If you search most simply for the best POS systems for restaurants, you’re sure to find some common names. With Toast, Square, Clover, and TouchBistro—to name a few—most restaurants satisfy growing needs in operations, management, and optimization. 

Among these, Toast and Square are well-matched for balancing ease-of-use with overall data analytics. When it comes to more advanced restaurant intelligence, however, many business leaders would prefer to integrate with a third-party provider. This prevents upending POS systems for the sake of data manipulation, forecasting, and analysis alone.

Still, other concerns arise as restaurants become enterprises. These include integration options, but also security and flexibility. So, when seeking out the best POS for restaurant management, future users really can’t predict how software and innovation in the industry will evolve. 

Instead, they can only choose their contracts carefully by seeking out POS systems with flexible APIs and, preferably, few hardware constraints. This is especially true when looking to integrate online ordering or mobile payments.

Key Takeaway: Even the best POS for restaurants needs customization through integration, enabling enterprises to perform better in online ordering and off-premise business without switching systems or disrupting operations.

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Best POS System for Flexibility

The best POS for restaurants is often the most flexible, since this helps brands weather the unexpected. Whether it’s an emerging consumer trend or a limitation on business (such as COVID-19’s forced closures), making your POS choice based on ongoing customization options secures business.

Toast POS is already recognized as a top-rated choice in this category, but Square remains popular and notable. Both can optimize restaurant operations while supporting rather full payment processing options. 

Though, even more restaurant-specific systems like Revel, Lightspeed, TouchBistro, and Simphony POS can include refined management tools for food costing controls, online ordering, and loyalty programs with a CRM connection.

Best POS for Reporting and Intelligence

While most small businesses choose Square POS, at first, they’re mostly attracted to market-fair and low-cost pricing. For food establishments with high-volume growth, more hospitality-specific designs fair much better when digging into numbers and seeking specific insights. 

For instance, Aloha POS stands much taller in ease-of-use when manipulating data and seeking genuine relationships between the many trends and factors of customer buying under month-to-month consideration by boards. 

None of the common choices are as ideal for executive use than targeted, data-oriented POS systems. Instead, when contracts are fixed, most companies still choose to augment reporting and analytics with a third party. 

A Lesser-Known, Better-Reporting Restaurant POS

Of all the systems reviewed, Oracle’s much more niche solution—Simphony POS—fares better all around for data reporting in restaurants of every imaginable size. In this sense, the outcome of real-time transaction data paired with the stable computing of Oracle is profound—compared to more popular approaches.

In fact, Oracle’s Simphony POS comes with up-to-the-minute statistics that can help everyone from management and up picot business as needed. And, as a cloud-based system, it also stands to connect all operations, which makes life much easier when you through in more than at-the-table payments. 

For instance, users of Simphony enjoy easier online order management, push-to-kitchen features, inventory costing, menu management, and improved customer loyalty. The premium features tie up loose ends for the enterprise brand with gift cards and loyalty program building as well. 

Overall, Oracle’s Simphony beats out competition through customization in reporting, analytics, and even custom menu development. All these aim richly at an improved customer retention. 

Best POS for Restaurant Management and Security

Almost all POS systems come with an emphasis on security. The concern here is, of course, to protect the company from breaches and liabilities when handling big data on restaurant customers through profiles, payment methods, addresses, and other details. 

Standard measures to look for when seeking an enterprise-level of POS security are obviously first-line defenses like firewalls. But, there are more advanced cybersecurity solutions for restaurants that really want to tighten privacy and safeguard the brand from unnecessary losses. These, though, are usually packaged with third-party integrations.

When staying strictly to the in-house POS, Lightspeed seems to come most-suited for restaurant security needs when it is intentionally locked to the Apple ecosystem. Nevertheless, Square (or Block) also stands out for its ability to extend security further into checkout tools with a website builder and protected sales reporting. 

Best POS with Open API for Integrations

You’ll find most POS systems offering an open-handed option to integrate their tools with better performing online ordering solutions, more advanced inventory management, and custom menu development. Here, again Toast and Square stand out for contactless ordering for small businesses. 

For larger enterprise level needs, though, more custom solutions are typically preferred to allow for full customization and flexibility in hardware. For this reason, TouchBistro and Clover are more likely options, with more support for dynamic restaurants with operations facing new processes and other inevitable changes.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Best POS for Restaurant Management

Discover which types of restaurants choose which kinds of POS system as their best bet against changing consumer trends and the increasing tech needs of growing brands. Here you’ll find a few common questions readers still have about which restaurant POS is best. 

Which restaurant POS is most common for large brands?

Some of the most common restaurant POS systems include Toast, Square, and Clover. Many small brands that become large-scale operations choose these to start and augment the system to meet their needs through integrations over time. 

In review of feedback for each, they all seem to need enhancement when transitioning through growth pains and when seizing new market opportunities. The improvement of business intelligence is a particular need for large-scale restaurants, along with customization and flexibility. 

What is the best POS for QSR restaurants and fast food?

There is no specific and best POS for QSR or fast food. Instead, it’s from reviews that these restaurant concepts choose from the full array of popular POS systems for restaurants and have vastly different experiences based on their implementation, operations, and goals as a growing company.

Rather than focus on the best technology for payment processing and restaurant management “out-of-the-box,” many executives and restaurant owners are better served by improving their systems over time through integrations and custom development. That’s why most find a trusted POS partner to include as part of their enterprise ecosystem. 

What POS system do most restaurants use?

The POS system market is diverse with great offers from the most popular like Toast and Square as well as more niche tech such as Lightspeed or Radiant and Simphony. Since each provides balanced solutions with a unique focus, it’s hard to say which is preferred. 

However, enterprise brands usually choose among Aloha, Revel, and Lightspeed. 

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