Restaurant management is the process of managing the operations of a food service outlet. It involves providing a rich customer experience across all touchpoints in the customer journey, all in a bid to impact the bottom line positively.

For this to happen, a restaurant manager needs to organize various aspects of the business, from marketing to financing, inventory, and team management, to be in sync to have a seamless operational process.

To facilitate this process, a restaurant management system is the go-to for most food service establishments.

In this post, we will be taking an in-depth look at the nitty-gritty of restaurant management software, the benefits of having restaurant management software, and the best restaurant management software in 2022.

For Restaurant Owners: Restuarant Inventory Sheet Form

What is Restaurant Management Software?

A restaurant management system is a software application that simplifies food business operations. It is built like a point of sale application, with add-ons like an online presence, recording transactions, analyzing data, managing inventory, supporting marketing activities, CRM, and generally streamlining the food service business process.

More importantly, it can integrate seamlessly with existing accounting and employee software.

A restaurant management process takes care of all the administrative functions and frees time to focus on more strategic functions like food recipes, creativity, and customer experience. 

A system of this type may be a comprehensive all-in-one solution, including elements of a point-of-sale system, such as payment processing, with more complex back-end features, such as workforce management, inventory management, and a booking or reservations system. However, some restaurant management systems focus on specific areas.

Try For Free: Food Feedback Form Template

Why Use a Restaurant Management System Software?

A restaurant management system offers a 360 solution, which usually includes a pos system: Payment processing, booking and reservation management, employee management tools, and inventory management.

The essence of this is to provide automation and speed and exceed customer experience expectations. Some of them include;

• Provides real-time access on the go

It is mostly cloud-based, so business owners can connect with their business, no matter where they are. That way, Omni channels can be run seamlessly across multiple outlets in various locations.

• Cost Control

A restaurant management software is an effective tool for cost management. This is so because inventory management is automated via the software, and the result is smart suggestive ordering, eliminating excess ordering and, ultimately, food wastage.

• Fosters Maximum Profitability

With the RMS, restaurant managers can set up alerts for changes in vendor pricing. This would help you stay on top of expenses and make related menu adjustments. More so, this process maps the cost of food to the price of your menu, which clarifies profitability. This insight can help determine the pricing based on real-time data.

Use For Free: Food Inventory Form Template

Benefits of Using a Restaurant Management System

The benefits of adopting a restaurant management system are numerous and create real value for restaurant owners.

1. Sales Tracking

It allows tracking of all sales made in real-time. This, in turn, provides an accurate picture of your business. Variances can be spotted almost immediately with the software.

A dashboard provides a holistic view of things from sales data to stock levels and order volume. Best of all, it can analyze sales data and classify them from quick-selling items to low-selling stock, customers with the highest purchases, repeat buyers, etc.

2. A Rich Customer Experience

A restaurant management system is one of the keys to an awesome customer experience. This is so because of the CRM features embedded in most RSM software. It captures all the customer detail up to the most minute details like customer preferences, birthdays, and transaction value.

With this data, business owners can proffer a more personalized service, create loyalty programs, deliver campaigns and newsletters based on clients’ order history, and much more.

3. Automate Financial Records 

As transactions are recorded digitally, errors in financial records are eliminated. Details such as time of purchase, name of the employee who treated the transaction, and the number of items sold, are all populated automatically, which ensures accuracy and saves time.

4. Data Acess In Realtime

With most RSM software, storage is cloud-based, enabling access to sales data on the go in real-time. This way, owners can monitor all activities in their outlets remotely.

Manage Customer Sentiment With This: Restaurant Satisfaction Survey Template

5. Bridges Communication Gap

Since all the data in a restaurant is automated via the restaurant management system, there is no gap in information and no avenue to mix up customer orders. The kitchen staff can access the client’s orders in real-time and treat them in the order in which they arrived, thereby eliminating delays.

The inventory department can also see their stock levels and initiate order replenishments without waiting for a sales report from the sales team. Information sharing and processing are always in sync with RSM software.

5. Staff Rota Management

A restaurant management system removes the headache of creating a staff rota with its employee scheduling software. This feature allows employees to fix their schedules, and everyone can see open or filled slots and make swaps based on agreed shift requirements schedules.

This eliminates conflicts in shift preference, and everyone knows their schedules in real-time, and reminders can be set automatically; that way, there are no gaps in operation. 

What to Look Out for When Choosing a Restaurant Management Software

1. Self-serve options

A self-serve option is non-negotiable when choosing restaurant management software. Ideally, the software should cater to mobile and online ordering. That way, customers can fill their orders and pick them up at the nearest self-serve kiosk with minimal human interaction.

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2. Quick order customization

The RSM software should be smart enough to upsell or recommend add-ons based on clients’ previous orders. This feature is an absolute delight to customers and is something close to the human touch that customers appreciate when using the software.

3. Payment Integration

Restaurant management software should have an integrated payment solution that seamlessly connects all your sales to one centralized system.

Use this: Restaurant Order Form Template

4. Flexibility

A modern restaurant management solution should be flexible enough to accommodate sudden changes from any central location and communicate the same to all your outlets in real-time. This would eliminate gaps and ensure that the menu syncs with all the available outlets. It should also be able to adapt to all the requirements your business needs and be adaptable to various outlets based on their unique needs.

For Food Business Owners: Table Reservation Form Template

5. Quick Checkout/Smart Interface

Nothing is more frustrating than software that responds slowly, with a complicated interface that requires a lot of training to navigate. Hence software that can quickly work even with the slowest internets and update itself when the internet is at its peak is key.

6. Inventory Management

A restaurant management software without inventory management features is like a fridge that keeps warm. It is important to see, track and manage stock levels via an automated process. This is key to managing food costs and determining ideal profit margins. 

7. Reports & Analytics

This is the deal-breaker for any quality restaurant management software. The features should be able to generate real-time reports and analytics based on whatever parameters the business owner wants to see or measure. 

8. Reservations/Table Management

An ideal software should feature table management systems and reservation options. This way, managers can know the status of their reservations and see cancellations requests and available tables. This feature ensures owners are on top of their operations at all times.

9.360 Support

The quality of the support system of your provider can either encourage or frustrate your business. Be sure real people and not bots handle the support numbers work and the support emails. This is key to ensuring you get the help you need when needed the most.

10. Marketing Tools Features/Integration

Marketing tools that can help grow your business is a nice to have to add on, either as a feature or as a flexible option for integration. To generate traffic at slow periods, loyalty programs, gift card options, discounts, and loyalty points earned based on purchase frequency should be part of the offerings of your software.

How Formplus Can Help Restaurant Managers

Formplus can provide 360 support for restaurant managers with its wide array of cloud-based form templates, which can help food business owners manage their restaurants effectively.

Formplus for Business 

This feature provides form templates that can be customized to match your food brand identity with your company logo and brand image. These templates can be integrated across all payment forms, invoices, and reports.

With its employee management data templates, applications like leave requests and shift changes can be processed, and employees can access this information in real-time.

The client service feature in this template also allows managers to embed a form on your website, gather customer information, direct them to your website, and process payment through the order forms via a wide variety of online payment gateway.

Restaurant Inventory Sheet Form

With this free inventory management template, restaurant managers can never lose track of their inventory. Names and records of available stock can be recorded, tracked and shared in real-time across departments. This can help automate and fast-track stock replenishment.

Restaurant Satisfaction Survey Template

With these feedback survey forms, restaurant managers can gather customer feedback in real-time before they leave the restaurant or at whatever channel they are served. This can help you to acknowledge customer complaints and address them on the go, which is key to delivering a pleasant customer experience.

This survey template can be embedded on your website and shared via email or QR codes, accessed on your restaurant’s fliers, access gates, and menu cards.

Free Booking Form Templates

Formplus booking templates are ideal for restaurants, and the customizable form builder allows users to create beautiful reservation forms customized to suit their needs. The variety of forms can be embedded into websites and social media channels and can be used to attract quality customers. Sign up here to build your forms for free from any of the templates for restaurant businesses

13 Best Restaurant Management Software in 2022

1. TouchBistro

Price: From 69$ monthly  

TouchBistro is a robust all-in-one restaurant management system with an intuitive design that makes it easy to use with minimal training. It supports a wide range of food business niches, like food trucks, full-service restaurants, fine dining, quick-service restaurants, coffee shops, breweries, bakeries, and lots more.

Touchbistro aids restaurants in streamlining all aspects of their position by automating all aspects of their hitherto manual operation, freeing up more time to focus on customer experience. With over 29,000 users in over 100 countries, TouchBistro is the market leader in restaurant management software technology. There is currently no free trial available.

Features

• Payment processing
• Menu Management
• Staff Management
• Floor plan and table management
• Customer Support
• Integrations
• Tableside ordering
• Inventory management
• Reports& Analytics 

Pros

• Customer support
• Intuitive and easy to use
• It does not require the internet to run
• Menu photos display to customers
• Data reporting and analytics. 

Cons

TouchBistro’s partnership with Apple makes it difficult and expensive to use, as expensive hardware must be purchased separately in other to use the software.

2. Toast POS

Price: $0 – $165  

Toast POS features flexible management suited exclusively to the food service business. Its solutions include ordering, delivery, payments, and gift card purchasing automation. With Toast Pos, data from the restaurant can be accessed in real-time from any location. Adjustments and updates can be inputted into the system from any terminal. The report and analytic features easily display top-selling products and integrate seamlessly with other applications.

Best of all, it fosters an awesome client experience by allowing users to track their bills at the bar and have a peek into the drink recipes. It then ensures employee satisfaction by automating fair tips on the payment check-out page.

With well over 57,000 thousand users, it is easy to see why Toast Pos is popular in the food industry and rated as No 1 in 2021 by G2.

 Features: 

• Cloud-based Point of Sale
• Payment Processing
• Customer Care
• Digital Ordering
• Third-Party Delivery Services and Partner Integrations

Pros:

• Ease of integration
• Flexible and easy to update remotely
• The interface is amazing and well defined

Con: Occasional delay in getting customer support 

3. When I Work

Price:0$-8$ per user monthly

When I Work is an employee scheduling solution built to help restaurant owners manage employee scheduling seamlessly across multiple shifts. Employees get notifications of their shifts and schedule changes when I work and can request shift swaps from their mobile devices. Shift managers, on the other hand,d can track attendance and time, create new schedules, make changes, add new job responsibilities, and much more.

Best of all, it can integrate seamlessly with various payroll software providers and 360 customer support.

Features: 

• API 
• Access Controls
• Permissions
• Accounting Integration
• Activity Dashboard
• Activity Tracking
• Alerts/Notifications
• Approval Process Control

Pros: 

• Available integrations
• Ease of scheduling and ease of accessibility.
• Mobile team communication app-enabled and ability to see acknowledged schedules.

 Con: 

• Difficulty with adjusting availability 
• Extra cost to message a larger number of team members

4. Lightspeed Restaurant

Price:39$-289$

Lightspeed Restaurant POS is a cloud-based one-stop management software that provides awesome customer experiences. Its solution simplifies operations and promotes business scaling at the speed of light. This one-stop restaurant platform helps hospitality businesses simplify, scale, and provide exceptional customer experiences.

It helps businesses stay agile and provides a flexible payment solution by accepting various forms of payment. It integrates seamlessly with delivery partners like uber eats to allow customers to order from any location and deliver it in minutes conveniently.

With lightspeed restaurant software, users can get sales reports, employee performance reports, and analytics of products, trends, and customer behavior, all in real-time.

Features

• Automated Delivery
• Accounting
• Payment Integration
• Order from anywhere
• Inventory Management
• Insights

Pros

• Analytics package to help measure performance
• Multiple integration options
• Consistent Support
• The accurate data reporting feature

Cons

• Steep learning curve
• Constant upgrades that are difficult  to understand
• Returns not enabled on the inventory management system
• The display is not so modern and not user friendly
• Works only with internet

5. 7shifts

Price:0$-69.99$

7shifts is a restaurant scheduling software that simultaneously automates team schedules, tasks, communication, tips, and timesheets in one place. Users can create personalized shift schedules with its intuitive drag-and-drop kanban style builder. It is mobile-friendly, so managers and employees can manage availability, leave requests, performance tracking, and much more from a mobile app. It is trusted by over 700,000 users globally, and its reviews and ratings are top-notch.

Features

• Scheduling, time off, and availability
• Time clock & Timesheets
• Team chat and announcements
• Hiring & applicant tracking
• Employee engagement tracking
• POS integration

Pros

• Affordable and functional
• Easy use, plug-and-play feature
• Easy communication function

Cons

• Constant updates without prior notification

6. Restaurant365

Price:$399-Custom billed monthly

Restaurant365 software is essential for food business owners as it seamlessly manages a restaurant’s essential operations and accounting functions across Omni channels. It provides a 360 view of how the restaurant is performing, side by side, and how much is expended. With its cloud-based feature, access to data is provided in real-time. One of its most prominent features is its ability to centralize data from multiple locations and integrate seamlessly with over 70 top-range POS systems, payroll, and human resource management systems.

Features

• Accounting
• Store Operations
• Workforce management

Pros

• Direct Integration
• Easy to use
• Vendor Integration
• Recipe Cost Management
• Scalability compliant

Cons

• Not price friendly

7. eRestaurant Systems

Price: Custom pricing

eRestaurant Systems is an end-to-end management system developed by Altametrics. The software features a robust solution from back office operations to sales/demand forecasting and food management, which includes prep labeling, ordering, and inventory management. erestaurant systems also support workforce management, scheduling, time management tools to prevent labor law violations, and reporting and analytics.

It is suitable for different restaurant types, from small QSRs to multi locations restaurants. It has been used by well over 100,000 customers globally.

Features

• Inventory Management
• Employee Management
• Billing & Invoicing
• Built-In Accounting
• Reporting/Analytics

Cons 

• High Scalability
• KPI dashboard display/tracking
• ERP integration
• Mobile support

Pros

• The dashboard display is outdated

8. HotSchedules

Price: Custom pricing

HotSchedules is a cloud-based management software that supports restaurants, retail, and hospitality organizations. It facilitates employee scheduling, attendance, business performance, and operations across multiple locations. With its mobile app, employees can perform multiple administrative functions fluidly.

Features

• Alerts/Notifications
• Automated Scheduling
• Availability Management
• Budgeting/Forecasting
• Calendar Management
• Calendar Sync
• Cost Management
• Employee Database
• Employee Management
• Employee Scheduling

Pros

• Fluid scheduling functions
• Staff messaging enabled
• Overtime tracking 
• Swap and shift pick-up functions 

Cons

• Poor customer service response time
• High cost of purchasing the software
• Too many notifications
• Slow interface and delay in navigating different functions

9. FoodHub

Price: Custom pricing

FoodHub is a reliable restaurant management system that helps food business owners streamline operations, automate marketing, and interact with loyal customers from one platform. It connects restaurant businesses in multiple locations and connects them with their customers.

Features

• Point of sale system
• Online ordering
• Mobile App

Pros

• Easy navigation
• Great restaurants with good food

Cons

• Delay in food delivery
• No synergy in treating requests

10. Clover

Price:0$-Custom

Clover is a 360-solution point-of-sale and payments system that syncs payment functions of a cash register, card payment terminal, and POS system. It is a cloud-based platform providing access from any location and simplifying daily operations and administrative functions effortlessly.

Features

• Accounting
• Activity Dashboard
• Appointment Management
• Barcode / Ticket Scanning
• Billing & Invoicing

Pros

• Easy to set up
• Reward points
• Safe and secure

Cons

• Poor integration
• Weak reporting

11. Petpooja

Price:110$-150$ Annually

Petpooja is a full-fledged restaurant management platform that supports users’ offline and online works via a single point. It is popular in India, the Arab Emirates, and South Africa and boasts a 35,000-plus customer base.

Features

• CRM 
• Inventory Management
• Reports & Analytics
• Integrations
• Menu Management

Pros

• Multiple payments gateways
• Customer loyalty program
• Robust Customer support
• Multiple Languages supported

Cons

• UI interface is outdated

12. ChefMod

Price:60$-Custom

ChefMod is a cloud-based online restaurant management system that organizes workflow, places orders, manages inventory, and processes invoices. One of the unique features of ChefMod is its Ezrecipe solution, which records the costs of ingredients per recipe, and helps managers to make adjustments that can increase profitability.

Features

• Online ordering
• Inventory management
• Forecasting
• Billing/Invoice processing
• Accounting
• Cost Management

Pros

• Inventory alerts on stock levels
• Profitability analysis
• Excellent customer service
• Qualitative Insights

Cons

• Interface freezes, and you require customer support to unlock
• Search functions are not  customizable

13. Rosnet Food Management

Rosnet is a restaurant management solution that tracks financial trends and manages inventory budgets and workforce management. It also provides intuitive insights on product management, reasons for the loss, hygiene process review, and general auditing. 

Features

• Labour management
• Food management
• Payroll processing
• Integration

Pros

• Accurate food cost forecasting
• Direct vendor management
• Realtime insights and analysis

Cons

• Clumsy Interface

Conclusion

A restaurant management system is essential to managing a food business successfully, especially in this age and time when technology simplifies and automates processes to achieve better results.