POS for bars and nightclubs

Most restaurant POS systems were designed for table service: covers, courses and a check at the end. A bar inverts the priorities. Speed matters more than layout, tabs matter more than tables, cash is still common, and a few ounces of over-pouring on every drink adds up faster than wasted food. This guide covers what a bar POS has to do and what to make a vendor prove.

Speed behind the bar

• Two taps to a drink. Your top-selling beers, wines, wells and cocktails should be on the first screen. Anything a bartender rings dozens of times a night shouldn't sit inside a submenu.
• Modifiers that match how people order. "Rocks", "neat", "up", "double", "with a back" and call-brand upgrades should be one tap each, priced automatically.
• Several bartenders on one station. Fast switching between users by PIN or card, so each drink is recorded against the right person.
• Cash. A quick cash workflow and a drawer count per bartender at the end of the shift.

Open tabs

The tab is the bar's basic transaction. A guest orders a first drink, leaves a card or opens a cash tab, orders again and again, and pays once. A weak tab system leads to mixed-up cards and arguments at close.

• Find a tab in a glance. Open tabs as a grid with the guest's name, not a long list. Typing two letters should find it.
• Merge, move and transfer. Two friends combine tabs; a guest moves from the bar to a table; a bartender's open tabs pass to the next shift with the full history.
• Large venues. Wristbands or cards with a code can replace names when hundreds of tabs are open at once.

Card pre-authorization: protecting the tab

When a guest opens a card tab, the POS can place a hold on the card, and then capture the actual total when the tab closes. If the guest walks out, you still have an authorized card for the tab. Vendors document this differently:

• Toast's help center describes pre-authorization that lets staff "swipe a card on a guest's order, save their bar tab" and close it later.
• Square's help center describes pre-authorizing a card for a set amount for bar tabs, and notes that preauthorizations "typically last around 36 hours" depending on the card network and bank.

Visa's rules matter for tips and final totals. Visa's guide for restaurant merchants says businesses classed as restaurants, bars and fast-food restaurants may add up to 20% to the authorization amount without liability for authorization-related disputes. That document dates from 2018, so ask your processor what applies to your account today, and what happens when a tab plus tip goes over the hold.

In the demo, open a tab with a card, add drinks, add a 25% tip after close, and ask the vendor to show exactly what gets captured.

Happy hour and scheduled pricing

Price changes at 4 p.m. and back at 7 p.m. shouldn't depend on a manager remembering. Set happy hour up as a schedule:

• Days and hours, including a second late-night special if you run one.
• Which categories it covers, such as draft beer and well drinks, and what it excludes, such as top-shelf spirits.
• Whether the discount shows on the receipt as a discount, so reports show what happy hour costs you.
• Digital and QR menus that switch at the same time.

Rules on drink promotions vary by state and sometimes by city. Check your state's alcohol authority before you set up a happy hour, and make sure the POS can do what the rules allow, for example by limiting a special to certain hours.

Pour cost and liquor inventory

Pour cost is what you spend on the drinks you sell, as a share of what those drinks bring in. The POS calculates the theoretical number from your recipes and sales; your bottle counts give the actual number. The gap shows over-pouring, spills, unrecorded comps and theft.

A cocktail sells for $12 and its ingredients cost $3.20. Its theoretical pour cost is $3.20 ÷ $12 = 26.7%. If your bottle counts show you used more liquor than 40 of those cocktails need, the difference is liquor you paid for and didn't sell.

• Recipes on each drink, so sales deduct the right amount of each bottle.
• Every comp and void recorded with who did it and why.
• Partial-bottle counts. Whether by eye in tenths, by weight on a scale, or by tracking opened bottles. Ask which methods the system or its inventory add-on supports.
• Reorder points for each spirit, wine and beer.

ID checks

Many bar POS systems can connect an ID scanner that reads the barcode on a driver's license and shows whether the guest is old enough, or show a "confirm ID checked" prompt when an alcoholic drink is rung. If you check IDs at the door instead, the POS should let you turn the prompt off so it doesn't slow the bar. Your state alcohol authority sets what records you have to keep.

Splitting checks

A group that shared pitchers and rounds wants to split evenly or by what each person had. The POS should split a tab by headcount or by item in a couple of taps, take several cards against one tab, and close the tab when the total is paid.

Tips and tip pooling

Bars often pool tips between bartenders and barbacks. The U.S. Department of Labor says the Fair Labor Standards Act "allows employers to require employees to share or 'pool' tips with other eligible employees", and its fact sheet sets out who is eligible. State law can add rules. The POS should record tips per transaction and per person, and produce a tip-out report you can check. Read the fact sheet, and ask your accountant before you change how you share tips.

When the internet drops

A Saturday-night outage with 80 open tabs is the scenario to test. Ask what happens to open tabs and stored pre-authorizations while offline, whether cards can be taken offline, and who carries the risk of an offline card that's declined later. Toast's offline-mode article states that "you are responsible for any declined, expired, or disputed offline payment transactions". Assume the same unless a vendor's contract says otherwise.

What to bring to the demo

1. Your drink menu with call brands, sizes and upgrades.
2. Your happy-hour schedule and what it covers.
3. How many tabs are open at your busiest hour.
4. How you split tips today.

Then run the general tests in how to choose a restaurant POS. If you also serve food, the kitchen-routing parts of the pizzeria and Mexican restaurant guides apply too.