Food trucks are cool, hip, and have helped adapt the restaurant industry to the fast-paced world. Unlike your traditional brick and mortar food joint, this four-wheeled cooking machine can pack up and hit the road, sharing its creations with people from different neighborhoods, states, or even countries. Add in surging social media and you’ve got an equation for a booming business that will have fans lined up for hours on end waiting for a taste.
A more modern style of fast-food cuisine calls for an evolved setup on the payment front, one that a POS (point of sale) system can deliver. Operating with a cash register comes with risks, plus, doesn’t adapt well to today’s mobile culture.
What’s a POS?
A POS system acts as a fundamental component for any business that accepts payments. Its all-in-one way of doing things makes it a fast and convenient option to incorporate tech into a business, bringing them up-to-date with today’s ways to pay. Not only does a POS accept a variety of payments but, acts as a tracker for inventory and helps with customer management. Adding a POS to any food truck comes with several benefits, including these top 5 that owners won’t be able to pass up.
1. Ditch the Cash Register
A cash register is a novelty gadget that is cool to look at but a hassle for fast-paced business. With a food truck POS system, you could ditch the cash register and turn to a system that does the accounting for you. POS systems offer options to take all sorts of payments including debit and credit cards, mobile pay-like Apple Pay and Android Pay, and cash. It has a convenient accounting technology built-in that tracks sales and provides detailed information about the day’s transactions and sales. You won’t have to manually press buttons or count, simply swipe, tap, or scan your customer’s preferred payment method and voila!
2. Real-Time Reports and Business Insights
The cool thing about digitizing your business is that you have the power to analyze everything. Food truck POS systems collect and store data which can be summed up into detailed reports that give insight into daily dealings. A few examples of reports you could run are:
Sales Reports
Running a report of sales, you can get the scoop on which days you perform the best, learn your peak hours, and even see which employees pump out the most productivity. See how your performance changes by location, season, or by menu, using the information to help you make better business decisions to amp up your fan base.
Products Reports
The cool thing about food trucks is that some come with limited menus. This gives chefs a lot of room to get creative, changing up their menus from time to time, or keeping things the same from day one. In either case, a look at how products are selling to your client base is highly useful. You can use the information to see which items do the best and worst, helping you make better investments and create more appetizing menus.
Payment Reports
With any kind of business, it’s always good to know how much you got in the bank. With a payment report ran on a POS system, you can see how much you have coming in, seeing how much goes to expenses, and how much goes into your pocket. Using this information, you can budget your money better and take a look at spending to cut costs and spend more consciously.
3. Keep Track of Your Inventory
Inventory can be annoying. Having to account for all your products taking sales, waste, and more into consideration. It can take hours of labor and multiple employees to successfully keep track of all your stuff and is subject to human error. Adding a POS system to your food truck, you can kiss inventory days goodbye! As you make sales, the system will keep track of your inventory for you, even producing a list of things you need to stock up on. POS systems will alert you when stock gets a bit low, helping you keep your secret ingredients in stock to keep fans coming back for more!
4. Accept Online Orders
These days, you can do everything online, including food orders. Accepting online orders gives a huge boost to sales, opening up your business to a wider customer base. With a POS system, you can accept online orders plus allow customers to pay online, helping to shorten lines and waiting times for your customers. While this might not be a feasible option for all food truck owners-especially not the rookies out there, it’s a good option to keep on the back burner. POS systems are highly tweakable, allowing you to activate or deactivate certain actions.
5. Customer Relationships
Last but not least, POS systems help you build and keep a solid following. It’s integrated with customer relationship management (CRM) technology that helps owners keep track of customer activity. You can see who your most frequent customers are, possibly shooting them a discount for their loyalty and fandom. In the wake of social media, the better you treat your loyal customers, the more online exposure you’re bound to receive. Everyone is on the hunt for opportunities to take cool selfies and make new discoveries. If you’ve got fans that are satisfied and feel welcomed, you’re likely to get a few more in line, thanks to shares and tweets.
POS for The Win!
Food trucks are not just a trend, they’ve become part of the cuisine culture. They have helped modernize the food experience, gaining a following for the quick and efficient tasty creations food truck chefs whip up. To get a better hold on business and take your food truck game to new heights, upgrade to a POS system. You’ll give customers a more convenient way to pay while getting useful insight into your business without the hassle, saving you more time to work on your insta-fame.
