Best rated Restaurant POS software

Point-of-sale (POS) software solutions can be summed up as "cash registers on steroids." Even before the rise of mobile and cloud technology, POS solutions took the basics of the cash register and expanded them to task directly to back-end accounting systems, credit card payment processors, inventory systems, and more. The cloud has become a hot trend in this space because it's allowed many small to midsize businesses (SMBs) to make use of advanced POS services because they can avoid the ongoing expense of deploying and maintaining a back-end server at every location.

But perhaps the most important trend in today's POS systems is mobility—the ability to move POS functionality out from behind the cash register station and into the hands of roving employees for faster, more customer-centric business. Few industries have a more mobile sales model than restaurants, which is why we chose to focus this POS software solution review roundup on restaurant-oriented POS solutions, both cloud and on-premises as well as mobile and stationary, so you can decide for yourself which solution is best for you.

Important Considerations
For restaurant operations, the right POS system can be a make-or-break decision. During the most critical times for your business—the pre-business-hour rush of a commuter coffee shop, the frantic luncheonette that has to get everyone in and out during an abbreviated lunch hour, or an eatery serving a casual but fast dinner—the POS system needs to perform in just the right way. A slow user interface (UI) can mean fewer meals sold and unhappy customers, but a feature-anemic system can cause back-end accounting problems or even drop essentials such as credit card processing.

Today's credit card industry has made processing payments more secure but also more confusing than ever before. A primary concern are new Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (EMV) chips, which store data on integrated circuits on the credit card face rather than magnetic strips on the back. Not only does this require a hardware change at the POS system level in order to process cards this way, it also uses different back-end authentication mechanisms as well.