If you’ve spent any time processing card payments in an informal capacity, you’re probably familiar with Square—a company which facilitates card payments via a smartphone or tablet app and a free card reader. Square’s most recent endeavor tweaks their existing product for a more specific environment: restaurants.
Square for Restaurants is exactly what it sounds like: the traditional Square app optimized for a restaurant setting. The app’s features include improved operating speed, accommodations for both front-of-house and back-of-house operations, and a general user interface which is geared toward quick data entry rather than the traditional Square interface’s more cluttered approach.
While the app’s interface lends itself to payment processing and general front-of-house functions at first glance, Square for Restaurants offers multiple other restaurant-centric options to fit different roles. For example, a server might use the app to take and process an order or keep track of which tables have been attended, while a supervisor might generate payroll or archive receipts.
The instant availability of things like order information and seating arrangements also means that customers will have less time to wait between interactions, and staff will have significantly fewer instances of confusion or wasted down time.
Centralization of your kitchen’s various menus is another key aspect of the app. Since the app automatically synchronizes any changes, you can ensure that everyone sees the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus on any given day of the week. Additionally, menus can be customized on the fly, allowing you to add a high-demand custom order or special item with a few taps.
As you might expect, the POS comes with all the powerful analytics tools and accessibility which accompany the standard Square app. You can do things like track your best-selling dishes, make adjustments to the menu, and review your monthly overhead from anywhere that has Wi-Fi access; once you’ve made your changes, they will display in the app, making it easy to keep everyone on the same page.
Whatever your position on Square’s products in the past, Square for Restaurants promises to be a fresh take on the oversaturated POS (point of sale, y’all) software market.
Pingback: Square shores up losses by withholding money from small businesses