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The basic POS systems you may see on restaurants and fast food chains are touch screen monitors, programmable keyboards, or scanners and handheld devices. Cash registers can be baught with or without a built-in cash drawer, printers can be dot matrix or thermal, programmable keyboards can have covers for spill protection and scanners can be a CCD scanner or an autosending laser scanner.
Touch screens: With its flexible user interfaces and programming, many restaruant owners prefer to use touch screens. With this type of restaurant hardware, an employee can easily set orders and cancel an order within a second. It can also reduce mistypes and fasten ordering. Touch screens also uses fewer electricity and much easier to position on the counter table, but they are more prone to breakdowns.
Hand held devices: These are restaurant handheld devices like PDAs, commonly wireless, that transmits data back to its base station. You can use the newer version, which is the write-on handhelds that allows you to write information such as the orders and sends them directly to the kitchen! These types of handheld devices are perfect for your staff who interacts with your customers, when up-selling desserts and drinks roaming around table per table.
Keyboards: You'll find that most grocery and convenient stores prefer to use this type of POS hardware because it allows them to program individual keys for specific item codes and prices. The standard POS keyboard is a 101-key, which you will find with any computer. Others are small and flat, which we commonly see in fast food chains. POS keyboards often has a built-in magnetic stripe readers for processing credit cards.
Scanners: A very useful piece of electronic device that reads bar codes, converts and inputs its details to a POS system computer. Generally, it speeds up a sales transaction as well as accurately inputs product or service payment of a customer. It typically connects through Y-connectors called wedges which makes them function as an extension of your keyboard.
Volume of customers: For diffent types of volume of customers, using a scanner can be very helpful. If the line has several customers, then its good to use a CCD scanner or entry-level laser scanner. If the line is loaded with customers, then an autosensing laser scanners would be better. It's a type of scanner that automatically turns on when you place an item in front of it, scans its code, and then turn off again. But if your counter line is flooding with customers, an omnidirectional scanner would be the right scanner to use, where it can scan a bar code from any angle with its 15 or 20 lasers simultaneously!
Additional Restaurant POS hardware to consider
Cash drawers: Used to store cash, credit card slips, gift certificates and other important papers. When buying a cash drawer, look for a sturdy construction of at least 18-gauge steel, don't just buy one because your local vendor tells you that it's the latest or simply because it looks fancy. Go for the most reliable cash drawer since the usable life of cash drawers are measured, you also have to make surer that you can replace rollers, bearings, and other parts. A typical cash drawer opens only when it is signaled by the POS printer.
Point of Sale printers: An addition to your restaurant POS system is a printer, every retail business needs one to complete a sales transaction. POS printers are used to print receipts of customers and create credit card slips. There are two types of POS printers, the dot matrix printer and the thermal printer. The dot matrix printer uses ribbons and regular paper to print. Thermal printers are slightly expensive compared to dot matrix printers because they are faster and quieter when printing, and they have less moving parts which makes them more realiable.
POS Customer display: A customer display or pole display lets your customers know the price of the item they're purchasing and some support advertising. Just make sure that your customer display is of the right height and shape to fit in to your counter table, as well as it's compatibility with your POS software.
The Check readers: If you don't have one, I suggest getting one now. This device helps you be preventing check fraud by verifying essential account information, saving you tons of profit.
Magnetic stripe readers: A simple piece of POS hardware that is used to read credit cards. For added convenience, look for POS keyboards and touch screens that has a built-in magnetic strip reader, so you don't have to buy a separate one.
Fingerprint readers: This type of POS equipment is used to limit which staff can access a POS terminal. Typically used by employees to log on to their designated stations.
Keep in mind, when purchasing for POS systems, hardware or software, make sure to know the item first before heading to your local supplier. No matter how much money you spend on your POS equipment, never forget to consider the environment where you're going to use it. Regular cleaning keeps your keyboards and touch screens in top shape, vacuuming dust and lubing your receipt printer can extend its usable life and maintaining your workstation clean will definitely help your POS stations from dust and spills. You can always request for a FREE POS system quote online where local suppliers will offer you competitive price lists of any restaurant hardware and software you need based on the the information you provide them. So you would never have to waste money buying the wrong POS systems.
For more information on restaurant POS systems or to have a local POS professional serving the restaurant industry in your location see more information at POS-For-Restaurants.com.
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