What is a Restaurant Management Software?
Restaurant management software is a digital tool designed specifically for businesses in the food service industry, helping them manage their daily operations, increase their revenues, and ensure customer satisfaction. Its wide array of features ranges from onboarding new employees to tracking inventory and sales. More comprehensive systems even include streamlining supplier logistics and marketing processes to benefit all stakeholders.
Benefits
Running a restaurant like a well-oiled machine, whether it’s a big chain with several locations or a small one with half a dozen tables, is a challenge because there are numerous elements to oversee. Using restaurant management software helps managers take care of arduous administrative tasks, while you sit back and reap its numerous benefits.
Enhanced daily operations – Managers need to juggle numerous back-of-house tasks—scheduling deliveries, making inventories, doing maintenance checks, setting up menus, and ensuring compliance with regulations. Digital solutions make the job easier, faster, and more efficient.
Better employee management – The restaurant is composed of numerous workers with different responsibilities, from cooks and dishwashers to waiters and receptionists. Substantial and cordial collaboration among all these people is necessary. The software helps managers organize shifts, schedule time-offs, keep everyone up-to-date, and be on top of any issues.
Real-time performance tracking – When information about employees, suppliers, and customers is digitized and stored in secure repositories, it is easier to analyze and report on. From there, restaurant owners and managers can immediately see if they need to make changes or improvements that could help increase revenues.
Improved cost controls – Restaurants can stay on budget, allocate funds properly, accomplish their accounting, and pay taxes on time because digitized financial records are kept in a secure document repository. And if the software has mobile accessibility, managers can do these tasks anytime, anywhere.
Outstanding customer relations – Restaurant management software may be integrated with other solutions aimed to enhance front-of-house workflows and increase customer satisfaction. Guest reservations, order management, delivery, credit card processing, loyalty system, gift cards, and customer feedback are easily accomplished with this digital solution.
Key Features
If you’re just about to embark on the journey of incorporating restaurant management software into your current system, make sure your options are comprehensive. Here are the features it should have:
Customizable checklists for auditing
Supplier tracking
Inventory control
Easy menu set-up with recipe costing
Reservation or table management
Employee scheduling and payroll
Accounting and sales tracking
Reporting and analytics
Loyalty and rewards system
Third-party integrations (CRM, POS, e-commerce system, etc.)
Mobile accessibility
Tech support
Selecting the Right Restaurant Management Software
The seven listed above are used by thousands of restaurants, cafes, food trucks, bakeshops, and similar businesses all over the world. Any of those can be helpful to you as well. Here’s a quick review of all seven:
Restaurant Management Software | Free Version | Paid Plan | Mobile App |
SafetyCulture | Yes | $24/user/month* | Yes |
Toast | Yes | $69/month** | Yes*** |
TouchBistro | No | $69/month | Yes**** |
Square | Yes | $29/month
Plus processing fees | Yes |
OpenTable | No | $39/month | Yes |
Lightspeed Restaurant | No | $69 | Yes**** |
SevenRooms | No | Available upon registration | Yes**** |
* billed annually
** billed monthly
*** supports Android only
**** supports iOS only
