Do you need EPOS, or just a card machine?

There is a lot of pressure to buy a full EPOS system. Sometimes it is right. Often it is a solution to a problem the business does not have.

When a card machine is enough

If you sell a small number of things, your prices rarely change, and you already know what sells, a terminal on the counter does the job. Plenty of places run perfectly well on a mechanical till and a card machine, and the honest answer is to leave them alone.

We fitted a cafe last year that had run on a Casio and cash for fifteen years. They did not want an EPOS system. They wanted to stop turning away people with no cash on them. We put a terminal next to the existing till and changed nothing else.

When EPOS earns its keep

A till system starts paying for itself when:

Your menu has options. Sizes, milks, toppings, courses. Once an order needs a conversation to ring up, you are losing time at the counter every single sale.

The kitchen needs the order. Anything that has to reach a pass or a bar without being shouted or written twice.

You have staff. Clock-in, tips split correctly, and knowing who sold what.

You need to know what sells. Sales by hour and by item is the single most useful report a small food business gets, and it is the one that changes what you bake.

The middle ground

You do not have to pick on day one. Plenty of setups start as a terminal and grow. The thing to avoid is a four-year lease on hardware you chose before you knew how you would trade.

What we do

We watch a service before we spec anything. It is why the quote sometimes comes back smaller than people expect.