The POS is the nervous system of your business. Traditional pen and paper was replaced by hard-wired systems only a few years ago, but now a whole new approach is making its way into the market: the tablet based POS. Here are some of our thoughts of these exciting new products and services.
This is the tablet based POS I see the most, so I began my research assuming this would be the best option of the three I looked at. It turns out that Square’s high adoption rate has a lot to do with its easy setup. Simply download the app, follow the prompts and wait for your credit card reader to arrive in the mail. You can also order a branded Square Stand, cash drawers and printers through their website to build up a fully functional POS system.
Setting up the merchant services is simple too because (for better or for worse) Square automatically includes payment processing. The pricing is correspondingly straight forward: 2.75% of every swiped or online purchase, and 3.5% +15¢ of every manually entered purchase. While this is higher than most merchant service charges, the software and set-up is free, saving you money up-front.
Pros:
Cheap upfront setup costs (app is free, but you buy the equipment)
No monthly service charge
Ease of use
Good design
Cons:
Near total lack of customer support
You’re locked into a credit processor
Limited recordkeeping in comparison to other companies
Best for: Small businesses, quick serve cafés, food trucks/carts and other businesses with limited cash reserves.
Lavu has done something we think is really smart: focus solely on the restaurant industry. While other systems are built to address the needs of everything from retail to garage sales, as well as bars and restaurants, Lavu sees the value in focus.
Lavu is primarily a software company, and its POS is solely available on iPads, iPhones and iPods. For recordkeeping and other office tasks you can login to their services with any computer, Mac or PC. To purchase equipment you’ll be referred to a separate vendor. This can allow you to purchase or reuse any compatible cash drawers and printers, but does add a layer of difficulty to the setup process.
The pricing is built around license and monthly fees that range from $895 and $39/month to $2495 and $149/month. Merchant services are negotiated separately through your choice of credit processor. There is no contract, so you are free to cancel at anytime (though you are as likely to do that as you are to switch banks.)
Pros:
Clean looking interface
Easy to access features: customizable floor maps, check-splitting, time clocks, customer email tracking and more
You choose your own merchant services
Cons:
Complicated set-up since you’ll deal with multiple vendors
Some screens and options are not intuitive
Not priced for smaller, stand alone restaurants
Best for:
Medium to large restaurants who need accurate order tracking, labor reports and inventory management
Like Lavu, Revel is focused on the restaurant industry. While they offer tiered pricing depending on the size of the restaurant, Revel’s focus is clearly establishments that gross $500,000 or more a year. They are the priciest option we looked into, but they are still much cheaper than equivalent legacy POS systems.
Unlike Lavu, Revel is a one-stop option. They sell hardware, software and installation services. We also found their sales staff to be easy going and open to questions. They seem to know they’re priced as a premium and give the service one should expect for the money involved.
Revel offers all the standard features, but with a really intuitive interface. What really caught my eye, however, was Quickbooks integration. You can either pay a fee to Quickbooks for automatic imports, or you can import your data yourself for free. Quickbooks is kind of the MS Office of the restaurant world – we all hate it but we all use it. Having Revel integrate with it is a stroke of genius. Revel has an open API (this allows for integration with 3rd party services and applications,) so I fully expect to see more of these sorts of bells and whistles on the horizon.
Pros:
Great customer service
Easy to learn interface
Near seamless integration with Quickbooks
You choose your own merchant services
Cons:
Expensive
Expensive
Expensive
Who it’s for:
Large restaurants that gross over 500K a year – If you’ve got the pennies this is the wishing well you’re looking for.