When you visit a restaurant as a consumer, you can only think about what you’d like to have. After that, the next thing you worry about is how much time your order’s going to take. But, restaurants are not just about kitchens and servicing. There are tons of internal management processes that run in real-time simultaneously, which altogether sum up to the experience, ambiance, and quality of service you get in these places. This restaurant management system comprises of various tasks which include, cashflow management, store check, inventory management, staff management, cleaning/housekeeping, and vendor management.
But it’s almost impossible to manage it with just human effort, and therefore, you need a computer interference in-between.
Why Use Restaurant Management Software?
Being one of the most competitive businesses, where everything is focused on making the consumer happier than ever, restaurant management systems in place cannot afford even a single loophole. This is the reason restaurant managers have now begun to go techie to deal with their daily troubles. From ensuring that their employees are paid on time to maintaining a perfect amount of stock in the kitchen, everything is recorded on dedicated software for restaurant management. There are many versions of such computer-based restaurant management systems, that come with a point-of-sale setup (which record cash flow statements).
They not only ease of calculations and manage real-time in and out of materials but take a load of stress off managers’ minds when it comes to dealing with consumers and maintaining quality of their services simultaneously.
Restaurant Management Software
Here are Top Restaurant Management Software that does Things Systematically
1. Sapaad
Sapaad is the most versatile, reliable, and widely trusted restaurant management and restaurant inventory software. It is designed to work not just for big-time hotels, but also for little street-side cafes. Yes, it works for point-of-sale operations, which means all the money that goes in and out of your restaurant is tracked on account of invoices and transaction IDs. It stores your customer database and helps in maintaining a smooth workflow within the kitchen. Sapaad isn’t just a simple restaurant management software, it is a complete system designed to manage everything that goes around in a restaurant daily.
Features:
- Sales and Invoicing: Billing, Discount Management, Credit/Debit Reports
- Customer Management: Account profiles, Phone numbers, Addresses
- Catering and Kitchen: Inventory, Order Management, Kitchen Equipment, Menu
- Others: Reservations, Online Orders and Delivery; Employee and Waitstaff Management
2. ToastPOS
ToastPOS is a point-of-sale restaurant management system that consists of hardware like a cash drawer, receipt printer, and card reader. But, it is also cloud-based, which allows managers to operate the account on hand-held devices. It’s not the only one who offers such a facility, but one can say it has achieved perfection in offering cloud-based restaurant management services. Used by takeaway outlets and mainstream restaurant franchises alike, ToastPOS offers four key features that combine to make it a fully-functioning point-of-sale restaurant management software.
Features:
- Point-of-Sale: Includes in-house services such as orders, payments, cash management, and day-to-day sales and profits.
- Online Orders: Maintains a separate module for managing orders for home along with their invoices and payments.
- Payroll System: Manages employee database, their attendance, and their payroll to help managers take care of their employee needs.
- Handheld: Can be managed over the web using Android-based devices.
- Others: Kitchen display systems, Inventory and store management, equipment management.
3. TouchBistro
TouchBistro is one of the few restaurant management software that manages not just the in-house jobs in your outlet, but also keep an eye out optimizing your entire supply chain of food materials and other ingredients. Besides managing sales, kitchen, reservations, and staff, touch Bistro has a bonus feature. TouchBistro exclusively offers hand-held restaurant management over iPads. So, table orders can be taken over iPads, which are automatically redirected in kitchen systems, thus fastening the order delivery. All of this combined accounts for a lean and restaurant management system.
Features:
- Digital Menus: Are altered as per availability directly, thus maintaining transparency with consumers.
- Analytics: Critical insights regarding staff, sales, and inventory management.
- CRM: Maintain consumer database and preferences that help in servicing regulars with better quality.
- Staff Management: Has features of chat-based communication within the restaurant. Also, include payroll and attendance management.
- Others: Payments, Sales, Self-ordering kiosks, etc.
4. Upserve
Another versatile and extended restaurant management system, Upserve’s features are very vastly categorized. From managing mere logbooks to maintaining consumer responses online, Upserve dedicates itself towards optimizing your in-house operations and sustaining restaurant reputation. Let’s take a look at all of its products in a nutshell.
Features:
- Point-of-Sale: Hardware for Cash drawer, Table Orders, Online orders, Payments.
- Management: Guest Book, Sales Logs, Menu management, Discounts and Loyalties.
- Workforce: Clock-ins, WaitStaff shifts, Salaries, Bonuses, Leaves.
- Inventory: Vendor Management, Raw material availability, Store and Purchasing
These major features are further sub-categorized that are availed to consumers under three different pricing plans.
5. Oracle Food and Beverages
Oracle Food and Beverages is point-of-sale solution services for restaurateurs. Oracle categorizes its restaurant management software in three different segments – sales, inventory, and CRM. The idea is to achieve a profitable, but sustainable business for restaurants by integrating cloud-based management solutions and help these outlets optimize admin operations. Oracle has a name in web services in various sectors, and this name is enough to market its reliability and quality.
Features:
- Sales: Achieve profits by simultaneous management of daily sales and use analytics to optimize performance levels.
- Inventory: Achieve profits by fast managing inventory and avoiding waste of ingredients in the kitchen.
- Loyalty: Use CRM services to cater to clients better and satisfy their requirements and needs effectively.
6. Floreant
You may not see this name in reviews, but it’s important to highlight that you may also have a robust restaurant management software for free. Really useful for new and small restaurants, Floreant is an open-source project, thus offering all necessary services in regard to restaurant management for free. Not all restaurants can afford to pay more than a $200/mo and that’s where Floreant comes in. Though it lacks interactive UI, it has got the features you need.
Features:
- OS: It is compatible with most basic operating systems, including Raspberry PI.
- Admin: Covers all back-office operations such as configuring storehouses.
- Cash Terminals: Can be connected to any digital cash drawer, and redirects associated cash reports.
- Hand-Held: Can be operated from mobile and tablets. Requires a 2GB memory device.
- Kitchen Control: Records in and out of orders confirmed by the waitstaff.
7. Lightspeed
While the services and products provided by Lightspeed are almost the same as the others, its extensive support to integrations makes it unique. Dedicated towards hardware and software solutions associated with both point-of-sale and restaurant management system, Lightspeed is preferred by users who wish to have their management tools to work with their hardware solutions.
Lightspeed offers integration of multiple software solutions with itself for various operations such as payments, online ordering, employee scheduling, reservations, ERP, and eCommerce. This allows users to use software of their choice over the Lightspeed portal, with cross-sync functionality for data storage and retrieval.
Features:
- Integration: Integrate multiple platforms to monitor different operations such as accounting, delivery, orders, etc.
- Accounting: Management of sales and expenditure via both cash and credit.
- Displays: Kitchen Displays, Consumer Self-Order Displays
- Loyalty: Consumer loyalty programs, marketing campaigns, promotion management.
8. Zomato Base
A part of acquisition made by Indian food delivery service provider and restaurant aggregator Zomato, Zomato Base has been highly regarded among restaurant management and restaurant inventory software. Serving in 24 countries, Zomato Base is Zomato’s attempt to create two-way services separately for both consumers and restaurateurs. The service is not directly purchasable as of yet and any seeker has to contact Zomato via a portal to get quotations. For now, it is eyeing small business owners, but it may expand to a larger venture in the near future.
Features:
- Inventory: Manage the availability of materials and ingredients.
- E-Invoices: Send paper-free invoices to consumers
- Analytics: Get daily sales reports and statements
- CRM: In-built consumer database management system.
With these restaurant management system installed in your outlets, you can manage every single front-desk task and back-end operation without hassle. From managing your accounts, analyzing profits, and optimizing inventory to managing payrolls, clock-ins/outs, and implementing CRM practices, these systems can do it all.
Go through their features and analyze on your own what restaurant management software would suit your business the best.