Reporting MUSTS for POS Bar & Restaurant

Data shows you what makes your establishment tick—what’s selling, what’s not, and where the best path forward is. Food and beverage business owners obviously value good reporting, but what are the absolute reporting MUSTS in regards to your POS for bar and restaurant?

Leave your excel spreadsheet and headaches behind—we break 4 reporting MUSTS below!

1. Data That Updates In Real Time

The first reporting must-have is all about the quality of your data at any given time. Successful POS for bars and restaurants offer cloud-based reporting, so the data you’re looking at is always updated in real-time. 

What does that mean? Just as your smartphone automatically loads all of your vacation photos directly to a cloud of storage, your data does the same thing! As soon as an order is placed or a tab is closed, that information is instantly available in your POS “cloud”. That means when you’re checking in on performance for the day, you’re seeing the most up-to-date sales information possible. 

Plus, Devices Sync & Update Instantly Too

It gets better with cloud-based reporting: Staff and guest devices alike ALL sync to the same cloud. This ensures all orders—whether they’re placed on-premise by a staff member, from a hotspot at an event, online, or via contactless ordering from a guest—are updated in real time to your business’s unique cloud. 

Not only is it super handy to have a holistic view of all data at any point, this real-time communication between devices is also great for service! Staff and guest devices syncing ensures your back of house team members receive orders instantly, so they can get started assembling plates and drinks right away. In fact, some POS for bars and restaurants work with such expedited service, that drink orders could come out while guests are still ordering their meals!

But enough about speedy service—we’re talkin’ data today!

2. Accessible, Comprehensive, & Easy-To-Digest Dashboard

Accessible: View Your Data Dashboard Anywhere

More about this enigmatic cloud: The best POS for bars and restaurants ensures that your information-packed cloud updates in an accessible dashboard. The dashboard should be web-based, so it’s accessible from anywhere in the world, at any time. All you need is an internet connection, or a VPN if you’re outside of the US!

Comprehensive: All Sales Data In One Place

We touched on this a little with synced POS devices: Wherever sales are made—on-site, off-site, or online—all of that information funnels into the same dashboard. This means that if you’re running a booth at an outdoor concert across town, you can still check in on sales performance at your bar and restaurant. 

Easy-To-Digest: Pull Relevant Data Without The Headache

The last aspect of POS data dashboards that’s an absolute must is the ease at which you can glean information. The best POS for bars and restaurants provide relevant pre-built reports for you, so you can immediately look at the numbers you care about without having to wrestle data points in a spreadsheet. 

Reports like the following are applicable to every food and beverage business:

• Ounces poured: Totalling the amount of ounces poured by size and time can inform the tastes of your consumer base as well as production schedules.
• Employee performance: Seeing which employees are selling the most, and by product category, can help determine staffing schedules. 
• Hourly sales by product: Which menu item is your top seller and which menu items can you afford to nix? This report helps you curate the best menu possible and keep food costs down. 
• Hourly total sales: Looking into which hours you’re selling the most product can also help determine staffing, but it’s a good reference for when you should throw events to offset slower times, too. 

These, and 120+ reports to accommodate tax, liquor laws, and all accounting needs, are all provided by the best POS for bars and restaurants. Plus, with automated tip calculators, too, you can rely wholly on your POS to handle numbers, and focus on running your bustling business instead.

3. Manage Data Your Way

Another must of reporting from POS for bars and restaurants is customization in how you view and manage your data.

Easy Filtering Lets You Get Granular

In addition to the ability to easily pull reports that you care about, the best POS for bars and restaurants also makes it easy to filter existing reports to your liking. 

For example, when Seattle Cider Company implemented Donation at Checkout using Arryved POS, they were shocked at how much money they had raised from generous guests donating whole dollar amounts when closing their tabs. Another shock for them? How easy it was to filter out donations from total sales, so that sales data wasn’t skewed at all by collected donations. In Seattle Cider’s reporting dashboard, they can easily differentiate between strictly sales revenue in January 2022, and donations in the same month. 

Here’s another example: Say your bar and restaurant has a main dining area inside, as well as a merchandise shop and an outdoor bar and game area. Those 3 venues sell very differently, and it’s worthwhile to check in on their respective performances separately. With the right POS for bars and restaurants, you can easily filter reporting by venue. This can help you identify an opportunity for more small bite options in the outdoor area, or know to stock the merchandise shop’s best sellers in your online store. 

Trying out POS features like donation at checkout, or expanding your space by adding more venues, shouldn’t compromise your reporting, or create a bigger mess to get the numbers you need. Your POS is there to make your life easier, and flex with your changing business needs. 

Manage ALL Parts Of Your Business

Speaking of business needs, you have a lot more than just sales data to keep up with! That’s why your POS reporting dashboard must support you in managing all parts of your business. 

Loyalty program: You know how important it is to engage guests and build your brand with an insider program. But how do you know you’re successfully driving traffic? With a fully-integrated loyalty program, your POS dashboard can give you insights into which rewards delight your biggest fans the most, which rewards have been redeemed so far, and stats for each membership. 

Online store: The best POS for bars and restaurants lets you host an online storefront for free, and even helps you set up and customize it to your liking. A must of your reporting dashboard is the ability to manage your store from the same place—add new items, edit pricing, or even set up orders for curbside and delivery!

Staff management: Your reporting dashboard is also a place you should be able to manage your employees’ hours, system permissions, etc. 

All parts of your business work together, right? So it makes sense that the best POS for bars and restaurants lets you manage all parts of your business in one easy-to-access place. 

Spotlighting Inventory Management… Because It’s THAT Helpful

You should also be able to manage all of your inventory from your reporting dashboard, too. The best POS for bars and restaurants make inventory management so robust, we gave it its own section!

Your business is constantly moving inventory—food, beverages, and merchandise. It’s critical that you’re able to modify product inventory and menus for both on-premise and online right from your dashboard. That way, you can track kicked menu items or items on deck as well as real-time orders to know what guests are enjoying at any given time. 

Plus, with 3rd party integrations like Yellow Dog, you can get even more robust inventory management with tools like recipe costing, electronic vendor invoice processing, and automated inventory deductions. 

4. Fast, Friendly, Free Customer Support

The final reporting must for POS for bars and restaurants doesn’t have anything to do with data, but actually the humans behind your POS. You must have customer support that’s fast, friendly, and free!

What does this have to do with reporting? Well, reporting can be a beast to tackle, but it’s absolutely necessary to grow a thriving business. And if you can’t find the numbers you need to do that, you need a team of experts there to help. 

With 7 days/week support from your POS, sure, you can phone in on a chaotic Friday if you’re having an issue with a terminal, but this leniency also gives you the freedom to call in on a Sunday morning when you’re making coffee and analyzing your last month in sales. Whether you need help pulling a report, or reading one for actionable insights, your POS support team needs to be available to assist. 

Arryved POS has established itself as the most trusted POS in the bar and restaurant industry in part because of our world class customer service. (We have a 2022 Stevie® Award For Sales & Customer Service to prove it!) Our support team’s friendly demeanor, speedy resolutions, and industry expertise make them better equipped to serve bars and restaurants than any other POS support out there. 

Plus, our comprehensive data dashboard helps you increase operating efficiencies, maximize revenue, and meet the evolving needs of your guests. Request a free, custom demo today to see it in action!