Owners and operators in the retail and restaurant industries face a common problem with Point of Sale (POS) systems …. sophisticated POS systems can take some time to learn – and operators are too busy with day-to-day operations to learn the systems completely.
As David Scott Peters points out in a quick blog post over at FOHBOH (Front of House, Back of House), a deep understanding of your Point of Sale system is an absolute must. David points out that in addition to being a cash register, POS systems can perform a number of additional tasks, such as locating ideal food costs, managing inventory, controlling labor costs, and much more.
However, one aspect that David did not touch upon is that there are often major capability differences between the various Point of Sale manufacturers. Some systems do have built-in inventory, food costing, and labor management modules, but many others do not have these modules.
In many cases, it is preferable to identify and use a best-of-breed solution designed specifically for the task at hand. For example, CostGuard continues to develop and maintain the best inventory managament system available for restaurants, bars, and clubs. TimeForge labor management software is designed from the ground-up to make labor management and employee scheduling easy for restaurant and retail operators.