Multi-location POS

With one restaurant, the POS is a tool. With five, it's how you keep menus, prices and reporting consistent without visiting every store. Weak multi-location features mean every new item is entered by hand at each location, and every report is a spreadsheet someone builds on Monday. This guide covers what to look for.

Central menu, local overrides

• One master menu, edited once and pushed to every location.
• Local prices where costs or markets differ, such as an airport location.
• Local availability: an item sold out or not offered at one store.
• Local specials a store manager can add without changing the master menu.
• Scheduled changes, so a new menu goes live everywhere at the same time.

In the demo, change one item's price everywhere, override it at one location, and confirm both show correctly in the reports.

Reports across locations

• Sales, labor and food cost by location, side by side.
• The same day, week or daypart compared across stores.
• Item performance by location, to see where an item sells and where it doesn't.
• Exceptions: voids, comps and refunds by store and manager.

Three locations report weekly sales of $42,000, $38,000 and $27,000, with labor of $12,600, $11,400 and $9,450. Labor is 30% of sales at the first two and 35% at the third, the kind of gap that's easy to see side by side and easy to miss in three separate reports.

Permissions

Owners and area managers need to see every location; a store manager needs only theirs. Check that permissions can be set by role and by location, and that changes to the master menu are limited to a few people.

Opening a new location

• Copy an existing location's menu, settings and kitchen routing.
• Set local tax rates and prices.
• Move employees between locations without new logins.
• Check that loyalty and gift cards work across all locations.

The rollout checklist covers the steps for each new store.

Franchises

Franchise groups need a few more things: royalty and marketing-fund reports from each franchisee's sales, a brand-standard menu that franchisees can't change, and data the franchisor can see without having access to everything. Ask whether each franchisee holds its own merchant account and contract.

Plans and pricing

Most vendors handle groups through custom plans, checked October 1, 2026:

• Toast: "Build Your Own", custom pricing.
• Square: Square Pro, custom pricing for businesses that process over $250,000 a year; its standard plans are priced per location.
• SpotOn: "Build Your Own" for "multi-unit, enterprise, and other high-volume operations".
• Lightspeed Restaurant: an Enterprise plan by quote.
• TouchBistro: Custom Setup, by quote.
• KwickPOS: lists multi-location management on its website; pricing by quote.

Because group pricing is custom, compare written quotes on the same three-year basis. See what a restaurant POS costs.

What to ask in a demo

1. Can I change an item at every location at once and override it at one?
2. Can I compare sales and labor across locations in one report?
3. Can permissions be set by location?
4. How long does it take to set up a new location?

Reporting and labor are covered in more detail in reporting and labor.