Workplace automation is a current topic of concern in lunchrooms worldwide especially in the retail, customer service and administration industries – among others – where job security is thinning due to technological advances solving repetitive human tasks. This is, of course, until new jobs emerge as a result of breakthroughs in other sectors.
Fortunately, in the case of restaurateurs, food-making will always require a human touch and people will always need to eat.
Point of Sale (POS) systems have therefore been crafted and transformed in such a way that natural persons and AI capabilities have to work together to achieve well-fed customers who exit and return buoyant; maintain a positive working environment and deploy naturally profitable operations.
Out with the outdated, in with the information technology
Cash registers (with built-in receipt printers and manual price-entry hard keys) were referred to as point-of-sale systems in the days of old.
The point of sale was the literal position of the transaction, where physical money would be exchanged after calculating the bill based on scanned barcodes or manually entered pricing (some without product names or descriptions.) Regrettably, no card facilities, some signage would inform.
Today, Point of Sale (POS) systems refer to the smart combination of hardware (visual device with buttons, receipt printer, cash drawer, barcode scanner, card machine and network device) and software (cloud-based or server-based) that registers, processes and stores transaction particulars. Its artificial intelligence and ‘machine learning’ characteristics enable report generation and staff time logs and activity, too.
In turn, small to large business owners have gone digital not just to be in with the times, but mostly to display the customer-centric culture that eateries should have. This is achieved by reducing workplace pressure (and time-consuming tasks that may lead to conflict, mistakes or spite) in order to focus on food safety, taste, Instagram-ready presentation, friendliness and overall staff cohesion.
The main benefits of PosTree – Point of Sale (POS) software
- Statements are generated by the POS system for the business owner’s convenience
The clever components of your POS system can organise your input data and activity and generate documents such as profit and loss statements (based on periodic sales reports), cash register balances, tax reports and payroll data. No more untidy ledgers or manually calculating profit and loss and trying to figure out where potential losses came from, or how to explain the profit to the Tax Man. The POS system will give you accurate, real-time data to assist with every executive and administrative step.
- POS system reduces waiters’ foot traffic to and from the kitchen
The waitron places the order on the POS device in the restaurant and a receipt is either printed in the kitchen or shown on a display screen in the kitchen (active orders), so there is no time delay between ordering and preparing items.
The time of the order is automatically added to the data and thus motivates the staff to work according to strict execution guidelines. Waitrons can attend to their guests at all times without getting caught up in the kitchen – this creates an atmosphere of high-quality hospitality and warmth.
- View business performance from anywhere in the world as long as you have a Wi-Fi connection
Cloud-synced POS systems such as PosTree in Dublin (https://postree.ie/pos) offer remote services which allow you to log into your business, pull reports or merely view live statistics.
- Backup and restore your restaurant data with PosTree Cloud
PosTree uses Amazon Web Services to store your data securely as long as you want. You can work in online or offline mode and auto-sync technology will ensure your data is always backed up.
- Online ordering & payment systems integrated to your existing website or configured to your new website created by PosTree stretches your outreach
Online order buttons can be added to your social media sites such as Facebook in order to cancel out the process of your customers ordering directly from your website if they are currently logged into other platforms.