Q: What Epos features do I need to look out for which can help manage the restaurant floor effectively?

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1 Like many people who are considering investing in an effective epos system it can be confusing to know which features to look out for and which will give you maximum benefits for increased customer service while helping maximize profit and turnover in a restaurant environment. In this article Tevalis who have vast experience of dealing with some of the leading and successful restaurant establishments in the UK, which include such names as Restaurants etc (Mark Hix Restaurants), Alan Murchison s10 in 8 Fine Dining Group and Russell Normans Polpo ventures, explain some of the essentials to look out for when selecting the right Epos system for your Restaurant business. James Cook Managing Director; Tevalis Limited Q: What Epos features do I need to look out for which can help manage the restaurant floor effectively? A powerful Table Management feature is essential in helping your venue become a more streamlined, more efficient operation that is proven to increase customer satisfaction and enhance your guests dining experience. A table management feature with graphical floor plan interface will give you and your staff the visual information required to manage floor activity, customer waiting lists and accommodate special seating requests. Each table should also display the number of covers; table server and the table amount spend which is all recorded for management reporting purposes. Q: How can epos help to monitor the different stages of table service? Another essential tool is a table status colour indicator feature which at the press of a button gives staff and managers information to understand the stage of service for each table with a unique individual colour status for each course such as starters, mains, desserts, coffees and ready for payment, helping floor staff to maximize turns, calculate wait times and allowing to maximize wet sales during service contributing to increased turnover and improved customer service. Another essential tool is a facility to report and track table times which provides information on when a table was opened, when each course was ordered and serviced and table closed along with additional information for any special request made during the table service. Q: Is it possible to manage multiple service areas within the pos? A table management feature which incorporates a floor plan designer will allow venues to tailor their table layout and allows you to set up different floor layouts with varying numbers of seats per table for the different service areas that maybe required such as restaurant, chefs table, private dining, VIP, bistro, bar, outside eating etc enabling you to maximise seating capacity but also allowing you to report on individual sales areas to see which areas are achieving higher turnover with greater profit and operating more effectively against others. Using simple drag and drop techniques your floor layouts can be designed and deployed within minutes from either the back office or the front of house POS station.

2 Q: How can Epos help with communication from Restaurant Floor to Kitchen? The ability to relay important information from Front of House staff to Kitchen or Bar areas is critical for the efficient operation of any hospitality venue. A strong messaging facility is proven to help the kitchen and bar staff to operate more efficiently as well as improve customer service levels. Messages can be assigned against a particular product/customer/bill/table. For example; guests have arrived and orders are taken, one guest is dairy intolerant; with a messaging facility foh staff can easily communicate easily this important requirement with kitchen staff using the onscreen Epos messaging function, in seconds the no dairy text is selected and added to the guest order and can even be allocated against their seating position, table number and even client name, these are then sent through to the kitchen to be notified of the special request allowing foh staff to focus on offering high levels of customer service driving sales and increasing customer satisfaction. Messages typically can be predefined within the Epos system setup and with a simple press of a button actioned within the Epos or easily and quickly added during service through a pop up on screen keyboard. Wishing customers a Happy Birthday on their finalised bill has never been so easy. Q: What other kitchen communication options are available? A number of restaurants will use a cost effective yet essential kitchen ticket printer system which processes orders from foh and delivers the ticket to a printer or number of printers in the kitchen depending on food preparation area; for example an establishment has multiple areas of preparation for mains, sauces, deserts, fish in this situation any individual product can be allocated to print on any individual printer or number of printers allowing for increased productivity and improved preparation times. Other options are a Kitchen Display System that shows orders on a monitor and if required can even show cooking and preparation information to the kitchen staff and show timing of individual elements of the meals being prepared. The more sophisticated Kitchen Display Systems for restaurants can even show images of the complete meal with plating instructions. Q: How can Epos help kitchen staff be notified of stages of service? Most Epos messaging facilities will also have the tools to alert Kitchen staff of the varying stages of service which include when courses are required during service. Using a course away messaging tool e.g. starters away/mains away/deserts away/coffees away are sent to a printer within the kitchen with table number and course displayed, this allows for quick communication from foh to kitchen staff allowing for an increased speed of service and improved efficiency during busy service periods.

3 Q: How will handheld devices increase sales and productivity? The main goal for mobile ordering is to improve profitability and improve customer satisfaction. A mobile hand held ordering solution enables you to accomplish this goal by reducing errors, improving customer waiting times, increase table turn times, and increasing sales. Additionally, a hand held solution allows your inhouse and external personnel to reach higher levels of productivity, as less time is spent on traditional data search and entry Epos Terminals. Waiting staff can easily and quickly locate product keys and input orders at the customers table and transmit the order directly to kitchen order printers without needing to visit the bar or restaurant pos. As a result order processing time is much faster ensuring the customer is served quickly and efficiently. Introducing Mobile into your business is the perfect solution to add to your EPOS system for queue busting during busy periods, enhancing levels of customer service and increasing revenues. Q: How do I keep in contact with my customers or recognise my top spenders? Being able to record and track accurate records of customers and their purchase history is critical for business owners in helping them analyse their client base so they can tailor their marketing campaigns and product offerings more effectively. An essential tool for any restaurant business is a powerful CRM (customer relationship manager) system that logs important details of customers such as transactions, interests, frequency of purchase and so forth. Not only does it allow hospitality venues to target clients more effectively by offering them promotions that relate to products they have bought previously, but it also allows staff to treat each client as an individual, as they can see their history at point of sale. A CRM programme can also be linked to a loyalty programme so when business owners set up a loyalty programme they can link all the details together on one easy to view record. Client information can also be imported into the CRM directly from the Epos system, helping ensure business owners have fully rounded profiles of their clients. Data can also be exported out of CRM, for example addresses of clients, so they can be sent the latest offers and promotions via mail, or SMS. Q: How can Epos help manage staff more effectively? A Time and Attendance function provides managers and owners the tools needed to analyze the efficiency of your staff. Time and Attendance features allow employees to clock in and out at any Pos workstation without the need for any additional software or hardware modules, eliminating the need for multiple time clocks not only helping to eliminate further costs but helping to increase staff and management productivity.

4 A Time and Attendance system is designed to automate employee time and attendance for any type of venue dramatically reducing the number of hours required to process payroll calculation and attendance records. Managers are able to gain control over labour management and reduce costs with reports that provide number of hours worked per employee in real time and calculates the number of hours worked per week/month to provide more control over labour and staffing costs, you can then estimate labour costs in relation to sales. Most reports can be accessed locally from the back office software or remotely through head office facility. Q: How can Epos help to handle different payment options? One payment feature which is very common is the facility to Go Dutch and is used widely amongst many leading restaurants. This allows for a table to be split equally into the number of covers served but providing individual bills for payment. Payment should also be made even easier by the ability to split bills by individual items, seat numbers and even by dividing individual products which are then easily finalised via a user friendly payment screen. With multiple tender types to choose from this allows for easier control of the payment methods being processed through the pos also contributing to easier and more accurate end of day reporting. The facility to create tabs is also an essential tool which can be easily established using a magnetic card reader and a quick swipe of the customer s credit card which will capture the clients name and assign to their own individual tab. Tabs can also be easily created with start/end dates & times and pre-loaded with an agreed credit limit if required. Q: What are the benefits of integrating Epos with Chip and Pin? Most of the leading Epos suppliers interface directly with debit and credit card payment processing systems which have accreditation with all major banks. Through this seamless integration POS transaction data is automatically submitted to card payment software from the EPOS software for bank authorisation and verification. Once the payment has been authorised the pos transaction software transfers the payment method and payment total back to EPOS for automatic closure of the bill and further for correct system accounting. Easily portable wireless chip and PIN terminals are available for table payment purposes as well as fixed position chip and PIN units. Utilising the integration between EPOS and a card processing system enables transactions to be processed quicker, more efficiently and added security while eliminating duplication entry errors.

5 Tevalis is a leading EPOS solutions provider to the hospitality industry throughout the United Kingdom and Europe. We offer a fully integrated EPOS hardware and software system designed to handle the pressures of the hospitality industry. Tevalis software solutions are developed in house by our UK based development team, allowing us to tailor every system to our client s precise requirements. The flexibility of Tevalis software sees our EPOS systems used successfully by fine dining and casual dining restaurants, theatres, hotels, bistros, bars, nightclubs and fast service outlets. Solutions offered by Tevalis cover touch screen point-of-sale, hand held ordering, stock control, table management, head office reporting, centralised management solutions, Chip and PIN and integrations with hotel PMS systems. All Tevalis installations are fully project managed and deployed by our in house implementation teams, while support is provided 365 days a year by our manned helpdesk and on site team of engineers. With our head office in Watford, our Northern office in Yorkshire and a satellite office in Manchester we are perfectly positioned to provide our services and support the hospitality industry across the entire United Kingdom. For more information about Tevalis solutions and services please contact our Head Office on or visit