Top 5 POS Systems for Bar: Our Ultimate Guide
By Sam Nguyen
To assist you in making an informed choice, we have compiled a list of the top 5 bar POS systems.
Key Takeaways
- Bars require specialized POS systems that cater to their unique needs, such as quick and accurate order processing, age verification, efficient inventory management, menu customization, and detailed analytics.
- Shopify POS stands out for its strong mobile POS, customization options, and ecommerce integration. It is a great choice for bar owners of any size, particularly those with multiple locations, operating in mobile environments, or regularly hosting special events.
Why Does My Bar Need a POS System?
A point of sale (POS) system is crucial for any bar for several reasons:
Easy and quick order
At a bar or pub, customers often have several rounds of drinks; they could be cocktails, well drinks, or call drinks. A point-of-sale system helps bartenders accurately take these orders, ensuring prompt service and reducing errors of manual order-taking. Additionally, POS systems can include drink recipes, ensuring consistency across all bartenders.
Enhanced security
With built-in age verification functionality, the POS system helps staff validate the age of customers before serving them alcoholic beverages, thereby avoiding legal issues and potential fines.
The ability to preauthorize payments is a valuable feature of a bar POS system. Bartenders can securely swipe the card and store the details for their bar tab. This way, bars can effectively prevent the use of fake or stolen cards, as well as avoid unpaid checks due to insufficient funds.
Efficient inventory management
Most POS systems for bars and nightclubs have a built-in real-time inventory tracking feature, which enables establishments to keep a close eye on every drink served and avoid issues like free drinks and over-pouring.
Better menu management
With a well-designed, you can categorize your menu into multiple sections such as vodka, beer, cocktails, and special drinks. This will increase productivity and reduce the waiting time for customers.
If your bar offers happy hours, relaxing Saturdays, drink specials, pitcher specials, or hosts private events, it’s essential to have a bar POS system to adapt to your changing menu quickly.
Detailed analytics
Bar owners can access detailed sales reports of sales trends, peak hours, and customer preferences using a POS system. Such insights can help bar managers adjust their offerings, optimize pricing, and enhance customer satisfaction.
How Does POS Work In A Bar?
- Booking: Customers can book a table or spot at your bar. The system will keep track of these reservations.
- Order Placement: When a customer is ready to order, the bartender or server uses the POS system to enter the items requested.
- Order Processing: The POS system processes the order, including tasks like updating the inventory in real-time and calculating the price. The POS can also save the tab if the customer wants to ring in another round. The tab can be assigned to a specific table or spot at the bar for table management.
- Payment Preauthorization: Bartenders swipe the customer’s credit or debit card, verify the details, and securely save them at their tab.
- Payment Processing: When customers are ready to close their tabs, the POS system processes the payment using the card used for preauthorization. Alternatively, the system can also accept cash and mobile payments.
- Update reporting and Analytics: The POS system generates and updates detailed reports and analytics.
Top 5 Bar POS Systems
Some point-of-sale systems are specifically designed to meet the bar and pub industry’s needs; some are more generalized, offering specific features and add-ons suitable for managing a bar. Here are five of the best POS systems for bars and pubs:
Shopify POS: Best For Beach Bars
Pricing
- Software fees: Start at $0/month
- Hardware fees: From $39 to $399
- Processing fees: Start at 2.4% + 0¢
Pros and cons
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Why We Chose This POS System For Bars & Pubs
Mobility and Customization
The Shopify POS app is available on mobile devices running iOS and Android, enabling you to take orders and payments tableside, barside or on the go. This makes Shopify POS an ideal solution for small bars operating in limited spaces or during busy times.
Bar offerings and prices often change throughout the day or year. For instance, you may have special pricing for happy hour, game-day specials, or seasonal drinks. With Shopify POS, you can easily customize your menus and prices for these special events.
Moreover, you can customize the POS interface for greater convenience, ensuring faster order placement and payment processing. While Shopify POS may not have built-in features specifically designed for bars, it offers integration options with various third-party apps on the Shopify App Store, from floor management to thief prevention.
Omnichannel management
The synchronization between the Shopify POS and its online store enables bars to accept online ordering or reservations, sell tickets, provide local delivery, and offer pick-up options. This seamless integration ensures your bar can efficiently manage these operations with instant data updates.
This POS works best for
- Beach bars
- Live music bars
- Bars that run private events
- Bars with multiple locations
Square for Restaurant: Best For Bars With Limited Budget
Pricing
- Software fees: Start at $0/month
- Hardware fees: From $0 for a Reader for magstripe to $1,389 for a Station kit
- Processing fees: Start at 2.6% + 10¢
Pros and cons
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Why We Chose This POS System For Bars & Pubs
No up-front cost
Square is an affordable option for small bars as it offers a $0 setup cost. It provides essential features like staff and customer management, floor management, mobile POS, customizable menus, detailed reports, split checks, and tips. Square’s item-level inventory feature is particularly useful for tracking glasses of wine and individual bottles, making it suitable for most bar needs.
Efficient employee management
With Square, you can effortlessly set shift schedules, manage time-off requests, and facilitate traded shifts within seconds. Additionally, using Square Payroll lets you easily track and import tips while saving money on unlimited pay runs.
Square provides a Live Sales tab where you can view real-time information. This includes open checks, both with and without a finalized tip amount, as well as closed checks, which prove useful for theft prevention and overall monitoring of your business’s sales activity.
This POS works best for
- Small bars
- Bars have tighter profit margins
- Start-up bars and pubs
Toast: Best For Full-Service Bars
Pricing
- Software fees: Start at $0/month
- Hardware fees: From $0 to $1,009
- Processing fees: Start at 2.49% + 15¢
Pros and cons
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Why We Chose This POS System For Bars & Pubs
Preauthorization of credit and debit cards
Toast offers a built-in preauthorization feature for credit and debit cards. This feature helps prevent the use of fake or stolen cards and reduces the risk of large unpaid checks or dine-and-dash situations. With just one tap, bartenders can quickly process preauthorizations, thus speeding up service and enabling them to devote more time to preparing drinks.
Hardware is included at no additional cost
Toast provides a comprehensive solution at no initial cost. Its $0 Pay-as-you-go plan includes all the necessary equipment for your bar, including the software and durable, spill-proof POS hardware from a handheld device to a whole countertop kit.
This POS works best for
- Full-service bars with liquor, beer, wine, and food
- Small bars with limited budget
Lightspeed Restaurant: Best for cocktail and high-concept bars
Pricing
- Software fees: Start at $69/month/1 location + 1 register
- Hardware fees: From $199 to $329
- Processing fees: Start at 2.6% + 10¢
Pros and cons
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Why We Chose This POS System For Bars & Pubs
Ingredient-level inventory tracking
Lightspeed offers a comprehensive inventory tracking feature that operates at the ingredient level. With Lightspeed Restaurant, you can track various product types and quantities, from packs, liters, bottles to cups and glasses, in real-time. The system also provides low-stock alerts, ensuring you are notified when popular items are running low.
Recipe look-up
Lightspeed’s POS system allows you to enter cocktail recipes. This enables your bartenders to easily access cocktail recipes with just a push of a button, quickly fulfill any requested drink order, meet customer expectations, and deliver exceptional service. This feature is particularly valuable for craft cocktail operations, where customers often request unique and specialized drinks.
This POS works best for
- Bars with large inventory
- Craft cocktail bars, wine bars
- High-concept bars
Clover POS: Best For Wine Bars
Pricing
- Software fees: Start at $84.95/month
- Hardware fees: From $359 to $4,097
- Processing fees: Start at 2.3% + 10
Pros and cons
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Why We Chose This POS System For Bars & Pubs
Offline functionality
Even if the Wi-Fi connection is lost, bar owners can still accept payments with Clover POS. The sales made during offline mode will be reconciled once the connection is restored. With offline functionality enabled, POS devices can process payments without an internet connection for up to 7 days.
Simple billing and tipping process
Clover POS offers a variety of payment options, such as credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, mobile wallets, contactless payments, and cash. It also enables bill splitting, ensuring that each guest receives an itemized receipt for their payment. Additionally, clover POS allows bartenders to set pre-set tip amounts, eliminating the need to ask your customers for tip preferences.
This POS works best for
- Wine bars
- Fancy bars
- Pubs
Our Methodology for Evaluating Bar POS Systems
We conducted a thorough comparison of over a dozen popular POS systems, placing the following criteria in order of importance:
- POS functionality for bars, pubs, and other beverage operations: We specifically looked for POS systems that provide essential features catering to bars, such as built-in card pre-authorizations, online ordering capabilities, the ability to sell merchandise and bottles, menu management, and kitchen display system software.
- Pricing structure: We considered POS systems that offer pricing plans aligned with their offerings, ensuring that the costs are reasonable and accommodate the needs of bars and similar establishments.
- Expert evaluations and user reviews: We took into account the opinions of our POS and bar experts, who evaluated each software based on their expertise. Additionally, we considered real-world user reviews to gain insights into the actual user experiences with the POS systems.
5 Must-have Features For Bar POS Systems
If you’re looking for a bar POS system, here are 5 must-have features to look for:
- Bar & Liquor inventory management: A bar point-of-sale (POS) system is essential for inventory monitoring. It helps you track what’s available on the shelf, in the wine cellar, and the fridge. With a reliable POS, whenever you pour a drink or sell a bottle, it automatically updates the inventory count across all your locations and channels.
- Employee & Customer management: Modern POS systems serve as valuable employee management tools, allowing you to set user permissions and generate reports to track sales, tips, and comped drinks. A good POS system should have basic time-tracking capabilities for setting shifts and clocking hours, enabling employees to clock in and out and provide efficient customer service easily.
- Tabs management: Naturally, it’s important to have the ability to create and monitor customer tabs using an “open ticket” or “suspend” function in the POS system. Ideally, the system should offer a pre-authorization feature and bill splitting.
- Customization: When selecting a POS system, ensure it offers the flexibility to customize menus, prices, tips, and even the point-of-sale interface to align with your evolving business requirements.
- Report analytics: A POS system with robust reporting capabilities allows you to monitor your bar’s sales and other metrics, assess your business’s performance, identify areas that need improvements, and make informed decisions for your establishment.
Bottom Line
That concludes our list of the best bar POS systems. When it comes to choosing a POS system for your bar, the 5 providers above offer a range of features and functionalities tailored to meet the specific needs of the bar and pub industry.
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