Best Restaurant Management Software in 2024

What is Restaurant Management System?

A Restaurant management system automates the restaurant workflows completely from order management, accounting, pos, inventory management to billing and invoicing.

Restaurant management software helps manage inventory, processing orders, billing, delivery, and collecting feedback, thereby improving the restaurant's performance. Customers can also use the mobile app of restaurant management software for self-service, food ordering, making payments, giving feedback, etc. Online restaurant management software also offers services like a cloud storage facility, quick order taking, e-billing, digital payment processing, and real-time inventory tracking.

Restaurant apps help the waiters can directly enter orders through a tablet or smartphone which are then printed or accessed digitally in the kitchen. For example, if a diner would like his steak medium rare, the server can easily communicate the same to the chef.

What is Restaurant Billing Software?

Restaurant billing software makes billing faster and more efficient. It allows you to seamlessly generate invoices, manage monitor sales, track payments and generate invoices.

It helps managers and decision-makers formulate strategies based on accurate metrics and information. Restaurant billing software provides insights into customers' buying patterns, business trends, and sales.

Who Needs Restaurant Billing Software?

The following entities can use Restaurant Billing software:

• Restaurants: Whether you are a full-service fine dining restaurant, fast food joint, or online odering service, aa sophisticated restaurant management system can help you get around the challenges involved in managing customers.
• Cafe and coffee shops: If you're a coffee shop owner or have a cafe, billing software for cafe can help you easily bill, offer customer loyalty programs, and take customer feedback.
• Online food delivery: Online food delivery services can use online restaurant management software to choose the menu, manage deliveries, and offer customer support.
• Bakery: Best bakery billing software can help bakeries manage their inventory, streamline billing operations to enhance customer experience.
• Food trucks: Food trucks are becoming very popular in urban areas nowadays. They need good billing software to process quick payements and generate faster invoices.
• Bars and Pubs: A bar and restaurant software can help you to manage visitors, make resrvations, track inventory and mange orders. A bar and restaurant billing software helps in reducing billing errors which enhances visitors' experience.
• Franchises and food chains: If you're a franchisee or a food chain owner, a restaurant management system can help you standardize your operations and reduce costs.
• Hotels: The hotel and restaurant management software helps to manage their restaurants and bars efficiently. Hotel restaurant software helps hotel managers to take quick actions from their customers requests.

Why You Need Restaurant Billing Software?

Here are some reasons why you must have restaurant billing software:

• Automates your business: It helps you automate your organization by streamlining processes like taking orders, communication, billing, inventory management, etc.
• Offers better menu visibility: Managers can glance through what's being offered or sold via menu cards, thanks to the cloud-based menu feature.
• Improves customer experience: With average ticket size increasing, restaurant management systems help you offer better customer service with access to menu cards.
• Help manage staff: You can keep tabs on your staff members via the manager app feature. Further, it helps you schedule shifts for staff based on their availability.
• Reduces cost of operation: It enables proactive decision-making by giving real-time information on inventory and raw materials, thus reducing wastage.
• Helps to integrate online channels: You add online sales channels to your existing system and integrate them to streamline all your orders and billing.
• Takes customer feedback: One of the unique features of restaurant software is that it enables you to take customer feedback and make improvements.
• Helps achieve efficiencies: It helps streamline business processes such as billing, inventory management, and table order processing in acquiring efficient.
• Offers customer loyalty programs: You can offer promo codes and coupons to existing customers via a restaurant software system, thus increasing your revenue.
• Helps you expand business: It helps you expand your store footprint by integrating with payment gateways, online channels, and delivery networks.

Modules Of Best Restaurant Billing Software

Restaurant Kitchen Management and Display System

The ' kitchen display system' module is an integral part of any restaurant management software, where the magic happens. When the kitchen receives an order, tickets (KOT) pop up on the Kitchen Display System. With a digital KOT, you safeguard against the risk of missing any order. After the order has been sent out, the chef can simply swipe the KOT from the display to mark the order as complete.

Restaurant Inventory Management System

With a recipe and inventory management module, you can define, plan, procure, cook, and organize ingredients and recipes for your entire menu. You can easily find out the required stock and raw materials based on sales and kitchen production automatically. You can maintain stock levels based on the recipe for each dish. You can even program the restaurant inventory management solution to reorder automatically, based on specified minimum stock levels.

Through restaurant inventory management, you can adjust reorder points, re-stock ingredients and ensure you never have too much or too little stock on your shelves.

Order Management (Online & Table Order)

The order management module enables restaurants to take orders via Touch Screen terminals or Self-service apps and feed them directly to the kitchen display system. Restaurants can also customize their digital menu based on what's currently available in stock. Order status could be sent to customers' phones via SMS, and payment could be processed quickly. The order management module streamlines both table orders and online orders for smooth processing.

Restaurant Billing & POS

Your restaurant management software can be easily integrated with accounting software, helping you take care of all restaurant billing and accounting tasks with a single click. You can generate reports automatically to find out end-of-month financials and identify any irregularities in numbers.

Further, restaurant software offers a payment integration facility and syncs up with restaurant billing software seamlessly. Most restaurant POS software in India accepts various payment modes, such as cash, credit/debit cards, and digital wallets. This also helps to process orders in an instant, thereby increasing customer delight.

Key Features Of Restaurant Billing Software

Wastage & Theft Control

Every restaurant comes across the issue of wastage. Whether its leftovers or ordering excess ingredients compared to sales, you need to plan your inventory levels accordingly. With restaurant inventory management software, you can automatically forecast the demand based on the past levels of inventory. Through this, you can plan in a better way with respect to raw materials, thereby reducing wastage.

In addition, you can identify cases of theft, as the restaurant software tracks and audits activities including those which seem out of the ordinary, such as the loss of food items/ingredients and leftovers. Wastage and theft control are the key issues faced by most restaurants, and any top restaurant software can help minimize it.

Custom Reports

You can design custom reports to aid in business decision-making. Top restaurant management solutions support online/offline reporting and live mobile reporting. You can generate hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and annual sales reports based on your sales data for conducting in-depth analysis with top restaurant software. You can also assess the performance of your menu items by viewing their sales figures over a particular period.

Offers & Loyalty Program Management

Loyalty programs & offers are the vital parts of top restaurant & hotel management software. You can create point-based or visit-based custom loyalty programs to increase the number of repeat visitors. You also get the option of designing your very own loyalty program based on a customer's spending habits and behaviour. Further, you can run city/state/country/worldwide loyalty programs across your restaurants or outlets.

Restaurant Marketing Solution

Send customized SMS/Emails to your customers for new dish, happy hours, latest offers or restaurant availability for a birthday bash/party. SMS also helps keep customers updated about the delivery status of their orders. You can also design SMS and emails tailored according to customers' tastes, preferences, and previous buying history. You can also wish customers on special occasions and festivals.

Reservation Management

Many restaurants management software solutions offer a fully automated reservation booking system. Customers can make reservations with your restaurant online. Restaurant owners can also integrate the solution with third-party services such as Zomato and EazyDiner, offering customers multiple ways to book tables. It helps maintain quality customer service and increases table turnover.

Debit & Credit Card Processing

Restaurant POS systems enable easy credit and debit card transactions, removing the need to keep a separate POS terminal. It also ensures smoother, faster, and secure payment for both customers and restaurants.

Employee Management

You can assign tasks, monitor time and attendance of your restaurant staff members with restaurant management software. It offers a centralized system to manage the daily activities of all employees across restaurants and other outlets. This ensures faster, smoother operations and greater productivity. You also get detailed reports to analyse employee performance with restaurant software. It helps managers keep track of working hours, productivity, and performance analytics.

Takeaway & Home Delivery

Takeaway and home delivery orders are significant revenue generators, especially for fast-casual restaurants. The restaurant management system offers options like real-time delivery status tracking for better service. It also provides the option of integrating with third-party service providers that offer delivery services in your restaurant's locality. Through this, you can increase customer reach across various areas and grow your revenue.

Recipe Management

Restaurant management software lets managers track recipes online with the correct quantity and ingredients details. It reduces the restaurant staff's reliability on printed recipes that are easily misplaced and mixed up. This helps reduce wastage and theft of food items.

Third-Party Integration

Restaurant management software offers seamless integration with third-party services such as CRM, POS systems, eCommerce websites, and more. Such integrations help restaurants track and streamline their operations, increase customer satisfaction and boost sales.

Advantages of Restaurant Management System

• Easier preparation of financial statements: You can save a lot of time and effort when you sit down to prepare financial and tax statements like profit & loss, trial balance, and balance sheet. You need to enter the correct figures, and the restaurant software solution takes care of the rest.
• Customer feedback and complaint resolution: Top restaurant management systems enable customers to give feedback and raise complaints. This lets the restaurant manager know where and how they went wrong. Implementing customer feedback or complaint system can rectify issues before they snowball into bigger ones.
• Customer relationship management: With restaurant billing software having CRM modules, restaurateurs can view day-to-day customer data and identify which customers frequent their restaurant, how often they visit, and what items they like to order. This information allows for targeted marketing and better strategy formulation.
• Enhanced Customer Experience: CRM integration allow restaurateurs to know what their customers like. They can also track the order pattern for every customer. Accordingly, restaurant owners can provide better service and enhance customer experience with this information.
• Better Coordination BetweenStaff: It's easy to assign and follow up on assigned tasks with staff members through restaurant software. Restaurateurs can also ensure no staff is sitting idle and all the tasks are appropriately delegated. This means there is no miscommunication, and the restaurant runs smoothly.
• Prevents Duplicate Entries: When you have a good restaurant management system, the chances of making duplicate entries are pretty low. The software has features like checklists and alerts that prevent data duplicity. Every order placed through the system will go directly into the kitchen and is added to the database.
• Accurate Demand Forecasting: When you're running a restaurant, demand forecasting is critical. Sales reports and upcoming events are factors that need to be taken into account before coming up with projections or placing purchase orders. Converting sales reports into accurate forecasts is possible with restaurant software.

Things to Consider Before Choosing Restaurant Management System

Restaurant management software is essential to manage the daily activities of a restaurant business effectively. However, there are so many options available when it comes to choosing the best restaurant management software. That is why it becomes crucial to consider some points before you buy any software.

• Analysing Requirements: Every restaurant or food outlet has its own needs and preferences, which means that you must choose a restaurant management software that fulfils your expectation. Know your requirements like the size of your restaurant, number of locations, employees, daily customers, etc., before you go on the internet to choose restaurant management software.
• Customization Level: Every restaurant has different business policies and standard operating procedures. You should check that whether the restaurant management software is easy to customize as per your requirements or not. It will help purchase the software that can be used with ease and reduces efforts on the part of employees.
• Online Ordering: Many restaurants are now offering online order facilities for their customers. You should check the restaurant management software for online order taking and a payment gateway facility for secure transactions.
• Mobile Application: With the growing trend of using smartphones, people are now ordering their food through apps. So, you should check whether the restaurant management software has a mobile app compatible with different mobile devices.
• Features and Modules: When buying restaurant management software, you should check which features and modules are available with this software. Buy software that has all the features and modules that you need for your restaurant. Also, don't buy high-end software that has many features that you don't need.
• User Access Rights: Check whether role-based access can be provided to employees and managers. This can affect the data security and privacy of your restaurant business.
• Reporting: Check whether the software can produce and export reports on data related to sales and inventory and other operations that take place in your restaurant.
• Deployment type: Deployment is essential for the restaurant business as you may require software to be used at multiple locations at once or a system that runs even without the internet. Choose the deployment type as suggested by experts and your needs.
• User Interface: Choose a software that has an easy-to-use interface. It will save time and cost spent on training your employees to use the proposed software.
• After-sales service and customer support: It would be helpful if the restaurant management software vendor offers after-sales service and support. It will help you and your team during installation, implementation, and in due course of time if any problem occurs with the software. Reading reviews could help a lot to know about the company's after-sales support.

Why Do You Need Restaurant Management Software?

With the ease afforded by a restaurant software system, restaurant managers and owners can focus on delivering a quality experience to customers. How do you go about doing this? By communicating their orders/requests to the chef through the kitchen display system, thereby reducing the time taken to serve the meal. Further, wastage and theft are key issues faced by a restauranteur. A top restaurant software helps address this issue with better management of your inventory vis-à-vis raw materials to reduce the instance of theft and overstocking. Last but not least, you can track your stock levels in real-time to assess which raw materials need to be re-stocked.

Process Orders Quickly

Restaurant management system software helps you take online and offline orders by providing a powerful order-taking interface. These modules help your waiters take customers' orders quickly and accurately. Once the customer's order is taken, it can be directly sent to the kitchen, where chefs will cook the food as per the details of the order. It helps manage the complete process of order taking so that there is no chance for error in orders.

Sophisticated Billing

The restaurant billing system provides sophisticated billing and printing options. Online restaurant billing software generates bills automatically according to the food ordered by the customer and adds delivery and packaging charges as per restaurant policy. The invoices are fully GST compliant with a specific breakdown. Some dedicated restaurant systems can also send bills via SMS or email to the buyer.

Getting Customer Insights

A customer relationship management system provides detailed information on customers. It helps restaurant owners track and analyse the behaviour of their customers. It can be used for various purposes like deciding discounts for loyal customers, sending special offers to new customers, or even regular follow-up with them through email or SMS.

Managing Inventory Efficiently

A restaurant management system helps manage the inventory of ingredients and stuff more efficiently. The inventory management module is very helpful in managing day-to-day work related to inventory control. It can help you find out the items that are running short or over-stocked, which helps take timely action.

Business Analytics

The restaurant management system provides a complete set of business analytics tools to help you make vital business decisions. These tools provide restaurant owners with deep insights about their business, which helps them make better decisions related to marketing, finance, and other activities.

Reducing Dependency on Manual Processes

Most of the premium restaurant management software have mobile apps for customers. Customers can order their food themselves, raise a concern or give feedback through the app even during dine-in services. This reduces dependency on the workforce to serve customer needs and improves the response time.

Key Restaurant Management Software Trends

Restaurant trends and customer preferences keep changing, and so do restaurant management solutions. Software developers try to be proactive in their approach and add unique functions and modules to their RMS. Here we will discuss on few key restaurant management software trends that you must consider.

Real-Time Communication

Restaurants are moving toward real-time communication between customers and chefs. Some restaurant application allows customers to directly communicate with chefs and customize their food as per their need. Customers can use their smartphone application or touchscreen devices provided by the restaurant to send messages to chefs. This message is instantly displayed on the chef's device with the table and order number. Outlets like Absolute Barbeque and BBQ nation have already implemented this trend.

Self Service

Most of the large franchises are moving towards customer self-service for ordering. Dine-in customers can use their smartphone or Touch screen terminal to order their food themselves and pay for it instantly. Most of the leading restaurant management software have added this module to their system—McDonald's, KFC, etc.

Food Item Reviews

Most people read reviews and ratings before going to a restaurant. Now, most of the restaurant management software is adding a review model for each menu item. So whenever customers open the restaurant app to order food online or even dine-in, they can read reviews and ratings of individual food items. This growing trend from the restaurant management system is helping many restaurants capitalize on their best item.

Voice Assistant

Although, in its initial stage, Voice recognition technology is making its way to restaurant management systems. Customers would be able to place their food order or request service through a voice command system. Its integration with systems like Alexa and Google Home would be more beneficial for customers and restaurant owners.

Top Restaurant Billing Software Comparision

Top Restaurant Billing Software Comparision
Restaurant Software	Key Functions	Best For
Digirestro	Queue Management Loyalty program Priority Support	Online Food Portals Food Chains Dine-In Restaurants
RePOS	Customer Relationship Tool Franchise Management Head Office Module	Fine Dine Pizzeria Ice Cream Parlour
RoyalPOS	Table wise Orders Smart Billing Brand Customization	Bakery Dine-In restaurants Food Chains
Pelagian	Guest Management Home Delivery Entry Multiple Kitchen Printing	Fast Food Restaurant Sweet Shop Bars
Posist	Catering Management Recipe Management Third-party Integration	Casual Dining Restaurants Pubs and Bars Food Courts