Tasting Room POS systems?

[Kevbush]

Clover POS

I encourage everyone to look at clover.com. The clover system is a POS ecosystem that allows other app providers to extend offerings as add on apps and functionality. It is an open system that prevents you from being locked into a platform that may or may not give you the functionality you need. Much like square it is extensible. But much much better....

Why? It is also owned by First Data which does over 50% of all credit card transactions in the world. They are the backend processing company for nearly all of the systems you all are talking about if not all of them. The credit card fees and swipe fees can really hurt a tap room. If you aren't doing food and therefore your average ticket is 10 bucks or so (for say two pints), picking the right credit card processing company is very very important. With clover you can go through BofA or Wells Fargo etc which will get you exchange rates of ballparkish 1.8%. Square for example and most of the others if tied to their credit card processing is 2.5 or 3.0% plus swipe fees. But you can go directly to First Data and cut out the Interchange Fees all together. What dos this mean? No middleman charges. You pay on average .8% swipe fees (your mileage may vary) by going directly to the source.

So Clover not only gives you the best most open POS ecosystem (think Apple App Store for POSs) in the world, but by going directly to the worlds largest credit card clearing house in the world, you also save money without any sacrifice of features, extensibility or service.

We happen to run a tap room with a full kitchen in an area of the country (Redmond, Wa) where over 100% of our money (because tips pushes us over the 100% number as we do more in credit card tips than all cash transactions combined) comes from credit cards, which has caused us to be very astute on POS capabilities and credit card processing transaction fees.

Clover has all the minis and mobiles and systems you could need, great lease programs, etc. Just can't say enough about why everyone should be on clover.

Kevin Bushnell
HMFIC
Bushnell Craft Brewing Company
Redmond, Wa

[briangaylor]

Do any of the systems mentioned so far have the ability to:

1. open a tab

AND

2. print a standard receipt where the customer can write in a tip


Maybe I'm in the minority, but the idea of having to have every customer use the touchscreen seems like a hassle and just asking to have something stolen/broken.


Thanks!

Brian

[DG_]

Do any of the systems mentioned so far have the ability to:

1. open a tab

AND

2. print a standard receipt where the customer can write in a tip


Maybe I'm in the minority, but the idea of having to have every customer use the touchscreen seems like a hassle and just asking to have something stolen/broken.


Thanks!

Brian

Most systems have the ability for tabs now, but as stated previously, some smaller systems bog down quicker than others that have been optimized for it. I know Clover has a printer for hard copy receipts and signing. Only thing with Clover, as far as I know, is that you need to keep the card. First swipe enters name info only. Tender swipe is the number. I may be wrong about that though.

[BrickHaven BC]

Toast?

I haven't heard any mention of people using or looking at Toast as an option...I'm just getting into looking at POS systems.
Great insight everyone!

Ed
BrickHaven Brewing Company

[mmmatt]

Another happy square user here! Lots of misconceptions on square in this thread. You can do tabs and name them by swipeing the card. With an ipad, square stand, and star pos printer, you can do traditional signed paper receipts. Ipad stays on the backbar where it should. Unless your average ticket is over about $18, then the flat 2.75% from square is probably your best deal out there. Most processors charge a per swipe fee and a variable rate on some cards.

I can look at and manipulate statistical data a million ways. I get reports daily sent to my phone. I can refund a card, or change an item price or add an item from any phone/pad/computer anyplace I can get on line. I can do a timed review of tabs to compare with video to make sure things are being rung in. I can sell t-shirts or growlers at a festival with a smartphone. I do a series of cruises on a tall ship that docks locally and I can sell extra beers if people want more than what was included in their ticket. I can take a cc from a distributor account. I can send my waitresses out with a cheap Android tablet and they can do everything without clogging up the back bar registers. Money is in my account the next day. Accounting is easy.

Cons are that I can't do a timed discount such as automatic $1 off for happy hour. Main screen graphics are rudimentary, and with a bigger menu it might be tougher to navigate. I price my flight sized glasses individually based on reg glass price and there isn't a easy way to do a flight of all 10 unless I either suck it up and make a flat rate regardless of current selection, or do 4 screen touches per flight.

[sjcarter]

something I haven't really seen addresses here is "traditional POS vs modern POS benefits".

Yes, traditional POSsen are a significant expense - depending on options and number of terminals you're looking at $10,000 or above.

But there is another side to the cost equation. While nobody likes to think of these things, there are instances of rogue employees or even partners. If you discover someone has been dipping the cash register, does your POS allow for full forensic auditing that is admissible in criminal court?

Equally, traditional POSsen are set up for the restaurant trade from scratch - tabs, tips, happy hour discounts, time tracking for employees, and so forth.

Just food for thought.

[GlacierBrewing]

something I haven't really seen addresses here is "traditional POS vs modern POS benefits".

Yes, traditional POSsen are a significant expense - depending on options and number of terminals you're looking at $10,000 or above.

But there is another side to the cost equation. While nobody likes to think of these things, there are instances of rogue employees or even partners. If you discover someone has been dipping the cash register, does your POS allow for full forensic auditing that is admissible in criminal court?

Equally, traditional POSsen are set up for the restaurant trade from scratch - tabs, tips, happy hour discounts, time tracking for employees, and so forth.

Just food for thought.

Good point. In addition to a robust, integrated POS reporting system, I utilize a video surveillance system as well as any cash business should, in my opinion.
Prost!

[anhalt]

Updates on Breadcrumb?

Breadcrumb. Works very well. You can do tabs, see tons of metrics, good customer service/support, expandable.

Did you research any other systems? BC seems to be pretty popular in the Chicago area but their current contract (over two years) is a little unsettling. In addition to BC, I'm pricing out ShopKeep, Lavu, TouchBistro and maybe even Revel. We need something to grow into.

Thanks in advance,
Jess

[North Gate]

We started with Shopkeep and it certainly left us lacking.

• When you are swamped you cannot, I mean absolutely cannot keep up with credit card orders. It doesn't allow you to search the tabs, or reorder them. It simply goes by when the tab was created. Which would be fine if you had one person who memorized names.
• When we have 100 tabs open and someone wants to close theirs it would be 5 minutes of searching for a name that hopefully was read correctly on the swipe when you saved it.
• And you couldn't just close the tabs on your computer or another iPad without paying $80.
• Inventory was lacking as well for sizing of merch.
• We were doing fund raisers but shopkeep couldn't do sales by hours, only when the tabs were closed so that became a pain as well.

We switched to square and haven't looked back. We're about to integrate their inventory tracking into an online shop with a WordPress plugin. We keep an extra ipad around for sales surging. We can take a phone to festivals and the merch comes right out of inventory. The whole system is seamless. For what ShopKeep charges its silly that it can't match basic functions that square can.

[m0w]

We started with Shopkeep and it certainly left us lacking.

• When you are swamped you cannot, I mean absolutely cannot keep up with credit card orders. It doesn't allow you to search the tabs, or reorder them. It simply goes by when the tab was created. Which would be fine if you had one person who memorized names.
• When we have 100 tabs open and someone wants to close theirs it would be 5 minutes of searching for a name that hopefully was read correctly on the swipe when you saved it.
• And you couldn't just close the tabs on your computer or another iPad without paying $80.
• Inventory was lacking as well for sizing of merch.
• We were doing fund raisers but shopkeep couldn't do sales by hours, only when the tabs were closed so that became a pain as well.

We switched to square and haven't looked back. We're about to integrate their inventory tracking into an online shop with a WordPress plugin. We keep an extra ipad around for sales surging. We can take a phone to festivals and the merch comes right out of inventory. The whole system is seamless. For what ShopKeep charges its silly that it can't match basic functions that square can.

Thanks for your detailed review of Shopkeep!
I've been looking at both Shopkeep vs Square for the past few weeks and I felt totally lost!
I'm glad to read another positive review from another happy Square customer. But if you don't mind me asking... Are you using an extra software for Raw Ingredient Tracking? This feature has been advertised A LOT on Shopkeep website and I don't reckon reading anything about this feature on Square website.
Also, what accounting service are you using in synch with Square? QB Online vs Xero?

Thanks again!

Morgan

[North Gate]

QBO for syncing. Super easy for us.

For raw ingredients do you means brewing COGS? We use excel for that. But our brewer doesn't tend bar, and our bar staff don't brew so they are on different systems as it is.

[ChesterBrew]

TouchBistro

After a lot of research, we decided to go with TouchBistro.

[RichFellows]

A major thing to consider is business volume in the taproom. For us, we ended up with a much busier taproom than we originally anticipated. Some of the less expensive systems can get really bogged down if you have 50 or 60 tabs open. The ability to open tabs was a not optional to us. If you already have a taproom open, you can judge your volumes accordingly. The last thing you want is to roll out a new system and have it downgrade your service levels. That being said, we have been using Salesvu and found it to be a decent platform but gets bogged down on very busy days. One of the main issues is that most of the systems are restaurant systems with table timers features which bog down the opening and searching of tabs. Look for something with a good "Speed bar" option for quick ring ups and tab running. One feature we really like is when we open a tab in salesvu, we swipe the ccard right then and can give it right back to the customer. Its a real pain to hold on to cards. Rumor is that EKOS (Brewmaster) is developing a taproom based POS System which will directly communicate with the Brewmaster management platform. We are currently using Brewmaster and really like the software and the support. We are holding out on making any changes from Salesvu until we see the Ekos option.

We looked at Touch Bistro and Lavu. Preferred Lavu to handle busy times but both didnt seem to offer great improvements over Salesvu which has minimal investment.

As an IT professional specifically in the security industry by day let me add a couple points on this. Keep in mind every iOS version upgrade on your iPad (and being that it is running sales transactions using credit cards you'll want to keep it on the latest, most secure version) is going to require more resources. Programs that ran fine on iOS 6 on your device suddenly are running like mud on a newer version of iOS. Likewise, same goes for upgrades of the program itself. Guess what, when whatever you chose decides it wants to release the next major build you want to get it for the security upgrades, the extra features, etc and you want your device to handle it.

That being said, when you go to buy your iPad (or Android for that matter) get the newer model. Don't go by the last generation model because it's $50 cheaper. Yeah, money is tight when you are starting a business but getting the better model might mean being able to use that device for 3-4 years instead of 1-2 years before you need to upgrade it. In the long run, it's a lot cheaper just to do it right the first time. And if your staff is bogged down when you get busy the last thing you want is reduced sales because the staff can't input orders fast enough. Check your prices, if you miss 2-3 pints a day due to delays how fast does it take to recoup that extra $50-100? Likewise same goes for the storage capacity, don't cheap out. If the vendor says 16gb will work buy the 64gb. It's amazing how slow your apps will run when space is at a premium and each version of software and the operating system use more and more storage. Just think about how disruptive it might be if you had a bunch of slow iPads and had to shut down for a day or so to upgrade to new devices.

[littlemiamibrew]

2 features a taproom POS must have for us

in researching these iPad POS system we see 2 features are must have

1. Pre Auth card where swipe opens tab and get card back to customer
2. Ability to swivel iPad screen around for customer to add 10-15-20% os some custom amount of tip
3. unlimited devices so we can add iPad minis that floaters will carry to patio or taproom gusts asking if they want another beer

So far Lavu and SalesVu do these things...any input appreciated from SalesVu or Lavu users

[saltyturtlebeer]

After reading about POS for the past hour. It seems like a lot of it comes down to personal preference? Is that safe to say? We will be a nano brewery (3bbl system) Taproom only sales along with merchandise (glasses, shirts, bottle openers, etc)