How to Use Your Bar Restaurant POS System to Give Back to Your Community

We all know that giving back is core to the ethos of the hospitality industry. But how can you lean on savvy tech to plan, support, and report on charitable efforts? With the help of your bar restaurant POS system!

Why Giving Back Is Important In Your Bar Restaurant

Sure, you opened your bar and restaurant to share delicious food and drink creations and make some money, but your business’s purpose is to be a gathering place for your local community. It makes sense that you’d want to give back to the community you serve!

And because of all of the creativity that exists in the food and beverage industry, giving back can look a lot of different ways. It can be anything from donating time and money to a charitable organization, being vocal about a cause you’re passionate about, or ensuring your business operations are sustainable. 

Not only are all of these efforts benefitting the guests that keep your doors open and your kitchen cookin’, but they’re all things that guests themselves can get involved in. By giving back, your bar and restaurant can help those in need, establish a positive reputation in your community, and interact with guests outside of serving them. That’s a win, win, win!

Now, how can your bar restaurant POS system support you?!

Acting Sustainably With Your Bar Restaurant POS System 

Ensuring your business practices are sustainable is increasingly top of mind for business owners far and wide. And sustainability is top of mind for guests, too! In fact, 8 in 10 consumers report they’re willing to pay more for a “green” dining experience. 

Thankfully, the best bar restaurant POS system incorporates eco-friendly features that help you do business efficiently, all while treating Mother Earth with care. 

Save Paper With Digital Ordering Tools

Fast, accurate communication between staff members is key to providing exceptional service. With a cloud-based system and QR code ordering, it’s also green!

Cloud-Based System

Mobile bar restaurant POS systems use cloud-based technology to sync all tabs across all devices in real time. This is the ultimate time-saver, and it also saves paper!

Traditionally, staff in a bar and restaurant communicate with physical paper tickets. Servers write down orders, deliver tickets to the kitchen or bar, and the back of house staff start assembling orders. 

With cloud-based devices, as soon as an order is entered into a server’s device, the tab is delivered to the corresponding chef or bartender device, or even to a kitchen display system! Plates and drinks can get started right away, lessening the time it takes to deliver the goods to a table. 

QR Code Ordering & Digital Menus

An even more efficient way for bar and kitchen staff to receive guest orders? Right from the guest devices themselves via QR code ordering!

Your bar restaurant POS system can replace paper menus and tickets completely with QR codes. Guests simply scan the QR code at their table, enter their own orders, and wait for a dazzling server to deliver their grub! This ordering technology is germ-free, paper-free, and puts ordering power right at guests’ fingertips, ultimately increasing tab and tip size.

Plus, digital menus take tedious work off your servers’ plates, such as:

• Updating and printing paper menus: Physical menus are a pain to update if an item goes out of stock. They also limit your ability to easily add specials on any given night. With digital menus, you can add or remove menu items in one place, and menus are updated across all staff and guest devices instantly.
• Promotional opportunities: It’s easy to highlight specials, incentivize high-profit picks, or make your customers drool with fresh photos on digital menus. 

Now, staff can wholly focus on educating, upselling, and engaging guests, and you’re operating sustainably!

Raising Money & Awareness With Your Bar Restaurant POS System

When you’re trying to give back to a certain organization with outright money and awareness, a helpful tool from bar restaurant POS systems is a donation feature. 

Giving guests the option to either round up their tab or donate whole dollar amounts at checkout is a great way to raise money for an organization. It’s low pressure and easy for guests to do, plus a few cents or a dollar here and there ends up making a big difference over time. 

For example, 4 Noses Brewing Co. in Broomfield, CO raised nearly $27,000 in 1 month using a combination of an auction, $1 from every pint and to-go sale, and their POS system’s donation feature. Because of their hard work alongside the Odd13 and Wild Provisions taprooms, the Marshall Fire victims in their communities are able to use these funds and other donations to slowly build back their homes and lives after the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history.

Donation features like the one from Arryved POS are completely customizable. You can choose the benefitting cause and whether guests round up or donate whole dollar amounts, as well as easily differentiate between sales and donations in a comprehensive reporting dashboard. Your business can really make a difference with the help of your bar restaurant POS system and some generous guests!

Need some inspiration for organizations to give to? Check out this list of 10 food and beverage nonprofits that are changing the world!

Throw Charitable Events With Your Bar Restaurant POS System

You likely know how to plan and throw a great party. But to ensure that all things run smoothly during your actual event, you need tools from your bar restaurant POS system like the following:

Card On File

When you’re hosting a charitable event, you want your hustling staff to be greeting guests, collecting orders, and dazzling the room with their hospitality. What you don’t want them doing is wasting time fishing credit cards out of a crowded rolodex. 

The best bar restaurant POS system offers card on file, where you can swipe a card to start a tab and hand it right back to the guest. The tab stays open, guests have the freedom to add to it whenever they want, and closing out is a breeze—all they have to do is sign! All tabs left open at the end of the night can be closed by staff with an auto-gratuity.

This feature removes headaches for staff and encourages guests to keep their tabs open, the drinks flowing, and the fun going!

Offline Mode

When you’re mid-event, the last thing you need is a power outage preventing your guests from adding to their tabs. Whether it’s a storm or an internet modem gone awry, losing WiFi happens and it’s always when you least expect it to. 

Offline mode via your bar restaurant POS system lets you keep the party going and the orders coming regardless of WiFi connectivity. Once power is restored, all sales information and tabs sync once again to your cloud-based system. 

Offline mode is also useful for off-site events. Say you’re holding a tent at an outdoor benefit concert. WiFi likely isn’t provided, and if it is, it’s probably slowed down by all the other vendors in attendance. Instead of a line of hungry guests forming because your POS is crawling, you can use offline mode! Again, all of the sales collected in offline mode will sync once you’re back in range of connectivity. 

Venue Management

Being able to manage separate areas of your space is another helpful event tool from bar restaurant POS systems. Perhaps you’re hosting a free event for hurricane victims on your patio, but running business as usual in your main dining area. With venue management, you can differentiate the patio from the dining area with separate digital menus. That way, all ordered items on the patio remain free to the benefitting parties, and there’s no confusion among staff nor guests on what can be ordered. 

This also comes in handy from a reporting perspective. Offering free stuff to only a portion of the guests at your bar and restaurant could lead to skewed sales data about the paying guests from that same time period. But with venue management, it’s easy to separate sales reports by venue.

Ensure Accurate Reporting With Your Bar Restaurant POS System

Of course, when you’re running large programming initiatives in order to give back in your community, you need robust reporting tools to measure the effectiveness of your events. After all, if you can identify what’s working and what isn’t, you can throw even better events that benefit even more people!

With pre-built reports like the following, your bar restaurant POS system can help you maximize your charitable efforts:

• Ounces poured: This granular report can show you how many ounces you poured for an event, informing how much to forecast down the road and which beverages were the most popular picks. 
• Hourly total sales: Isolate event sales by breaking down sales by the hour. If it’s less or greater than your other hours, you have a good idea how successful the event was!
• Employee performance: By looking at total sales by employee, you can pinpoint the staff that are seemingly the best at charming guests. Make sure they’re on the schedule for your next event!

A business that took full advantage of their bar restaurant POS system’s reporting tools is Raíces Brewing Company in Denver, CO. Core to their mission is amplifying Latinx voices through educational events with food, music, art, discussions, and more. Raíces owners use reports from their POS to determine if the events they’re hosting are worthwhile, and also when to host the next event in order to compensate for slower sales periods. 

Involve Loyal Guests With Your Bar Restaurant POS System

The last tool from your bar restaurant POS system that’s incredibly helpful when giving back is a loyalty program. Now, we know this is a great feature for driving traffic, engaging guests, and building your brand name within your community. But it’s also a great way to encourage people that love your bar and restaurant to get involved in helping their own communities!

Because loyalty programs allow for streamlined communication to members, it’s a great way to get the word out about upcoming events! This makes for a packed house at an auction you may be throwing, or even for bountiful volunteers willing to help run the show. Encouraging guest involvement in events strengthens your personal bond with them, and could make for a lifelong fanbase for your bar and restaurant—in addition to having the extra hands to throw a great event for a worthy cause!

Loyalty members are also a great group of people to bounce ideas off of. What organizations are especially near and dear to the hearts of locals? What businesses would make great partners to collaborate on an event with? Tap into the minds of your knowledgeable guests! The fact that you care about their opinions won’t go unnoticed, and will further solidify their loyalty to your brand. And perhaps they’ll encourage their friends to join, too.

The All-In-One Bar Restaurant POS System You Need

If you were starry-eyed looking at all these awesome features, but wary of what it may cost you to use them, you’re using the wrong POS system. 

With Arryved POS, all features are included for no additional monthly costs. Plus, with an exceptional support team available by phone or email 7 days/week, your bar and restaurant is set up for long-term success! Get a free, custom demo today to learn more about the most trusted point of sale for food and beverages businesses.