Question

Please research some more information on the benefits of using a POS system such as the MICROS or Squirrel? After collecting the information, please prepare a tabulation with two columns, In the left column list out the important functions that the POS system will perform, In the column on the Right side Explain briefly as to how you think you would have done / prepared a similar report in the absence of the POS or Computers. Limit your Report to an maximum of 5 points or functions .

Benefits of using a POS versus manual or non computerized methods of operation

Answer 1

	POS System	Without POS
1	Billing	Basic function of a POS is billing and order processing. If billing is done manually, it will be time consuming and the customer has to wait leading to dissatisfaction among the customers. We need to make multiple copies of the bill as one needs to be given to customer and other a file copy. In POS, the bills are saved electronically hence only one copy can be generated.   Cancellation of guest orders could lead to cancellation of bills. To raise a next bill we have to flip through all the cancelled bills to prepare a fresh one, whereas in POS, cancelled bills are stored separately with a reason why the bills were cancelled. As billing is critical function of revenue of the restaurant, an cashier could take advantage by not raising bills against the food served. Tax could be different for packaging, cooked food and beverages, the POS will apply the taxes collectly as its programmed and compute the gross rates correctly. There could be errors if its done manually as the cashier may forget the tax rates. Totalling the bill manually also could lead to errors.
2	Inventory Management	A POS will readily generate report on the inventory status. If done manually we need to keep registers of the items issued and billed. Example - 100 coke bottles are issued to the system and as its billed to customer it will automatically reduce from the inventory. Keeping track manually could lead to inventory losses as we may forget to update the inventory on a daily basis. Also while billing we will know if the inventory is in stock before accepting orders from the customers. In a manual system, if there is a customer call, we cannot know in real time basis if the item is available to accept the order. Once order is accepted, declining it later on to the customer is bad service.
3	Food Costing	Manually to check food cost will be a tedious work. The actual consumption is required to be maintained in different registers and complie it to know the actual consumption. To get the food cost, the cooked food sales should be separated from the packaged commodities. This is huge exercise as every bill will have cooked food and packed food commodities. A POS can easily segregate and compute food cost and retail cost for the packed items and throw up accurate data quickly. This leads to taking right decision leading to a success of the restaurant.
4	Data	Recording guest data manually may lead to errors as the guest name, mobile number, address needs to be quickly entered. We may not know if he is a repeat customer. A POS system will throw up details of a repeated customer and his preferences. We could delight a customer by remembering his food preference from POS. We could also send common messages like food festival, food discounts and other promotional offers to all customers visited the restaurant easily.
5	Reports	A POS system is able to generate different reports. It can extrapolate data in multiple ways to throw up facts about the functioning of the restaurant. Forecasting cannot be done in a manual system, but the same could be done using POS. Keeping past records (3 years data) is impossible manually.