Guest post by Cinnamon Janzer from Upserve

Running a restaurant means juggling what feels like dozens of tasks at any given moment. From tracking vendors and managing inventory, to deciding which restaurant POS to use and conducting employee reviews, there’s a lot to handle to keep the plates spinning.

However, thanks to technology, it’s easier and more stress-free than ever to manage everything in one place.

In addition to reducing the clutter of multiple systems and decreasing management stress, here are a few of the main reasons that managing as much as you can in one place is the smartest restaurant management decision you can make.

Streamlined Online Ordering

Guests want online ordering from restaurants. Whether you offer delivery in-house or you’re integrating with one of the many delivery apps like DoorDash, UberEats or Seamless, make sure you’re meeting the demand of people who want to have their favorite food delivered to their door.

One reason a lot of restaurants decide to opt out of online ordering (to their peril) is because it can amount to just another stressful system to manage that, if handled poorly, can lead to an overwhelmed kitchen and delayed meals both in-house and online.

When a restaurant POS manages it as part of the master system, a quick integration can get online ordering up and running. Orders are streamlined in one place and organized into a sensible queue that keeps all processes moving quickly without sacrificing quality. The kitchen can receive online orders directly from the POS, as opposed to a server standing by to enter orders via phone or third-party apps, saving everyone time.

Easily Managed Loyalty Programs

As Hubspot explains, “It costs a business about 5-25 [times] more to acquire a new customer than it does to sell to an existing one,” adding that “existing customers spend 67% more than now customers. In short, customer loyalty really pays off—and customer loyalty programs end up paying for themselves.”

Knowing that, loyalty programs are a no-brainer. But, like online ordering, some can consider it to be a project that feels like more work than it’s worth, especially when most people in the restaurant are already overworked. But, like online ordering, the right POS system will run the whole program on its own, handling everything from tracking guests’ points to issuing rewards. Plus, a rewards program provides a mountain of data to mine so you can gain insights into regular customers’ spending habits.

Smarter Marketing Thanks to Abundant Data

Speaking of data, the more you centralize your restaurant’s operations in one place, the stronger data you’ll have and the better the decisions you'll make, especially when it comes to marketing. All you have to do is put it to use.

“Although restaurants have access to an overwhelming amount of data on their customers, not many of them are using it. … Most restaurant owners don’t know where to start,” Modern Restaurant Management notes. But what if your restaurant’s POS system simply handled all the data for you—across online ordering, loyalty programs, and everything in between—and all you had to do was look at easy-to-read charts? An integrated POS system makes that possible. You’ll be ready to whip up some targeted ads that will bring results in no time.

Painless Inventory Management

Manual inventory management is a drag, so it’s no surprise that the best POS systems handle it for you. From flagging items that are running low to tracking the ingredients in best-selling dishes, systems like Upserve use automated inventory management software to ease much of the pain and hassle. Instead of calculating everything on your own, all you have to do is pay attention to the automated system and order accordingly.