Restaurant POS software South Africa: start with the invoice

Almost every conversation about restaurant POS software starts with screens, buttons and point of sale hardware. Those are matters of taste. Very little of what a vendor demonstrates is required of you by anybody.

The paperwork is different. There are rules about what you produce and hand over, and they do not change because you preferred a different supplier. So this article starts at the document and works backwards to the software, which is the opposite of how the sale is normally run.

What the law expects your documents to look like

If you are a registered vendor, SARS is specific about it.

On its tax invoices page, SARS states that a full tax invoice is required when the price is more than R5 000, and it lists what such a document must carry: the words tax invoice, VAT invoice or invoice, the name, address and VAT registration number of the supplier, the recipient's details where the recipient is a vendor, a serial number and date of issue, an accurate description of what was supplied, the quantity or volume, and the value of the supply with the tax charged shown. An abridged tax invoice may be issued where the amount is R5 000 or less. Below R50 no tax invoice is required at all, though you still keep a printed sales slip showing the VAT.

Read that list once more with your current software in mind. Three of those points are where systems quietly fail: the serial number, the description, and the value of the supply matching what you actually took.

The threshold moved, and it matters to small restaurants

Whether any of this applies to you at all has just changed.

SARS puts the standard rate at 15 percent and the compulsory registration threshold at R2.3 million, raised from R1 million with effect from 1 April 2026, with the voluntary threshold lifted to R120 000. A lot of single-site restaurants that were pulled into registration by the old figure now sit below the new one.

If that is you, your software problem simplifies. What you need is an accurate record of what sold and for how much, not a compliance engine. If you are above the threshold, the document rules above are the shopping list.

The three places a system goes wrong on paper

A serial number has to be one unbroken sequence. Software that starts a new run per device, or skips numbers when a screen crashes, hands your accountant a puzzle nobody enjoys.

A description has to be accurate. If an order carried three add-ons and the document says one line called "meal", it is a weaker record than the paper pad it replaced.

And the total has to be the sum of its lines. That sounds too obvious to state. It stops being obvious the moment discounts, rounding and a promotion all touch one order.

"We made the total being the sum of the printed lines a rule the software cannot break, rather than something we check afterwards. An invoice that does not add up is not a small bug. It is the one document somebody else is entitled to rely on." — Agha Shah Zaman, co-founder of Get Menu

What we actually are, and what we are not

Get Menu is the ordering side of a restaurant. It is not a cash register and not a full accounting package, and it helps to say that before describing anything.

Your menu sits on your own address on getmenu.ae, included from the first day, with 12 page layouts so a long list and a short list read differently. Upload the whole menu from a spreadsheet rather than typing it, then reorder categories and items by dragging. Items carry options and add-ons with their own prices, and a choice can be marked required so nothing reaches the pass half decided.

Stock counts fall as orders come in, options carry counts of their own, and an item greys itself out at zero without a person watching. Every line is priced again from your live menu at checkout, which is the step that keeps the document honest, because the number on the screen and the number on the record come from the same place.

On the paperwork side, tax invoices are produced as a PDF carrying your registration number, numbered in one unbroken sequence, and the customer can download theirs without logging in. One caution, and it is ours to give: the tax line printed on that document is set to the rate we were built for in the United Arab Emirates, not the South African 15 percent. Treat it as an accurate order record and let your accounting software print the VAT document. A sales dashboard shows what sold by day, item and channel, and you can export to a spreadsheet whenever you want it.

Where the order goes once it is placed

Three messages go out over WhatsApp in about 2 seconds: a confirmation to the customer, a ticket into the managers' group, and a dispatch link into the drivers' group carrying the GPS pin dropped at checkout. Every message is logged with whether it arrived.

Inside the restaurant, a code is generated for every table, so the ticket knows where it came from. A group at one table can order onto one bill. For delivery, customers pick their building and unit from a list and you set a delivery fee per building.

The honest gaps

There are no online payments. Payment is cash or your card machine at the door, so no card details exist in the product at all. If you need to take money in advance, we are not the answer today.

We do not sell hardware, we do not drive a receipt printer, and we do not track ingredients by weight. We are not accounting software, we do not carry a South African tax rate today, and we file nothing with SARS on your behalf. The detail on an order is wiped once it is 120 days old. That is a privacy decision rather than an accounting one, so keep your own records wherever the law asks you to.

How to compare two vendors in one afternoon

Ask each of them to produce a real document from a real order with three add-ons and a discount on it. Then check the seven points SARS lists against what came out.

Ask what happens to the numbering when a device restarts. Ask whether the price on the customer's screen is calculated again before the order is accepted. Ask whether the monthly cost changes as your sales grow, because 0 percent commission and a flat monthly price are not the same promise as a low percentage.

Then ask the last one, which most people forget: on the day I leave, can I take my customer list and my sales history with me, in a file I can open?

For related reading, POS software for restaurants covers the software category, restaurant POS covers what the term means, and restaurant management software covers the wider set of tools.

You can run the ordering side for 15 days and we ask for no card details to start.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to be VAT registered to use this?

No. The document simply carries your registration number when you have one. Below the compulsory threshold, and not registered voluntarily, you still get numbered documents and a full sales record, which is what most small kitchens actually need.

Can customers pay online?

No. Payment is cash or your card machine at the door. That is a limit worth knowing before you start, and it is also why the system holds no card data of any kind.

Does this replace my cash register?

No, it sits beside it. Orders placed on your page arrive as WhatsApp tickets, and walk-in customers who pay at the counter carry on as they do now. Many restaurants run both for a long time.

Will my accountant accept these invoices?

As an order record, yes: numbered in one unbroken sequence, carrying your registration number, and adding up to the sum of their lines. As a South African VAT document, not yet, because the tax line is set to the rate we were built for. Your accounting package should print that one.