8 Key features of a Pub EPOS
A pub is a truly unique venue with a special place in British culture, offering individuality, character, and a friendly atmosphere. Whether the cornerstone of a local community or an after-work city hang out, pubs are primarily a place to meet & mingle.
To serve this purpose pubs often need to encompass many aspects of other hospitality businesses. Like a restaurant, pubs will frequently serve good substantial meals. Like a café, many pubs will serve coffee and light lunches. Like a bar, many pubs will be lively in the evening and may offer a range of cocktails.
Moreover, pubs have their own offerings – hand-pulled real ale, pork scratchings, beer gardens in the summer, and a cosy seat by the fire in the winter.
Technology is rarely a publican’s primary focus, but most now recognise its place in helping to run what is ultimately a people business. At the centre of a pubs technology needs is its EPOS system, but it can be hard to find an EPOS that will cater for such a diverse business.
There are many generalist EPOS systems catering for every business type, but these are unlikely to cater for the unique operational scenarios involved in running a pub. On the other end of the scale are POS systems focussed on a specific business type, such as a restaurant. These may have a great range of features focussed on food & table service but are likely to be lacking in other features necessary for a pub.
1. Intuitive interface
With high staff turnover and the need to serve customers quickly and efficiently, an intuitive front of house EPOS interface is essential for a good pub EPOS system. Bar staff need to be able to use the system from day one and need a quick way to perform their common tasks.
Having an integrated card processor also helps with ease of use and avoiding errors – both in taking payments and in cashing up at the end of the evening.
2. Access to product information
A pub is a social environment. Customers will ask about the real ales, wines, or craft beers on offer and staff should be able to give them the information they need. A good pub EPOS system should provide this information quickly and easily from the POS. This information will also need to be entered when setting up the products - our own pub EPOS populates descriptions, brewery, style and ABV automatically for beers by drawing information down from Untappd, at the click of a button.
Product information should also include allergens, which every business needs to be on top of.
3. Product options & modifiers
With the range of food and drinks pubs offer, having a flexible way to set up options & modifiers on products is key. Spirits should automatically pull up a range of mixers, burgers may have a choice of toppings, steak orders should prompt for how it should be cooked.
4. Stock tracking
The variety pubs offer means they deal with a wide range of stock. Without a good stock tracking regime, stock losses can quickly become damaging to the profitability of the business.
Many pub EPOS systems will have stock tracking integrated into the POS system, but make sure this includes all the features you will need.
Make sure your EPOS is designed to deal with the stock sizes and measures you sell – kegs & pints, bottles & glasses – without adding erroneous effort when setting up your products. Our pub EPOS uses product templates to set these details automatically when a product is added.
Recipe management is likely to be needed to track food stock, or if you offer cocktails. If you prepare dishes or mixes in advance you may need to a batch management feature to keep track of these.
If you offer food, you may want an EPOS with a quick stock feature – the ability to quickly set a countdown on a product for how many you have available that day so staff can’t sell more than you have.
If you would like to start tracking stock, but aren’t sure how to get started, have a look at our recent guide on this.
5. Table Plan
If you offer food or table service for drinks, a table plan is usually the easiest way of tracking orders and tabs, particularly for new members of staff.
Make sure you can change the table plan yourself easily when you change your layout.
As pubs will often not have staff assigned to specific sections, a useful feature for a pub EPOS is having a way to record a checkback - just a simple button on a tab or table, that shows other staff members the table has been checked.
6. Relevant Reporting
An essential aspect of a pub EPOS system is its reporting capabilities. It should be very easy to view sales and gross profit for any product or category for a given time window. You should also easily be able to view your overall sales and how they compare with previous periods.
For time poor publicans (and who isn’t) email reports can be extremely useful. These can give a quick overview of how your pub is performing that day/week/month, how sales compare to previous periods, top & bottom sellers etc.
Also very useful, particularly with current cost pressures, is a P&L report, to show a good estimate for the bottom-line profit for a given period after all costs are accounted for.
We wrote more about the reports to look for in a previous article – Top 5 Hospitality EPOS Reports.
7. Rota system
With day & evening trade, a mix of food & drink sales, and standing space as well as tables, managing the rota for a pub can be challenging.
There are many staff scheduling systems that can help manage rotas and ensure that your staff costs are in line with your targets. Our own pub EPOS has staff scheduling tools built in so you can manage this all-in-one place, pulling through indicative sales from a previous week or period, allowing you to ensure you’re planning the right number of shifts.
8. Booking system
Most pubs now offer the facility for guests to book in advance. Whilst there are many booking systems that can help with this, having one built into your pub EPOS means you can manage everything on one system. You can also view upcoming bookings directly on the till and automatically apply deposits to tabs as credit.
If you are evaluating EPOS systems for your pub, making sure they have some, or all, of the above features can be a good start. If you would like to know more about our own pub EPOS system, contact one of our hospitality experts.
