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Terminal Station

December 17th, 2009 admin No comments

Terminal Station

Restaurant Point of Sale Q&A: POS Terminal

Tips on what to ask your local POS vendor

POS Terminal: How many should I purchase?

* Peak customer volume
When handling peak customer volume, you need to have a plan to be able to sufficiently serve them all.
* Number of employees taking orders
One station per 3-5 servers would be sufficient in a table service environment. High volume areas such as bars and cashier stations may need to have a dedicated station for that purpose. When switching from a standard Cash Register to a POS system, many people unintentionally forget that their POS system is not only used to conduct sale transactions but for order entry as well.
* Restaurant layout
A good 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.
* How and where you plan to have customers pay for their meals
Having proper locations where customers can pay for their meals is also important, you don't want to keep them waiting do you? For paying at the front, you should have one or two dedicated cashier stations to allow speedy transactions.

What type of POS computer should I use for my business?

* Desktop: the standard desktop type.
o Least expensive computer option
o Has onsite warranty for 3 years
o Takes more space but can be hidden away under a counter
o Flexible enough for adding extra ports
o Latest CPU speeds and memory
o Screen and computer are separate; if ever technical difficulties accur, it'll be isolated.
* Small form factor (SFF): originally phrased as shuttle form factor, a smaller type of computer.
o More stylish than the desktop
o Has 3 years standard onsite warranty
o Saves more space
o Fewer options for expandability
o Latest CPU speeds and memory
o Screen and computer are separate; so you can easily isolate which ones has technical difficulties.
* All-in-one terminals: combined touchscreen and computer.
o More efficient because it requires fewer wires least space, even more stylish
o 1–2 Year Manufacturers Warranty (Not onsite)
o Comes standard with sufficient ports for almost any operation
o CPU speed is generally slower than the other two options but sufficient for the Point of Sale needs.
o Screen and Computer are one unit

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 for ending transactions.

Credit card processing?

* You can easily process and track record of every credit card transactions using your POS system in one location..
* With the advance of high speed internet transactions processing time can reduced to 3-4 seconds per transaction.
* In case you do not have high speed internet, a standalone terminal can be used for processing.

How many printers must a typical restaurant?

* Having one kitchen printer would be sufficient 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.
* For example, appetizers can be printed on one printer and have all your main dish printed on another.
* We recommend dot-matrixprinters over thermal printers for kitchens and bars because their loud printing alerts cooks and bartenders that an order is coming through and because tickets printed on thermal paper become 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 only have 2-3 stations. It is however a great idea to host the database on a back office computer if you have 4 or more stations so that none of the stations has the additional load of running the database.

About the Author

With over 20 years of restaurant point of sale experience and helping businesses in the food-service industry nationwide increase their efficiency and bottom-line profits, the author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants.com.