The Best Restaurant POS Systems Of 2024

Finding the best POS system for your restaurant needs can be as overwhelming as figuring out what you want from an all-you-can-eat buffet. In this article, we’re serving up the best restaurant POS systems on the market—the top choices devoid of unnecessary fluff, satisfying your business’s demands while keeping your wallet full.

Read on to find out how these solutions can help you serve your customers even better.

Compare Top Restaurant POS System Leaders

What This Article Covers

• Best Restaurant POS Systems
  • Lightspeed
  • Toast
  • ERPLY
  • NCR Silver
  • Square
• Who Uses Restaurant POS Systems
• Hardware
• Purchasing Considerations
• Primary Benefits
• How To Choose the Right Software
• Next Steps

Best Restaurant POS Systems

With an overwhelming 82% of restaurant owners relying on POS systems for their day-to-day operations, it’s clear that these tools have become the backbone of the food and beverage industry.

Our analysts gathered data and compiled a thorough list of the best restaurant POS systems. Though not exhaustive, this list details each product’s best features, benefits and limitations.

Lightspeed

Lightspeed offers POS solutions to businesses in the retail, restaurant and golf industries. It offers payment processing, marketing, eCommerce and integration capabilities to manage POS workflows. You can get the iPad hardware kit or individual hardware items such as receipt printers, kitchen buzzers, cash drawers and barcode scanners.

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• Types of POS — 100
• Inventory Management — 98
• Reporting and Insights — 96
• Customer and Loyalty Management — 94
• Items and Service Management — 90

Top Benefits

• Expedite Online Storefront Launches: Upload content, choose templates and build online stores to meet specific client needs. Establishing online shopping increases customer outreach.
• Centralize Sales: Consolidate digital and in-store purchases in one solution to avoid opening them in separate windows. Use barcode scanners, POS system integrations, label printers and so on for a consistent brand experience.
• Streamline Restaurant Practices: Establish food deliveries, contactless payment methods, in-advance ordering and more practices to improve restaurant operations.
• Improve Marketing Strategies: Conduct numerous social media network and marketplace marketing practices via intuitive dashboards to boost audiences and increase revenue. Leverage SEO tools and metadata customizations to strengthen website transparency.
• Maintain Stock Items: Add products, maintain online and physical store data, and establish pricing for improved inventory management. You also receive real-time updates for improved replenishment tactics.

Primary Features

• Compliance and Security: Gain endpoint security management for all company-issued employee tools and devices with configurations, updates and tracking. Consistently adhere to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance.
• Items and Service Management: Use a customizable item grid to access frequently used items, discounts and categories. Consolidate items or services into centralized categories.
• Payment Transactions and Cash Management: Obtain cash handling and monitoring via in-and-out cash movement tracking from registers. Craft discounts for specific items, categories, quantities, daily specials and so on.
• Inventory Management: Monitor your stock and inventory levels in real time. Add product variants, customize taxes, send low-stock alerts, create catalogs and more. Create new or import existing barcodes and labels for each product.
• Sales and Marketing Management: Use automated order fulfillment management to let customers choose between receiving entire orders at once or in parts as goods become available. Automatically move ready orders to fulfill order lists.

Limitations

• Costly.
• Steeper learning curve.
• Doesn’t offer offline functionality.
• Doesn’t support single sign-on.

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• Single Sign On — Not Supported
• Parked Sales — Not Supported
• Audit Logs — Not Supported
• Electronic Gift Cards — Supported with Partner Integrations
• Payment Dispute Management — Not Supported

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Toast

Toast offers features such as online ordering, takeout and delivery, third-party integrations, and payroll and team management. Its hardware includes tablets for waitstaff and the kitchen, kiosks, credit card readers, receipt printers and more.

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• Customer and Loyalty Management — 100
• Employee Management — 100
• Reporting and Insights — 88
• Items and Service Management — 85
• Types of POS — 85

Top Benefits

• Obtain Thorough Training Materials: Gain a Toast University knowledge base with informative videos, interactive tutorials and more for in-depth learning. The better the materials, the easier it is for others to learn and effectively manage this system.
• Increase Mobility: Enable dine-in guests to order and pay from their mobile devices to save time. Make inside payments to kiosks, apps or restaurant devices with the order and pay tool to accelerate payment processes.
• Boost Productivity: Implement the starter kit set to place and customize orders faster to improve customer satisfaction and productivity. Implement automation to boost productivity and earn more revenue, and use handheld devices and contactless payment technology to enable staff to serve guests faster.
• Expand Customer Outreach: Merge the system with GrubHub, OpenTable and other third-party software providers to extend your customer base. You can also increase sales with this centralization.
• Reduce Delivery Costs: Deliver food using Toast Delivery Services to reduce commissions paid to third parties and enhance customer experiences.

Primary Features

• Customer and Loyalty Management: Supervise customer spending habits, promotional offer results and more. Manage online and in-store promotions and coupons.
• Types of POS: Manage numerous POS formats, including tablet, smartphone, self-service kiosks, online and more. Implement multi-channel POS to give customers channel engagement choices.
• Reporting and Insights: Get real-time insights into sales, labor and menu data, and generate reports on your smartphone on the go. Define daily, weekly and monthly sales targets for all staff members, and access all reports on an interactive dashboard.
• Payment Transactions and Cash Management: Tailor checkout screens for easy toggling between or rearranging available payment methods for checking out consumers. Draft discounts for particular items, categories, quantities, daily specials, limited-time offers and so on.
• Employee Management: Track employee work hours, overtime, breaks and other factors in one centralized system. Manage staff working hours, public holiday leaves and shift organization. Adjust occasional shift changes and annual leaves.

Limitations

• Limited customization options.
• Occasional technical issues.
• Doesn’t offer built-in tools to manage SEO.
• Doesn’t support layaway or layby sales.
• Long customer support wait times.

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• Retail Dashboard — Not Supported
• Customizable Item Grid — Not Supported
• Cash Management — Not Supported
• Low-Stock Notifications and Auto-Order Suggestions — Not Supported
• Customized Invoices — Not Supported

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ERPLY

Erply helps companies of all sizes manage data across on and offline locations and devices. Top features include order management, employee management, sales and marketing, customer loyalty programs and more. You can sell products on an eCommerce website, and integrate with third-party apps like WooCommerce, Magento and Shopify.

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• Payment Transactions and Cash Management — 100
• Types of POS — 100
• Reporting and Insights — 88
• Inventory Management — 87
• Sales and Marketing Management — 86

Top Benefits

• Strengthen Data Accessibility: Review sales functions in offline mode to increase accessibility. This capability also ensures you receive data in virtually any location without the internet.
• Make Better Business Choices: Receive thorough reporting tools from several franchise locations and reduce getting data from one source at a time to boost efficiency. Push for more data-driven company choices and increase customer relationships with detailed dashboards.
• Improve Branding Techniques: Maintain business continuity with a uniform interface across all franchises. You can also maintain your brand on the system with company colors, logos, taglines and more.
• Enhance Team Collaboration: Allocate centralized controls and grant employees special access for streamlined teamwork. Enhanced collaboration strengthens productivity, customer satisfaction and profitability.
• Increase Security: Handle payments, gather customer details, supervise inventory items and more on a secure interface. This system also provides smooth payment workflows.

Primary Features

• Customer and Loyalty Management: Distribute electronic gift cards from websites, social media pages and restaurant locations. Send promotional messages via text message or email.
• Employee Management: Manage and track employee work hours using the time clock. Determine daily, weekly and monthly sales targets for all employees and manage their performance against set goals.
• Payment Transactions and Cash Management: Accept cash, credit, debit, gift card and other payment methods. Accept swiped card payments in offline mode, and the system processes payments when reconnected to the internet.
• Sales and Marketing Management: Create sales quotes and convert them into sales orders. Deliver full or partial customer orders as raw goods become available.
• Store Management: Set prices and create promotions in the master or sub-master accounts. You can also push these fees to different locations.

Limitations

• Limited reporting.
• Occasional integration issues.

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• Tips Report — Not Supported
• Create Duplicate or Similar Products — Not Supported
• On-Account Sales — Not Supported
• Social Media Platforms Connection – Supported with Partner Integrations
• Electronic Gift Cards — Not Supported

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NCR Silver

NCR Silver offers features like compliance and security, employee management and reporting. You can manage multi-store operations centrally and share orders across different devices.

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• Employee Management — 100
• Reporting and Insights — 100
• Types of POS — 100
• Customer and Loyalty Management — 89
• Inventory Management — 85

Top Benefits

• Make Better Decisions: Obtain in-depth analyses and thorough reporting tools on numerous business aspects to make better business choices. These reports can also help you develop visual dashboards, predictions and comparison charts.
• Access Thorough Resources: Use detailed training resources and technology to quickly get staff up to speed. Quick implementation means you can streamline operations and return to making revenue faster.
• Grow Marketing Outreach: Implement marketing and loyalty features to boost your outreach with current and new clientele and push for return visits. Convert best customers into advocates with automated campaigns.
• Receive Real-Time Notifications: Regulate and prioritize responsibilities with real-time alerts. Obtain notifications for new orders, updates, payments, customer reviews and more to rectify problems and maintain smooth operations.
• Maintain Restaurant Workflows: Maintain and streamline kitchen operations with table mapping, offline credits, menu management and more to enhance customer satisfaction. Color-code and route orders, allocate preparation times, add receipts and more.

Primary Features

• Payments and Transactions Management: Use a system-approved credit processor to process your customers’ credit cards or gift cards. Authenticate credit and debit card transactions with the help of EMV technology, and integrate with third-party apps like LevelUp and PayPal.
• Employee Management: Track all employee work hours from overtime to breaks and more. Schedule staff working hours and supervise holiday leave.
• Reporting and Insight: Establish daily, weekly and monthly sales targets for all staff. Compare performance and defined goals. Track stock levels, low stock information, on-hand materials and more for thorough inventory reports.
• Types of POS: Use cloud POS that resets on a remote server for in-store deployment. Implement a counter-based touchscreen POS solution for easy access and payment management.
• Customer and Loyalty Management: Develop new consumers when they place online orders. Link orders from existing clients with records for archiving purposes. Govern in-store and online promotions and coupons.

Limitations

• Limited customization.
• Few integrations.
• Higher costs and long-term contracts.
• Occasional software glitches.

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• Product Catalog and Import — Not Supported
• Customizable Item Grid — Not Supported
• GDPR Compliance — Not Supported
• Electronic Gift Cards — Not Supported
• Customized Invoices — Not Supported

Compare Top Restaurant POS System Leaders

Square

Square POS is designed for quick/full-service and casual dining restaurants, and bars and breweries. Its features include floor management, kitchen management, transaction processing, live reporting and customer marketing. You can purchase various hardware kits with monitors, printers and cash drawers.

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• Compliance and Security — 100
• Customer and Loyalty Management — 100
• Employee Management — 100
• Items and Service Management — 100
• Payment Transactions and Cash Management — 100

Top Benefits

• Increase Accessibility: Obtain company data on any desktop or mobile device with strong internet connections for faster, up-to-date information. Receive alerts on the go instead of waiting to return to the office.
• Expedite Payments: Process chip cards to ramp up checkout sessions and payments. This system can also take other payment methods.
• Adhere to Unique Industry Needs: Tailor the system to comply with industry-specific standards and regulations with ease. Keep scalability requirements with the POS API capability.
• Boost Protection: Manage restaurant data with tokenization and in-depth protection standards to reduce cybersecurity threats. Maintain PCI requirements to safeguard customer information.
• Strengthen Centralization: Integrate this system with Ecwid, Bigcommerce or other eCommerce solutions to formulate an online presence. You can also centralize performance and increase user satisfaction.

Primary Features

• Employee Management: Customize different roles for access to the POS and dashboard, and make better business decisions with real-time, per-employee sales and activity reporting. Allow team members to sell on their own devices or on a device at another location.
• Items and Service Management: Access a dashboard with bulk importing tools for large data quantities. Customize menus with toppings, add-ons and special requests that appear on receipts.
• Payment Transactions and Cash Management: Track incoming and outgoing cash movements from the register. Customize checkout screens with reordering and payment type buttons during the checkout phase.
• Compliance and Security: Comply with key security standards and processes like PCI-DSS, SOC1 and SOC2, and PA-DSS. Perform data encryption within the card reader when customers swipe their card.
• Types of POS: Use smartphone POS systems to manage sales and other POS tasks on a mobile device, aka mPOS. Apply omnichannel POS tools to manage in-store and online workflows in a single interface.

Limitations

• Limited customization options.
• Limited reporting features in the free plan.
• Limited customer support.

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• Product Bundles and Package Breakdown Management — Moderately Supported out of the Box
• Layaway or Layby Sales — Supported with Partner Integrations
• Sales Quotes and Orders — Not Supported
• Consignment Management — Supported with Partner Integrations
• Tracking Rent and Repair — Not Supported

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Who Uses Restaurant POS Systems

From full-service restaurants to mobile food vendors, a wide range of food service businesses use restaurant POS systems to process transactions, track sales and enhance the overall customer experience.

• Quick-service restaurants (QSRs), also known as fast-food restaurants, focus on providing convenient, fast and affordable meals. These establishments typically offer counter service and may include drive-thru facilities.
• Bars and pubs that serve food use restaurant POS systems to manage food and beverage orders, process payments and track inventory.
• Food trucks and mobile caterers use POS systems to manage orders, process payments and track sales in various locations.
• Fine dining establishments with upscale menus, extensive wine lists and high-end services use POS systems tailored to their specific needs, such as sophisticated menu management and tableside ordering capabilities.
• Institutional food services like cafeterias in schools, universities, hospitals and corporate campuses use POS systems to manage meal plans, process payments and track meal consumption.

Hardware

You need the ideal hardware to go with your solution. Some standard hardware to consider include:

• Point of Sale Terminal: It’s the primary device used for order entry, payment processing and printing receipts. It consists of a touchscreen monitor, a cash drawer and a receipt printer.
• Kitchen Display System (KDS): KDS screens are used to display orders to kitchen staff, allowing them to prepare and manage orders efficiently. It replaces traditional paper tickets and helps improve order accuracy and kitchen workflow.
• Handheld Devices: Tablets or handheld devices are used for tableside ordering, allowing servers to take orders directly from customers and send them to the kitchen without having to go back and forth to a stationary POS terminal.
• Card Readers: These devices are used to accept credit and debit card payments. They include traditional magnetic stripe readers as well as EMV chip card readers to process secure transactions.
• Customer-Facing Displays: Some POS systems include customer-facing displays that show order details, pricing and promotional information, providing transparency to customers during the ordering process.
• Receipt Printers: Printers are used to produce receipts for customers, as well as for internal use in the kitchen and bar areas to help track orders and inventory.
• Barcode Scanners: If the restaurant uses barcoded items, such as gift cards or merchandise, barcode scanners can be integrated with the POS system to streamline the checkout process.
• Cash Registers: While many transactions are electronic, restaurants still need cash management solutions, including cash drawers and coin dispensers, for handling cash transactions.
• Integrated Scales: Some restaurants, such as delis or salad bars, may require integrated scales to accurately weigh and price items sold by weight.

Compare Top Restaurant POS System Leaders

Purchasing Considerations

There are some considerations to ponder before investing in a restaurant POS system: your budget, company size and hardware requirements, to name a few.

How Much Are You Willing To Spend?

As food and labor costs go up, restaurant owners are feeling the pinch on their wallets. That’s why it’s important to choose a solution that helps you offer exceptional services to customers without costing a fortune.

Establish your budget and know how much you’re willing to spend, so you invest in the right system without emptying your wallet.

How Big Is Your Restaurant?

Are you an enterprise-level restaurant with numerous locations or a simple mom-and-pop diner on the corner? Are you looking to expand your brand, or are you downsizing? How big is your staff?

These and other critical questions are important to think about as you browse diverse systems and hardware.

What Hardware Do You Need?

If you’re looking to buy new or replacement hardware, you have to know what types you need.

Do you need receipt printers or card readers? Are you looking for more touchscreen tablets for the counter or tables for customers to look up and order food digitally? Are you interested in buying a barcode scanner for inventory management?

Purchasing adequate hardware can streamline performance and boost customer satisfaction.

Do You Plan To Scale Your Restaurant In the Future?

Considering the scalability of a POS system helps you prepare for your restaurant’s future growth. The system you choose should be able to easily scale to support additional locations, increased transaction volume and new functionalities as your business evolves.

Primary Benefits

Restaurant POS systems come with several perks to keep your dining space running like a well-oiled machine.

Maintain Inventory

In 2023, 58% of restaurateurs struggled with rising inventory costs, while ingredient shortages and supply chain disruptions took a massive hit on their profits. To address these challenges, it’s essential for restaurant owners to step up and upgrade their inventory management processes.

POS systems offer a range of tools to manage your stocks, minimize wastage and make effective decisions to meet changing customer demands. You can track daily consumption levels, establish minimum quantities for items and receive alerts when your ingredients run low to avoid stockouts.

Other inventory management requirements include:

• Purchasing
• Shipping
• Reporting and Analytics
• Deployment
• Mobile Support

Reward Employees Adequately

Employee management software, which falls under the employee scheduling tools umbrella, manages employees and workflows in one centralized hub. You can review worker performance and compare it to your daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly goals.

For example, you may own an Italian restaurant in the city and hope to make 1,000 sales by the end of the month. By month’s end, Employee A may have made 700 sales, but Employee B has only made 12. You may fire Employee B based on their performance.

Employees, like customers, keep your establishment running smoothly. Low-performing employees can ruin your profitability. You can also reward high-performing workers with bonuses, vacation time or other prizes to acknowledge their hard work.

Process Secure Payments

Digital wallets make up a whopping 43% of the total POS transactions. Offering contactless payment methods to customers can speed up the checkout process, save time and improve the quality of your services.

The best POS systems for restaurants take multiple payment methods including credit and debit cards, mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, NFC payments, gift cards and store credit, and EMV chip cards.

To keep your customers’ payment information safe, these systems offer many security features like end-to-end encryption, role-based access controls and PCI-DSS compliance.

Many solutions use payment tokenization, a process that replaces the card number with a random code or “token” generated by an algorithm to protect cardholder data.

Emphasizing the importance of robust tokenization practices to safeguard customer information, Jason Boyd, Founder and Director of Evolve SEO Agency, said:

The process replaces sensitive customer information, such as credit card numbers, with unique tokens that are unextractable in case of data breaches. Systems with enhanced features, such as at-rest and in-transit data encryption, are great options for restaurants. Vendors’ tokenization process must keep up with industry-standard practices, and their data security tools that extend outside tokenization must cover all grounds in securing customer data.”

Improve Productivity

In Square’s 2024 Future of Restaurants Report, 54% of restaurants said they plan to boost investments in technology and automation tools in the current year.

Automating tasks, such as replenishing inventory, taking orders, taking and holding reservations and more, allows you to tackle more high-priority tasks, such as waiting tables, cooking the food, playing the host and so on.

Acknowledge Regulars

What better way to honor returning customers than by rewarding them with coupons and promotions? You can allocate gift cards, coupons and more to reward your regulars and persuade new clients to return. Additionally, sending personalized greetings or special offers to high-spending customers can make them feel appreciated.

You can keep consumer data in profiles on your restaurant POS system for better management and reward allocations.

Make Better Business Choices

In-depth business analytics (BA) software or reporting tools can analyze profits, success rates and other vital KPIs in your restaurant.

You may invest in these separate tools and integrate them with your restaurant POS solution, or you can search for a solution with reporting and analytics tools.
When you have in-depth data and dashboards, you can make better business choices, from expanding locations to adding new menu items and more.

Improve Customer Experiences

POS systems offer a range of solutions to help you create an enjoyable dining experience for customers. These include swift online ordering services, flexible payment options, loyalty programs, special discounts and promotions, and more.

Many solutions offer AI-based personalization that tailors customers’ culinary journey to individual preferences. From suggesting favorite dishes to remembering dietary restrictions, it creates dining experiences that feel unique to each guest’s personal tastes.

John Pennypacker, VP of Sales and Marketing, Deep Cognition, underscores the role of personalization in enhancing customer experiences.

Integration with CRM tools offers access to guest data and order history that can be used to offer personalized recommendations and promotions to customers. Tableside ordering tablets streamline processes while machine learning analyzes data like wait times and staff availability to improve scheduling. Leveraging these innovations grows revenue by boosting convenience, satisfaction and spending.”

Compare Top Restaurant POS System Leaders

How To Choose the Right Restaurant POS System

Picking the best POS system for restaurant practices is no easy task if you don’t know how to get started. Our Lean Selection Methodology simplifies the software selection process with nine easy-to-follow steps.

Here’s a brief rundown of this software selection technique:

1. Establish: Determine why you need a new system.
2. Collaborate: Develop a software selection committee consisting of a project manager, internal and external stakeholders, department leaders, end users and more.
3. Define: Establish a list of the best requirements you want the software to have with your software selection committee. Understand the specific needs of your restaurant, such as the type of food service you provide, transaction volume and integration requirements with other systems.
4. Distribute: Evaluate how different vendors align with your requirements list and shortlist them. Look for POS features tailored to the restaurant industry, including order management, table management, menu customization, split checks and integration with kitchen display systems.
5. Justify: Perform an internal assessment and ask if you need a new system, add-on modules or to end the software selection journey.
6. Prove: Ask potential vendors to demonstrate their solution with demos, use cases or proofs-of-concept (POCs) to test its functionality firsthand and assess how well the system meets your specific needs.
7. Rank: Score and rank vendors according to their demo scores and total cost of ownership (TCO). You should have at least two to three top solutions you can implement for your restaurant’s needs.
8. Negotiate: Talk with your top-rated vendor and review their contract. Ask for references from other restaurant owners who use the POS system you’re considering to learn about their experiences with the provider. Repeat this step with your second-best vendor from the previous step if you can’t reach a compromise with your first choice.
9. Sign: Review and sign with your top vendor and establish an implementation plan.

Compare Top Restaurant POS System Leaders

Next Steps

Choosing the right POS system for a restaurant is like Goldilocks choosing the best bowl of porridge. You want a solution and hardware that aligns with your eatery in just the right way.

Ready to take the next step? Our free software comparison report makes it easy to see how leading systems stack up side by side.

What problems are you looking to solve with restaurant POS systems? What are you looking for in an ideal product? Let us know in the comments!

SME Contributors

Jason Boyd is the Director of Evolve SEO Agency. As a digital and social media marketer, he works with clients and businesses across different industries or their social media needs and marketing pipelines.

John Pennypacker is the VP of sales and marketing at Deep Cognition, an emerging provider of AI solutions focused on augmenting human capacity in complex industries. Leveraging his background in developing growth strategies, he guides Deep Cognition’s vision to apply novel AI to high-value use cases in freight, customs brokerage and government.