What's the best, cheap cash register app for a fledgling restaurant?

February 26, 2016 12:19 PM

I've been asked to help find a cash register app for the owner of a new small cafe. Any suggestions or advice about where I should look?

A new restaurant wants customers to have the option to pay on ipads. A friend of the owner asked me to look into cash register apps. A cursory google search is all it took for me to realize I have no idea what I'm doing.

Any recommendations? The cheaper the better. Freeware is ideal.

Barring that, how much should one expect to spend? Is a monthly fee structure standard?

Are there any forums where I should look for discussions of these kinds of matters?

Experiences as business owners, servers, cashiers, etc. with specific branded apps are also welcome.

I don't know much more than that. Possibly relevant is that the owner is an ESL speaker.

Finally: I question the wisdom of sinking limited capital into this thing. But I've expressed that opinion and moved on. Now I'm doing what I was asked to do: find the cash register app. That is what this question is about.

posted by CtrlAltD to Work & Money (11 answers total)

As a user, I've encountered square's register
posted by osi at 12:22 PM on February 26, 2016 [9 favorites]

My sister-in-law knows people who work at Toast, and it seems OK.
posted by kevinbelt at 12:39 PM on February 26, 2016

Assuming they are in the US, Square is the obvious answer. If you don't know what you're doing, don't bother looking for a niche player that won't have the user community and standard support from everywhere. I know several small business owners (small like solo artist selling a few artworks at a show, or solo food truck guy) who use Square and love it.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 12:45 PM on February 26, 2016 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Handling credit card data is regulated by the PCI standards council. Look for something that at least claims to be PCI compliant. Doing anything like storing credit card information incorrectly places the merchant at risk for paying for fraud.
posted by Candleman at 12:45 PM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Tons of small businesses here in Chicago use Square. My Girl Scout troop uses Square. I agree with the people recommending Square.
posted by phunniemee at 1:00 PM on February 26, 2016

Square Register, not least because it's the setup customers are going to be most familiar with.
posted by holgate at 1:05 PM on February 26, 2016

The taxi drivers, food trucks, and Girl Scout troops I've met all use Square.
posted by yueliang at 1:11 PM on February 26, 2016

I've been on both sides of Square transactions. I like it. It is dead-easy to set up your store, transactions are easy to process for both merchant and customer, and the way you get receipts by e-mail is pretty slick.

You can do this with just a smartphone and the card reader (the old ones are free, the new chip-compatible ones apparently are $29), but for $100, you can buy a stand for an iPad that can attach to a cash drawer and receipt printer.

Square makes its money by taking a cut of every credit-card transaction, but for small merchants, it's cheaper than a lot of other credit-card processors.
posted by adamrice at 1:12 PM on February 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Square is pretty much the standard at the moment. Chances are good that your owner probably saw a Square system and liked it -- it's got a Mac-type aesthetic, it's fairly intuitive to use for both customers and managers, and it produces attractive graphs and reports on the back end. Downsides of Square include: they have a closed system that can make some data hard to export or integrate with other services, they require you to use them as the payment processor (instead of letting you price-shop between different payment processors), and their phone support is not great.

There are plenty of competitors, including ShopKeep, Lavu, Paypal, and even Quickbooks. I'd say of these Square competitors, I've heard the best things about Shopkeep -- they're established and reputable and have good features, including the ability to pick your preferred payment processor. If you just google for "Restaurant POS system Ipad" you'll find plenty more -- your magic keyword is "POS (Point of Sale) system."

You can expect pay in three ways.
1. Up-front fees for the equipment. Most POS providers will give you some level of free equipment to entice you to sign up with them (a free phone dongle or one free register if you buy another one or whatever), so be sure to negotiate.
2. Credit card fees. All credit cards are run through a payment processor, and all payment processors will charge you some kind of fee per transaction -- usually a fixed per-swipe charge plus a percentage of the sale. You can shop around for better rates, but they often change and they only vary by a fraction of a percent. Be aware that some apps are linked to a single payment processor (like Square or Paypal), whereas some are independent platforms (like Quickbooks or Shopkeep), which allow you to pick one of several payment processors and switch if you can find a better rate. Generally you can only negotiate these rates if you are doing very high sales.
3. A monthly fee per location or unit. The POS systems provided by payment processors don't tend to charge monthly fees (because they make plenty on the credit card transactions); the independents do. You can sometimes negotiate these fees as well.
posted by ourobouros at 1:14 PM on February 26, 2016 [5 favorites]

You can also use SumUp.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:05 PM on February 26, 2016

We use TouchBistro at the restaurant. Great support, pretty decent and flexible software.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:47 AM on February 27, 2016