The Complete Guide For Restaurant Management Software

From large restaurants to small and medium everyone uses restaurant management software. It is challenging to manage the entire business. It will also stop you from the expansion. For long-term businesses relying on technology like software is helpful. 

One of the main benefits of investing in technology is that it can help your businesses simplify and grow faster. For food industry businesses, they can use restaurant management software as a tool for that.

We all know that the food industry is becoming more competitive day by day. You have to be very strategic and skilled to stay ahead in the industry. Instead of wasting your time and energy managing a business manually, you can invest in software. It allows you to manage your entire business so you can focus on other business activities.

Technology helps them manage and streamline many business functions such as customers, employees, payment transactions, and inventory, reports. Restaurant management software helps you to manage the business very easily by integrating various activities in the restaurant.

Let’s dive deep

Integrating your different business operations with restaurant management software is more simple to manage and scale. For example, You can integrate your KIOSK and CRM with the software, it allows you to keep your order processing simple. at the same time, the POS will collect customer data and store it in CRM. So you can access it anytime.

You can integrate the restaurant management software with your various business operations such as accounting, sales, payments, customers, employees, loyalty programs, and inventory. It is also cost-effective and efficient. If you buy all the features individually the cost will be high and it is time-wasting. 

The software is cloud-based, so you can access your business data from anywhere. With so many benefits from the technology available, why not use it? 

So what is exactly restaurant management software? (in 19 words)

Restaurant management software is software that can be used to manage, simplify and automate various types of business operations.

So why do you need to use

The software can be integrated with accounting, inventory, payment, online ordering, and more. It is also easy to switch to cloud-based software from your traditional POS (point of sale). 

So why do you need to use it?

1. Make your inventory efficient: Keeping your inventory efficient, and keeping the availability of stock. 
2. Adjust your menu and recipes for profitability: Maintaining your menu items profitably. 
3. Improve customer relationships: The software helps to give better customer service and maintain relationships with loyal customers.
4. Tracking sales: tracking sales and identifying what makes more profit and where to focus.
5. Satisfy your employees: restaurant management software simplifies your employee’s work. So they can focus on their assigned work.
6. Reduction of errors: it follows a system, so the chances of misunderstanding or errors can be minimized. For example, customers can order food themselves using a QR code menu or self-service KIOSK. The order will be transferred to KDS and POS. There is no chance of misunderstanding because customers placed orders themselves. 
7. Generate automatic reports: Generate automatic reports such as sales reports, purchase reports, tax reports, and more.
8. Manage multiple location business: simplify your multi-location business. Transfer orders, and inventory and automate your managing processes.
9. Offer premium quality service: by automating all your business operations you can offer a premium customer experience. You deliver food at the right time, offer various payment options, keep the availability of stocks, and more.
10. Helps you to scale: The software allows you to expand your business online.

Restaurant management software include

The software has everything to manage your restaurant. Because of integration possible such as payment, online ordering, and accounting you have more benefits to the business. The software includes:

• Point of sale system
• Payment processing
• Inventory management
• Reservation or table management system
• Customer relationship system (CRM)
• Employee management
• Accounting
• Online ordering and order management system
• Loyalty program
• Reporting and analytics

Point of sale system

The point of sale system has a vital role in restaurant management. The system is useful for accepting payments, recording transactions, keeping track of sales, and much more. You can integrate other management software such as inventory, payments, etc.

Payment processing

To simplify your checkout process payment processing is really important. Offering types of payment options and partners to your customers enable customer experience. You can offer multiple payment methods such as card, cash, split payments, contactless, cheque, store credit, and loyalty points. 

There are a lot of payment partners available, you can choose your payment partners based on your country.

Inventory management

As we discussed above managing inventory is a difficult task. With the help of inventory management software, you can simplify all your inventory management processes. Track inventory items, low stock notifications, stock adjustments, inventory reports, unlimited SKUs, and real-time reports. 

Reservation or table management system

Customer experience is significant in restaurant businesses. Gone are the days the customer want to call you and book their tables. But now they can do it through your website or mobile app. It’s simplified. So, you don’t need to hire a person to attend the calls.

Customer relationship system (CRM)

Customer data is an asset. To grow your business it’s essential. You can collect customer data and store it on your CRM software. You can integrate your existing CRM or use the CRM platform on software. 

It helps you to find your loyal customers and their buying behavior. Use the data for your restaurant marketing. 

Employee management

Manage your employees and make them more productive. Identify the efficiency and inefficiency of your employees give them rewards and encourage them to become more productive.

Accounting

By integrating accounting software with your restaurant management software you can simplify your business operations. Get reports such as tax reports, cash flow reports, and monitoring expenses.

Online ordering and order management system

For scaling your business online you can use your online platform or integration with aggregators. Aggaragtory integration will uplift your brand credibility. The software allows you to manage online and offline orders specifically. And also get reports and analytics of both sales.

Loyalty program

You can track your customer’s likes and dislikes, buying behavior, and more. Identifying your loyal customers and giving special offers will be much easier.

you can also the customer’s data for marketing purposes. create a WhatsApp group and request those customers to join to get the special offer. so you don’t want to go for paid promotions.

Reporting and analytics

To scale and plan business you need reports and analytics. You access the reports and analyze how much you make, your favorite items, top-performing employees, and inventory reports.

It is all-important for a restaurant business. You can see here one example, that illustrates the importance. So you don’t need to visit another blog to get the complete picture.

You are providing an online ordering service (you need an online ordering platform)

> To keep the availability of your items (you need proper inventory management)

> When you deliver your item to a customer (you need to offer contactless payment)

> You need to get online and offline sales reports(you need reporting and analytics features). Everything is connected.

So you need all the features. That’s why the software includes everything you need to manage your business.

Restaurant Management Software – The Features

The best restaurant management software should have these features.

Cloud-based software

Flexibility is one of the main advantages of cloud-based software. The restaurant management system allows you to manage your restaurant from anywhere in the world. Especially for multi-location businesses, it’s really helpful. 

Point Of Sale

You can integrate with point of sale software(POS). Online ordering, inventory, payments, and other restaurant managing software such as accounting, CRM, and marketing automation software. 

Inventory Management

It enables a proper inventory management system. Tracking items, maintaining the availability of stocks(by using the low stock notification feature), transferring orders in your multi-location business, auto-fill orders, easily applying store prices, and easily recording and returning damaged or unsold items to suppliers will be easier.

The inventory management feature helps to prevent food waste and keep only necessary stocks. If you have a multi-location business you can maintain the cost by transferring items to your locations. 

Menu Management

The menu needs to be made changes frequently. With the help of restaurant management software, You can add or remove items in real-time. At the same time, if you make changes to the menu it will also change your online menu.

Payment Integration

The integrated payment feature helps give a premium buying experience to customers. Customers can pay different methods (cash, split payments, contactless, credit, etc) choosing their favorite payment partner.

You can integrate with various payment partners based on your country.

Online Ordering 

If you don’t have your online ordering platform, don’t worry. The software has its online portal or you can run an online ordering business with 3rd party aggregators such as Zomato, Swiggy, Uber Eats, Talabat, etc. 

Marketing and CRM

Collecting customer data and using it for marketing purposes is easier than you think. The CRM tracks every customer, like name, contact, their buying behavior. You can find your loyal customers by using those data and market them using special offers.

You can integrate your existing CRM with restaurant management software or you can also use CRM that exists on the software.

Analytics and Reporting

By identifying your popular items, and sales trends, generating tax and accounting reports will be helpful in planning and forecasting to achieve goals. You can generate sales reports, inventory reports, employee reports, and more.

User-Friendly

To use like any other software on your computer or mobile devices. It should be very simple, even a non-tech person can also use it.

Speed

Your quick-service restaurant needs high-performing software. To speed up your service, it’s necessary to invest in proper software.

Kitchen Communication

This feature is mandatory for a restaurant business to enhance quality service. To deliver orders accurately and efficiently you need a system like restaurant management software.

When a customer places an order, it will deliver to the POS and KDS. The chef prepares the order and the server delivers the food to the customer. Customers pay by scanning the QR code and leaving. 

You can see there is a system that keeps service efficient. No matter how busy your restaurant is, the software will help you.

Employee Management

You can add employees and assign roles. Analyze their shift reports and find who is the top-performing employee. Also find their inaccuracy and manipulation.

Scalable

Software must be scalable. As your business expands, the software also needs to scale. For example, if your business is developing an online platform, the software should be able to integrate with online aggregators.

Centralization

You can manage your restaurant in one interface. For example, you can analyze your monthly online and offline performance in one interface.

24/7 Support

24/7 support is really important. They should always be there for you to assist.

Security

All the business and customer data is stored in a cloud so it should be highly secure. To protect against malware, virus, and other threats, your data needs to be encrypted, backups must be available as well.

Accessibility 

You can access data anytime and anywhere. Manage your business from anywhere in the world. It will help you to keep your business efficient.

Mobility

You can sell anywhere from the shop. You can go to the customer and take orders by carrying an iPad or Android device. This will help provide a premium customer experience. It can also streamline orders and make it easier for your employees to pick up orders.

Works in Offline

Because the software works in the cloud you may think the internet is required all the time. But you can also work in offline mode, and when the internet is restored the data will sync. 

Language support

Your employees will speak different languages. If the software can be managed in different languages it will be easier for the employees to use it.

And your restaurant outlets in your different countries can use the software in their native or spoken language.

Device Compatibility

The software should work on any device. If you are switching from your existing software to the cloud, there is no need to buy special hardware.

Staying ahead in this competitive market is really important. It’s hard to succeed without technology. Otherwise, you need a lot of manpower. It is also high cost. By investing in restaurant management software you can reduce your employee expenses and also running costs.