How to Choose the Right POS System for Restaurant Franchises

One clear sign that your restaurant has achieved success is a clamor from people who want to buy a franchise of your business.

When a lot of people are interested in owning and opening a branch of your restaurant in another part of the city or country, you can be sure that your brand is riding high in terms of popularity and demand.

Although the promise of increasing your sales and boosting brand recognition by selling your brand and business model to other entrepreneurs is attractive, the whole process can be quite challenging. Even if everything goes smoothly during the selling stage, certain issues may arise once the franchisees start their operations.

One of the common problems that can come up is the franchisees having difficulty duplicating your business model. They may run into challenges providing the same quality of customer service your establishment offers. Some customers may also find the menu items slightly different in taste and presentation.

When these issues and other ones keep coming up, your brand and business, as a whole, will feel its negative effects.

Reasons to Invest in a Restaurant Franchise POS System

Investing in the right franchise POS system is a smart business move that can help you maintain consistency in your food and services throughout all your branches.

When consistency in food, service, and ambiance is evident in all locations, you will reap all the benefits of being a franchisor. The franchisees will get a slice of the pie, as well.

The right POS system for a restaurant franchise allows franchisors and franchisees to have a centralized menu management tool. With this platform, the kitchen staff will have access to and follow the standard recipe for all the menu items.

This will ensure that all customers, regardless of where they dine, will enjoy the same taste, serving, and presentation of your dishes, thereby giving them excellent value for their money.

Additionally, a POS system can help support and enhance your coordination of teams from various locations. The right software allows employees from different branches to communicate with each other.

Lastly, with this must-have restaurant management tool, you can track and consolidate sales, expenses, and branch performance. You will have access to reports and analytics that will help you stay on top of all important business operations.

Tips for Finding the Ideal POS System for Your Restaurant Franchise

To ensure your POS system will be a valuable tool for your food business and your franchisees, follow these tips when purchasing one:

1. Choose a cloud-based system

Since different branches will use a POS system, it needs to be cloud-based.

A cloud-based POS system allows users to store and access data in real time. Because of this, people who need to read an important piece of information or update a report can do this wherever they are as long as they are connected to the Internet.

Since the data will be recorded in real time, users will have access to updated information, as well.

Additionally, a cloud-based POS platform is equipped for third party integration. As such, it can be used with other software your business may need in the future.

Moreover, this type of software is designed to grow with your business. Because of this, you will have no difficulty integrating the systems of your other franchisees under one platform.

2. Check software security features

Your cloud-based system has to be equipped to fight various forms of data breaches.

You can protect your patron’s sensitive credit card payment information (and yours, as well) by choosing a program that complies with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) or other standards for secure payment transactions.

You and your franchisees can also get more from the software by choosing one that can protect your business from the possibility of employee theft. A program that automatically tracks all incoming cash will act as a deterrent to unscrupulous workers.

You will also have an easier time proving any incidence of theft in your establishment with this software capability.

3. Look into the system’s inventory management capabilities

A POS system with stellar inventory management features will help all branches avoid running out of supplies and wasting food and money.

This is because the inventory management functions of restaurant POS systems allow users to stay track of supplies as they are delivered. This feature also sends alerts when you are running out of ingredients.

This feature is also helpful for determining ingredient-level food costs and managing ingredients based on unit measure and wholesale or retail costs. It can also assist you in finding the right food distributor to partner with.

If you want all branches to avoid the possibility of running out of supplies and wasting too much food or ingredients, choose a POS system that has excellent inventory management features.

4. Assess software reporting capabilities

As the franchisor, you need to know and have access to all the important information related to the inventory, sales, expenses, employees, and other business operations.

Instead of asking your franchisees for individual reports, you can read and even print them out when you have the right franchise POS system.

The ideal restaurant franchise POS software provides accurate and up-to-date reports on relevant performance key indicators. When you want to know which menu items are the most profitable, or which employees are always absent, you should be able to get all the details from your system.

However, make sure the reports generated by the system are easy to read and analyze. Your software will be useless if you can’t make sense of the numbers it shows you.

Whether you have already started franchising your food business or have plans of doing so, include investing in a POS system in your to-do list to ensure everyone achieves success in this venture.

AUTHOR BIO

Ahmad Alzaini is the co-founder and CEO of Foodics, a fast-growing foodtech startup. A businessman by nature, Alzaini is an app aficionado, developing businesses in Saudi Arabia within several industries. Today, Foodics has extended to new markets across the MENA region, processing over 1 billion transactions, and offering the latest technology in POS and restaurant management.