POS Equipment: Restaurant Input Devices

Input devices – Restaurant Point of Sale Equipment 

Point of Sale Equipment: Keyboards and touch screens

One of the first choices you will have to make about your POS equipment is whether to go with a touch screen or a programmable keyboard. Most businesses choose touch screens. The only market where keyboards are mostly used is grocery stores, because it has the ability to program individual keys for specific item codes and prices.

Touch screens are more intuitive to use than keyboards for many users. Touch screens also provides flexibility in the user interface and programming, where training is almost eliminated. Most touch screens sold today are flat-screen LCDs instead of traditional CRT monitors. While LCD touch screens are slightly more expensive (typically $600 – $1,000 instead of $400 – $500), they are sturdier, saves electricity, and space-saving. They even look much better. With both CRT and LCD displays, avoid touch screens that are overlayed on top of regular monitors – these monitors are more prone to breakdowns, and can even cause unnecessary complication to your system.

When it comes to keyboards, some has the standard 101-keys model similar to any computer. For smaller keyboards, there’s the flat-panel membrane keyboard that’s more POS-specific, usually seen at fast food chains. Often, they come in with built-in magnetic stripe readers for credit card processing. Programmable keyboards usually ranges between $150 and $300.

No matter which you use, just make sure to take in consideration the environment where you want place it. Both keyboards and touch screens are available with varying levels of spill and dust-proofing.

Scanners
POS scanners reads bar codes and sends the information back to the computer. They typically connect to the system through Y-connectors called wedges that make them function as an extension of the keyboard. Bar code scanning has an improved accuracy and speeds up sales transactions.

Low quality, cheap scanners are based on CCD technology. These scanners are inexpensive, but usually have a very short range – the item being scanned needs to be 1 to 3 inches from the scanner. In a typical retail setting, that should be fine.

Laser scanners uses a beam of light in order to read bar codes, they offer much better scanning ability since they are able to scan at long ranges. There are also “autosensing” laser scanners that turn themselves on automatically when an item is placed in front of them for scanning, and then turn off again. While omnidirectional scanners can send out 15 or 20 lasers simultaneously, which can easily scan a bar code at any angle. And the top of the line are embedded scanners, which you commonly see in supermarkets located below the counter.

Wondering what types of POS scanners to use when serving different volume of customers? If you do not usually have more than a customer or two in line,. In a fairly constant flow of customers you might want to use an autosensing model for speeding up sales transactions, and for businesses with high volume of traffic, they should check out omnidirectional or embedded scanners. Prices range from below 0 for the most basic CCD scanners to 0 or more for omnidirectional laser scanners.

Handheld POS terminal
One of the latest and most ingenious type of input device is the handheld, wireless terminal. Essentially a PDA, this handheld terminal wirelessly transmits orders back to a base station. A great advantage for restaurants is that they increase the amount of time servers spend on taking orders on the floor and interacting with customers, because it eliminates the need to go back to a terminal to enter orders.

Newer still are write-on handhelds: instead of trying to compress a touch-screen interface onto a tiny PDA screen, these devices allow servers to simply write the orders down. Handwriting recognition software parses the order then sends it directly on to the kitchen and bar to prepare the orders.

These handheld terminals are more expensive compared to a traditional touch-screen order terminal. However, these devices can make up for their cost by allowing your servers to spend more time up-selling customers with more desserts and drinks. If you are evaluating handheld terminals, make sure you ask about the “drop test” – each units are rated for toughness according to how much they can survive a fall. You can easily find out if your business is a candidate for handheld POS terminals by comparing multiple POS equipment vendors and check out their offered products and services.

 

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Need more information or perhaps an online resource?

Visit POS-For-Restaurants.com

The author of this article is the Vice-President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants with over 20 years of experience serving restaurants of all types throughout the U.S.

 

Filed Under: Marketing

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