Pizzeria POS systems: the oven decides, the software protects it

A pizzeria has one hard limit that no software changes. The oven holds what it holds, and a good pizzaiolo turns out a certain number of pizzas an hour on a Saturday. That number is the business.

So when you look at pizzeria POS systems, the useful question is not which screen is prettiest. It is which system stops that number being wasted on wrong orders, missing details and pizzas going cold while somebody finds an address.

This article covers the Italian rules your counter has to satisfy, the three streams of orders a pizzeria takes, and where a register stops being the right tool.

The receipt rules, because they are not optional

Whatever you buy for the counter has to satisfy the Agenzia delle Entrate.

The Agenzia states that businesses in retail trade and similar activities, expressly including restaurants and those who previously issued ricevute fiscali, must store and transmit corrispettivi electronically, and that since 1 January 2021 the documento commerciale can be issued only with a registratore telematico or the Agenzia's own free web procedure.

Two consequences for your shortlist.

Your counter system has to be an Italian one, sold and supported here, working with a registratore telematico. A foreign product with a beautiful interface and no Italian fiscal path is not a candidate, however good the reviews are.

And your commercialista is a better first call than any supplier. They already know which combinations they can close a year with, which narrows the search faster than a demo does.

What a pizzeria counter has to be quick at

Once the fiscal question is settled, judge the remaining systems on speed at the two moments that matter.

Taking a build-your-own order without a conversation. Base, size, extra toppings, half and half. If a member of staff has to type "senza cipolla" into a free note field, that note will be missed at least once a week.

Splitting a table. Six people, four pizzas, two beers and a bottle of water, and someone paying separately. A system that cannot split by item will cost you five minutes at the end of every busy table.

A restaurant POS covers what belongs at the counter, and POS for a burger business is worth a read because the add-on problem is the same one you have with toppings.

Three streams, and only one of them reaches the counter

Italy has a lot of pizzerias to compare yourself against. A CNA Alimentare statistical report counted 128,248 businesses producing and selling pizza, growing 1.1 percent on the year before. The ones that pull ahead are usually not the ones with the best register. They are the ones who stopped losing orders in the other two streams.

The room. People sitting down. Your counter handles this well.

Asporto. People collecting. Usually a phone call, usually during the exact 20 minutes you can least afford it.

Delivery. Someone else's app, or your own number, or both.

The register sees the first stream perfectly and the other two only when they arrive at it, already worked out by a person. That work is the part software should be doing.

What we built, in a pizzeria's terms

Get Menu handles ordering and delivery. It is not a register and it carries no fiscal device, so it lives beside your Italian counter system rather than replacing it.

Your own ordering page. The menu on an address of your own, with 57 colour themes and a font picker, built for one thumb on a phone. You send the link or print it as a code.

Toppings that behave. Options and add-ons carry their own prices, so a bufala upgrade and a double 'nduja charge what they should. Required choices mean a customer cannot send through a pizza with no size chosen. Nothing arrives as a free-text note for the pizzaiolo to interpret.

Availability the customer can see. Counts fall per item as orders come in and per option too, so running out of bufala takes the bufala choice away without taking four pizzas off the menu. At zero an item greys itself out, and cancelling an order returns the count.

Correct totals. Every line is priced again from your live menu at checkout, so nobody argues at the door about a figure that was right last month.

Menus you change during service. Categories and items reordered by dragging, and a whole menu uploaded from a spreadsheet if you already keep one, which is usually the difference between opening today and opening next week.

Tables. A code for every table, generated for you, with a designer so the printed card suits the room. The table is the address, and a group can order from several phones onto one bill instead of passing one menu around.

Delivery that finds the door. A map pin dropped at checkout, a building and unit picked from a list, a delivery fee per building, free delivery over a value you set, and a rider link that works without an account.

Everything reaches the team on WhatsApp. A confirmation to the customer, a ticket to your kitchen group, a dispatch to your riders' group. Every message is logged with whether it arrived.

A reason to order again. Stamps per order, per euro spent, or only on the pizza you want to sell more of. Tiers your regulars grow into with an automatic discount. A card in the customer's Google Wallet that updates itself with no app to install, with Apple Wallet built and waiting on a certificate.

Offers that stop themselves. Coupons with caps, exclusions and expiry dates, bundles at a fixed price for a family order, and upsells that suggest a drink rather than nagging.

Numbers at the end of the month. A sales dashboard by day and item, invoices carrying your registration number as a PDF, and an export to a spreadsheet whenever you want one.

"The first pizzeria that tested this with us stopped answering the phone during the Saturday rush and answered it afterwards instead. Same oven, same staff. The pizzas stopped waiting on the counter while somebody wrote down an address."

— Anzul Aqeel, founder of Get Menu

Where we stop, and one of these matters to you

There is no collection order type. Delivery and dine-in are what the system understands, so asporto still runs the way it runs today. For a pizzeria, that is the biggest of our limits and you should weigh it before anything else.

There is no scheduled ordering and no pre-order either. A customer orders for now, inside your opening hours, and cannot book eight o'clock tomorrow.

There are no online payments. Cash, or your own card machine at the door or the table. That means no card details exist in our system at all, and it also means we cannot take money before the pizza leaves.

And we are not a registratore telematico. Anything that has to be transmitted to the Agenzia goes through your Italian counter system, not through us.

A first two weeks worth doing

Put only delivery orders through it. Leave the room and the counter exactly as they are.

Load the ten pizzas you sell most, with their real options, rather than the whole menu. You can add the rest later.

Send the link as your reply to the next delivery enquiry instead of reading prices down the phone.

Then count how many delivery orders arrived with a correct total and an address you did not have to ring about. An online ordering system for restaurants explains the wider mechanics if you want the background first.

The trial is 15 days, takes no card details to begin, and takes 0% of what you sell, so the test costs you an evening of typing.

Frequently asked questions

Can this replace my registratore telematico?

No. Corrispettivi have to go through an Italian fiscal system, and ours is not one. Keep your counter system and use us for ordering and delivery.

Does it handle takeaway collection orders?

No. There is no collection order type. The system understands delivery and dine-in, so orders for collection still go through your usual process.

How do customers pay?

Cash or your own card machine at the door or the table. There are no online payments, so no card details are stored anywhere in the system.

Can customers choose half and half or extra toppings?

Options and add-ons carry their own prices and can be made required, so size and base are always chosen and extras are priced correctly rather than typed as a note.

Can I try it without changing anything in the room?

Yes. Most pizzerias start on delivery orders only for the first fortnight and leave the counter untouched.