restaurant back of house software
In the fast-paced restaurant environment, small players can no longer attract and retain customers only by serving great food. In addition to maintaining food quality, they must boost guest experience by prioritizing speed, convenience, and personalization using various tech tools. It is common for these establishments to process payments and log transactions by implementing small restaurant POS systems.
However, a legacy POS system for small restaurants requires restaurateurs to implement and integrate several tech tools. The fragmented tech tools make it challenging for small restaurants to accelerate revenue growth and foster customer loyalty. Restaurateurs have been overcoming the constraint by implementing an all-in-one restaurant tech platform.
An all-in-one small restaurant technology platform consolidates the POS system, restaurant back of house software, and management platform. This unified tech stack helps establishments boost operational efficiency, streamline staff workflows, and elevate guest experiences all at once. It also makes it easier for restaurateurs to adopt popular trends like QR code ordering, contactless payments, and online delivery.
Small restaurant owners can further use AI-native tech platforms to make informed decisions by accessing daily automated reports and data-driven insights. In this blog, we discuss the challenges small restaurants face when using legacy POS systems and how they overcome these challenges using an all-in-one small restaurant technology platform.
What is a Legacy Small Restaurant POS System?
In addition to replacing traditional cash registers, a legacy POS for small restaurants ensures seamless payment processing. They support multiple currencies as well as cash payments, card payments, and mobile payments. However, they help restaurateurs streamline online payment management.
Restaurants manage crucial operations like staff scheduling, inventory tracking, order management, menu management, and loyalty program management using additional tools. These standalone tools create several challenges for small restaurant operators.
What are the Key Challenges of Using Multiple Systems in Small Restaurants?
Often, small restaurants manage crucial operations individually by implementing standalone systems. Restaurateurs incur additional costs to integrate multiple tech tools. At the same time, they cannot boost operational efficiency, revenue, and profits by making data-driven decisions.
Manual Work
When a small restaurant uses multiple systems, the staff have to copy data from one software to another. For instance, staff have to put in extra time and effort to copy sales data from the POS system to the account software. In addition to impacting workforce productivity, manual work increases the risk of human errors.
Data Silos
Multiple systems create data silos by storing operational information across platforms. Hence, restaurateurs find it challenging to get a 360-degree view of restaurant operations and performance. Also, the multiple sources make it difficult for them to get actionable insights by analyzing information across platforms.
Staff Confusion
When a restaurant uses multiple systems, workers have to familiarize themselves with each tech tool. They further need training and assistance to use the complex tech tools efficiently. Hence, the productivity of workers decreases as they switch between tech tools mid-shift.
Higher Costs
Small restaurants automate routine tasks and activities with the aim of curbing operating costs. However, operating costs increase as they pay monthly subscription fees to multiple vendors. Hence, they find it challenging to curb overheads by subscribing to multiple systems.
Integration Issues
Multiple systems make it difficult for small restaurants to build a unified or integrated tech platform. When individual systems do not interact with each other seamlessly, the restaurateur has to solve integration and data mismatch issues, along with incurring additional custom integration costs.
What is an All-in-One Restaurant Technology Platform?
An all-in-one restaurant technology platform comes with features to streamline crucial restaurant operations like restaurant floor management, restaurant staff scheduling, menu and pricing management, payment processing, order management, loyalty program management, and kitchen communication management. Both FOH and BOH staff can perform tasks quickly and efficiently using the same software.
At the same time, restaurateurs can use the integrated tech platform to make informed decisions. They can track sales, revenue, and operations by accessing the automated report generated by the software daily. Likewise, the data-driven insights shared by the software help them boost guest experiences and sales revenue by making the right decisions and adopting emerging trends.
Why is an All-in-One Restaurant Technology platform the Best Choice for Small Restaurants?
An all-in-one restaurant technology platform helps restaurateurs overcome the constraints of fragmented tech tools. It curbs operating costs by eliminating the need to subscribe to multiple tools. At the same time, a small restaurant can improve operational efficiency and curb operating costs in several ways by implementing a feature-rich tech platform.
Streamline Everyday Operation
The integrated technology platform, unlike a small restaurant POS system, consolidates FOH and BOH operations without requiring any additional tech tools. A restaurateur can streamline crucial operations like floor management, menu and pricing management, staff scheduling, tableside order management, and customer loyalty program management by implementing a platform with built-in FOH and BOH functionality.
Boost Workforce Productivity
An all-in-one small restaurant technology platform does not require restaurant staff to learn and use multiple tech tools. Furthermore, employees are not required to transfer data manually from one system to another. Hence, they can focus extensively on accelerating service speed and boosting customer satisfaction.
Eliminate Human Errors
As noted earlier, multiple systems increase the risk of human errors as employees transfer data from one system to another manually. In addition to eliminating human errors, an integrated tech system transfers customer orders directly to the kitchen. Hence, it becomes easier for small restaurants to boost customer satisfaction without increasing human resource costs.
Generate Automated Reports
An all-in-one small restaurant technology platform generates and shares daily reports automatically. These reports help restaurateurs monitor costs and revenue in real time. Likewise, the restaurateur can increase profits by tracking inventory status, best-selling items, busiest hours, and food wastage.
Gain Data-Driven Insights
In addition to generating daily automated reports, modern POS systems feature advanced data analytics. Data analytics help restaurateurs make sense of the raw data about customers, sales, operations, and inventory. The restaurateur can further leverage the data-driven insights shared by the software to boost customer experiences by adopting emerging trends and making informed decisions.
Reduce Long-Term Costs
Restaurateurs can reduce subscription costs and avoid integration costs by implementing an all-in-one restaurant technology platform. They can further customize and scale the cloud-based software according to their precise needs without incurring additional expenses. Hence, small restaurants can curb long-term costs by implementing a future-ready restaurant technology platform.
How does NOVA help Small Restaurants Avoid Using Multiple Systems?
NOVA is designed by restaurateurs as a POS system cum restaurant technology platform. It ensures restaurateurs manage crucial restaurant operations efficiently without implementing additional tech tools. As a cloud-based platform, NOVA is easy to implement, customize, and scale. At the same time, it comes with integrated front-of-house (FoH) and back-of-house (BoH) functionalities.
The integrated functionalities help small restaurants streamline and consolidate everyday operations – floor management, menu and pricing management, restaurant staff scheduling, tableside order management, and customer loyalty program management – without requiring additional systems. They can further boost customer experiences by supporting the hottest trends like online delivery and QR code ordering.
At the same time, NOVA helps restaurateurs monitor operations by generating daily automated reports. In addition, it shares data-driven insights by analyzing real-time restaurant data. Hence, it becomes easier for small restaurants to remain profitable in the long run by maintaining operational efficiency, fostering customer loyalty, and reducing operating costs.
Conclusion
An all-in-one small restaurant technology platform, unlike a legacy POS for small restaurants, streamlines operations, improves staff efficiency, and boosts customer satisfaction without breaking their budgets. However, restaurateurs must focus on choosing a user-friendly platform like NOVA that consolidates FOH and BOH operations by providing sophisticated features and using intelligent technologies. At the same time, the future-ready tech platform ensures long-term success by leveraging advanced AI technologies.
