A POS system for pizza shop owners: what to ask before buying

A pos system for pizza shop owners gets sold the way a car gets sold, by showing you the version with everything on it. One shop with one oven does not need everything, and the difference is money you keep every month.

This is a buying guide for a single shop. What you are really purchasing, six questions that cut a shortlist quickly, and the parts you can put off for a year without regret.

The business is the cheap part, the software is the recurring part

Worth keeping in proportion. In Kuwait, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry lists establishing a one person company under the free micro licence with service fees of 0 and an estimated time for service of 3 days, for applicants aged 21 and over doing an activity permitted under Ministerial Resolution No. 330 of 2017. Later changes are small and quick too: changing the activity on a commercial licence is 60 KD with an estimated time of one day.

Setting the shop up on paper costs you days and small fees. The software you sign for is a payment every month for years, and it is usually chosen faster than the licence. Slow that decision down.

Write the four jobs before you look at any product

Software gets compared feature to feature, which is how a shop ends up paying for three products that overlap. Write the jobs instead.

Take money from someone standing in front of you. Cash, card machine, receipt.

Take orders from people who are not standing in front of you. Phone, messages, delivery.

Know what you have. Dough balls, boxes, the topping you always run out of.

Know who bought from you. Names and numbers you can reach again without paying somebody for the privilege.

A counter register does the first well. Most do the second badly, because the order still has to be typed by a person. Judge each product on which of the four it covers, and refuse to pay twice for the same job.

Six questions that shorten a shortlist

What is the total over two years, with only the parts I will switch on? Not the monthly headline. Licences per device, support, and the setup fee if there is one.

Is there a fee per device or per user? This is where a tablet setup quietly doubles. Used POS systems for restaurants covers what does and does not transfer if you are buying second hand hardware to avoid it.

Does anything take a percentage of what I sell? A commission on orders is the one cost that grows exactly as your good months arrive. Ask directly, and ask whether it applies to orders you brought in yourself.

Can I export my customer list, today, in a file I can open? Ask them to show you the button. If the answer is a support ticket, your customers are their asset.

What is switched off unless I pay more? Loyalty, reporting and online ordering are the three usually sold separately.

What happens when the internet drops? Anything cloud based stops taking new orders. That is a real answer and an honest supplier gives it. Cloud based point of sale explains the trade in full.

What a one shop pizza place can put off

Not everything has to be bought in the first year.

Detailed stock costing per gram of cheese can wait. Counting what runs out during service cannot.

A second screen for the kitchen can wait if the team is three people who can see each other. A way for orders to reach them without shouting cannot.

Loyalty can wait until you have enough regulars for it to mean something, which for most shops is a few months, not a few days.

Multi branch reporting can wait until there is a second branch.

"The most expensive thing a small shop buys is the feature it will use in year three. It gets paid for in month one and every month after, and by year three the shop has changed shape anyway. Buy the parts that earn something this quarter." — Tanzeel ur Rehman, co-founder of Get Menu

Where we fit, and what we are not

Get Menu covers the second and fourth jobs on that list, and part of the third. It is not a register, so there is no cash drawer, no receipt printing at the counter and no reporting to a tax authority. Whatever handles that stays.

What it does handle:

Your own ordering page, on your own address on getmenu.ae, included in every plan, with 12 page layouts and a photo style you set once. Upload the whole menu from a spreadsheet rather than typing it in.

Options and add-ons carrying their own prices, with required choices, so a size is always picked and every extra reaches the bill. Counts per item and per option fall as orders come in, and an item greys itself out at zero without anybody watching. Every line is priced again from your live menu at checkout.

Orders reaching your team as messages: a confirmation to the customer, a kitchen ticket to your group, and a rider link carrying the map pin dropped at checkout with the building and flat picked from a list. Every message logged with whether it arrived.

Tables covered too, with a code generated for every table and a group ordering onto one bill.

Regulars kept: stamps, tiers your regulars grow into, and a card in Google Wallet that updates itself with no app to install, with Apple Wallet built and waiting on a certificate. Coupons with caps, exclusions and expiry dates so an offer cannot run away with your margin.

Your books served: invoices carrying your tax registration number as a PDF, a sales dashboard by day and item, and an export of your customer list to a spreadsheet whenever you want it, including the day you decide to leave.

The pricing is a flat monthly amount published on our pricing page, and we take 0% of what you sell. The figures live there rather than here so they cannot go stale in an article.

What we do not do

No online payments. Cash or your own card machine at the door, and no card details anywhere in the system.

No collection order type, no scheduled ordering, no pre-order.

No counter register, no fiscal receipts, no payroll and no supplier ordering. POS software for a restaurant sets out what those products cover.

An order of buying that works

Week one, get the shop registered and get a menu written down with real prices and real options. That document is the input to everything else.

Week two, take orders from outside the shop. This is the half that pays for itself fastest, because it is the half currently costing you a member of staff on the phone.

Month two, put a register at the counter if you have walk-in trade. By then you know how much of it there is.

Month four, look at loyalty, once you can name twenty customers who came back.

Our trial runs 15 days and needs no card details to begin, which is long enough to run a fortnight of real orders before deciding anything.

Frequently asked questions

Do you take a commission on my orders?

No. There is a flat monthly price on the pricing page and 0% of what you sell. Selling more does not change what you owe us.

Can this be my only system?

Only if you have no walk-in counter trade. There is no cash drawer and no receipt printer, so most shops keep a register and use us for orders arriving from phones and tables.

Can I take my customer list with me if I leave?

Yes. Names, numbers and order history are exported to a spreadsheet whenever you want, including on your last day.

How do customers pay?

Cash or your own card machine when the order is handed over. There are no online payments, so no card details are stored anywhere.

How long does setup take?

Most kitchens are taking orders the same day. If your menu already exists in a spreadsheet, uploading it is faster than typing every item.