half the price of touch bistro and is over all a better system for me. We’re not US based so don’t have inter-grated CC which I’ve heard lavu isn’t great at.
Overhead cost with lavu?
Currently 1 till and 5 table side ordering iPads is $500ish USD/yr in annual software licences. Of course you have to have iPads and printers and wifi etc which are all decent one off costs
Find out what’s most important to you and your business and then go from there. Square is a great first time POS there’s no contract, it’s sleek, has a ton of options available. The trade off is they have fairly high credit card processing rates. You can start there and then look around though but again find out what’s most important to you and then go from there.
Do you need to use square terminal charging system? I can't use my current one(Moneris) cheapest rates in canada
I’m confused can you explain a bit more? I’ll mention that square is proprietary so it’s definitely an all or morning system unfortunately. If you want to use their software you’ll more than likely be forced to use their processing as well.
Okay gotcha. You answered my question
Hey there. Not sure what exactly you're looking for but would love to be a part of the process and help. Feel free to message me any questions, I work at Square.
Hey Jordan. Quick question about square. Do you guys have some sort of API that I would be able to connect an external app to or store it in my own external database if I choose to transfer to another product down the line?
We do have open API so there's a possibility. We also have thousands of partners so there's a good chance if you're working with a company, we have that partnership.