A Point-of-Sale or POS system is at the center of every modern restaurant’s technology ecosystem. Since the POS is one of your most versatile and essential pieces of technology, the more your other systems integrate and share data with it, the more efficiently and effectively your restaurant will run.This post highlights and unpacks 8 ways to integrate restaurant technology with your POS and reclaim the value left on the table by not integrating everything from security to scheduling.If you already have a POS system and are using a few other apps or platforms to run your business, chances are you can integrate and start streamlining your operations. Most major POS systems out there (like Toast, TouchBistro, etc.) have extensive integration capabilities.
Some of the most popular POS integrations include software to handle every area of your restaurant business:
- Mobile Payment
- Online Ordering
- Reservations
- Staff Scheduling
- Inventory
- Loyalty Apps
- Analytics
- Security
Let’s dive into some examples of different tools from each of these areas of your business, and the benefits that integrating them with your POS provides.
See all the ways Solink helps with your business operations.
Mobile payment: Rooam
Rooam is a mobile payment platform that allows guests to remotely pay their bar tab or restaurant bills from their smartphones. This capability protects restaurateurs from chargebacks and walk-outs, improves operations efficiency, and helps staff morale by making tipping easier and more flexible for guests.
Integrating mobile payments with your POS allows restaurants to leverage real-time sales data to improve the overall guest experience, and make it easy for customers to show appreciation for stellar service through gratuities.
Online ordering: Chowly
Chowly integrates multiple third party delivery services like GrubHub, Uber Eats and DoorDash directly with your restaurant’s POS. Third party delivery app services are the virtual front door to millions of hungry virtual customers. If your staff can’t keep up with the admin work of managing the spike in increased delivery business, all will be for nothing.
Chowly integrates directly with your POS, eliminating manual data entry error and repetitive busy work so your staff can pay attention to serving your customers. An online ordering POS integration lowers staffing costs, increases revenue, and stops human error, ensuring incremental sales increases and amazing customer experience.
Reservations: SevenRooms
SevenRooms lets hotel and restaurant managers easily interact with and manage guests to deliver personalized guest experiences that satisfy and delight-even before walking through the front door.
Integrating your POS with a reservation, seating, and guest management solution like SevenRooms will help you grow margins, inspire your guests to keep coming back and give your staff the information they need to treat each individual guest like an old friend.
Staff Scheduling: 7shifts
7shifts is a mobile, cloud-based employee scheduling and labor management platform built for restaurants. When managers cannot effectively manage the scheduling availability needs of their staff, they spend too much on labor and eat their own margins or not enough, and sacrifice the customer experience.
7shifts integrates with your POS to take back time wasted creating imprecise schedules, and powers smart, easy scheduling that’s done in minutes-not hours. A staff scheduling POS integration lets you manage actual labor costs, by incorporating actual sales data and streamlines workforce communication-letting staff handle the bulk of shift availability logistics-from anywhere.
Inventory: MarketMan
One of the most important levers you can pull to reduce costs in your restaurant-besides labor-is inventory. MarketMan is an inventory and order management platform that gives you control over food costs in real-time and lets you cut waste out of your operation.
Integrating an inventory management solution with your POS unlocks and unites the power of real-time sales data and combines it with real-time inventory data, putting a tangible increase in profitability and efficiency at your manager’s fingertips.
Loyalty Apps: LevelUp
LevelUp puts the power of gift cards-and much more-into your customer’s smartphone, while giving your business a powerful digital marketing tool to connect, understand their needs, and reward them for consistent patronage.
Integrating your loyalty app with your POS will make your customer’s payment experience easy and fun. The rich consolidated data analytics from each system will unlock powerful insights into who is in your restaurant, what their purchasing habits are, and how to help them get more value from your business.
Analytics: Avero
Avero is a great example of a data analytics platform that helps restaurant owners and managers dig down into the data to optimize marketing, business operations and revenue generation.
Integrating data analytics with your POS gives you powerful answers to the business questions that matter most-backed by cold, hard facts. The synergy of merging databases between POS and analytics tools, creates lifts in productivity, service, and sales, and lets your staff out from the back office, so they can shine when and where they are needed most.
Business Security System: Solink
Solink helps restaurants protect and monitor their premises and assets by analyzing and uncovering insights from existing video surveillance footage and POS data. Not knowing that your assets are secure can create unnecessary anxiety and stress.
Integrating a tool like Solink with your CCTV cameras & POS upgrades your security and gives you more visibility and insight into your business operations. This integration gives you options when mapping out loss prevention strategies, facilitates effective security investigations, and empowers secure daily operations and compliance. A fully integrated cloud security system lets you monitor changes in revenue, speed of service, register balances and sales performance in real-time.
The tools listed here are only the beginning when it comes to the modern restaurant’s technology stack. New integrations are announced regularly by major POS companies. If you own a restaurant and use a POS, get on the phone with your account manager and ask them: Which of my technologies do you integrate with?
