Lavu POS and what to check before buying any iPad system

When you look at Lavu pos you are not really choosing a screen. You are choosing a bundle, and the bundle is where the money and the regret both live.

This article does not rank products. It covers what Lavu says it sells, how to price a bundle honestly, which part of any bundle is usually the strongest and which is usually the thinnest, and how invoicing works in Indonesia.

What Lavu says it is

Start with a supplier's own words rather than a review site's. Lavu describes itself on its own site as a "Restaurant POS System with AI-Powered Intelligence" and as "The Intelligent Financial OS for Your Restaurant", and lists an iPad restaurant POS alongside a kitchen display system, payment processing, contactless payments and ordering, dual pricing, online ordering and payroll.

Two things follow from that description. It is a tablet product, so everything true of tablets is true of it. And it is a suite, so the questions worth asking are about the pieces rather than the whole.

Price the pieces you will switch on

A suite is quoted as a suite and billed as pieces. Before comparing anything, write down the modules you will genuinely turn on in the first six months, and ask for a two year figure covering only those, plus the hardware, plus support.

Then ask what happens to that figure when you add the seventh module in year two, and what the notice period is if you decide the bundle was a mistake.

Restaurant software is rarely too expensive on the day it is signed. It becomes expensive in month fourteen, when three modules you never used are still on the invoice.

The strongest piece and the thinnest one

Every suite has the same shape, and knowing the shape saves a lot of demo time.

The counter is the strongest part. It is what the company was built around, it has been shaped by thousands of busy services, and it usually deserves its reputation.

The pieces bolted around it are thinner. Loyalty, marketing and online ordering are commonly built so that a customer has no reason to buy those elsewhere, which is a different goal from building them well. Ask to see each one do a real task rather than appear on a slide.

Then ask the question that decides your next few years: can you export your sales history and your customer list yourself, today, with no fee and no support ticket? A thin module you can walk away from is an annoyance. A thin module holding your customer list is a long contract.

Two things to check about the tablet itself

Power. A tablet on a stand through a lunch service and a dinner service needs permanent power, which means a cable in a place where a cable can be pulled. Plan the position before the installer arrives.

Offline. Ask how many hours it survives, as a number, and ask separately what happens to the orders taken while the connection was down. "It works offline" and "nothing is lost" are two different promises.

Invoicing in Indonesia

Whatever issues your invoices has to fit the local process. Indonesia's tax authority runs e-Faktur for electronic VAT invoices, which has both a desktop client and a web application, and the guidance there is that VAT period reporting is now done through the web one rather than the desktop client.

So ask your supplier two direct questions in writing. How do their exports fit that process, and who is responsible for updating them when the specification changes? A supplier who cannot answer in writing should not be on your shortlist.

The piece the suite is thinnest on

Now the part that matters more than which tablet you buy.

In Indonesia a large share of orders arrive as messages, from a customer who is not in your restaurant and may never be. The module a suite sells for that is usually the one it invested least in, because the company's heart is at the counter.

"A screen at the counter answers the person in front of it. The order that costs a restaurant money is the one nobody answered on the phone, and a bigger screen does nothing for that."

— Anzul Aqeel, founder of Get Menu

What a thick version of that piece looks like

This is what we build, and it needs no hardware at all. It runs beside whatever counter system you own, including Lavu.

• A page of your own, the link carrying your name, and a choice of 12 page layouts for how the menu is laid out.
• A menu you edit yourself, where options and add-ons carry their own prices and required choices have to be made before the order goes through, so a spice level always reaches the kitchen.
• A spreadsheet import, so a long menu goes in once instead of item by item.
• Prices settled at checkout from the live menu, so a page opened this morning cannot sell at this morning's price.
• Stock counts on items and on options that fall as orders come in, greying a dish out at zero.
• Three WhatsApp messages sent for you: a confirmation to the customer, a ticket to the managers' group, and a rider link carrying the GPS pin dropped at checkout, which is 3 messages in about 2 seconds.
• A code for every table, made in a designer so it looks like your place, with the print pack emailed to you.
• Group ordering, so a table can order from several phones and still get one bill.
• Loyalty that runs itself: stamps from the order, tiers your regulars grow into with their own automatic discount, and the card in the phone's wallet through Google's loyalty card format with nothing to install.
• Coupons, upsells and fixed-price bundles with caps, exclusions and expiry dates, and two automatic discounts never landing together.
• Invoices carrying your registration number, downloaded by the customer as a PDF without an account.

What we are not

Get Menu is not a counter system and does not compete with one. It opens no cash drawer, drives no card reader and does not close your day. If you need those, buy them and keep them. Our plain guide to a restaurant POS explains where the line sits, and the QR menu guide covers the table side.

Customers settle with you directly, in cash or on your own card reader when the food arrives. Nothing is charged through the website, so no card numbers are held anywhere for anyone to steal, and anything left on an order record is deleted on its own once it is 120 days old. Prices live on the pricing page rather than in a guide that ages, and you get 15 days to try it with no card asked for.

Frequently asked questions

Is Lavu POS a good choice for a small restaurant?

It is a tablet-based suite, which suits a restaurant that wants to start quickly. Judge it by the modules you will actually switch on, the two year cost of those, and how easily you could leave.

What should I ask before buying any suite?

Which modules are included, what each one costs when you add it later, what the notice period is, and whether you can export your own sales and customer data without asking anyone.

Can I run Get Menu alongside an iPad system?

Yes, and that is the usual arrangement. The counter handles money in the room and this handles the orders that arrive from outside it.

How do customers pay?

Cash or your own card machine when the food arrives. The software carries the order and never touches the money.

Does it work with Indonesian VAT invoicing?

It issues an invoice carrying your registration number as a PDF. Check how that fits your e-Faktur reporting, and ask the same question of any counter system you buy.