With all the new POS options out there today, it can be a little overwhelming. What does the lingo mean? Why should I care about what’s up and coming and how should I plan for the future? As we all know, business is innovative. If you’re not innovating, your competitors will win, when your competitors win, you lose and when you lose, your business suffers. The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast did a great job putting together a podcast discussing the new age of POS, defining the terms, what they mean, and why you should care.

POS Terms, What They Mean, And Why You Should Care

Traditional POS

Traditional POS describes the players in the space that have been in the POS world the longest. The restaurant operator that should consider traditional POS: risk averse operators or restaurant operations that are incredibly complicated or have diverse needs.

Electronic Cash Register (ECR)

ECRs are commonly seen in systems such as Square. These solutions are best suited for simple business models. Minimal needs, minimal customization, and just need a way to track sales and labor and take payments.

Mobile POS

Mobile point of sale simply means taking payments and orders from a device anywhere other than a POS station. It’s a broad term that is often used interchangeably with tablet and cloud POS, but defines a bigger means of taking orders. It could be defined from ordering online, ordering from a phone, or from a linebuster. It can be defined as taking orders any way but in a traditional sense.

Tablet POS

Tablet POS is defined as a system that is able to run on anything larger than a 6” screen. This could be either traditional or cloud-based. It’s simply ordering on a device that’s larger than a 6” screen. It’s a little more honed in than Mobile POS.

Cloud-Based POS

Cloud-based POS is defined as data everywhere, ability to modify data everywhere, and the engine can be run anywhere – either within the restaurant or outside of the restaurant. Cloud-based POS is best suited for the busy restaurant executive that may be managing multiple locations, especially if they are separated geographically. Cloud is quickly becoming the go-to for the POS industry.

What kind of POS do you run in your store? We’d love to know!

You can check out the RTG podcast here.