Find the Best Restaurant Scheduling Software

1.Enhancing Operational Efficiency

The best restaurant scheduling software in India automates several manual and laborious processes like online order/offline or table booking and managing seating arrangements, staff management, and simplifying complicated inventory and stock management processes that increase the work efficiency and productivity of your employees.  

2.Streamlining Inventory Management

Using a feature-rich restaurant scheduling system, it automates tracking out-of-stock or availability of each ingredient which assists you to schedule purchases and keep your inventory and stock up to date.

3.Improving Menu Planning and Pricing

Managing and customizing your restaurant’s menus, pricing, and recipes becomes easy and fast using this system that allows you to update all details based on your customers' preferences, festival/seasonal offers, and more. This eases you in strategically planning your pricing structure and enhances revenue and growth.

4.Seamless Point-of-Sale Integration

The restaurant scheduling software allows integration with the point of sale software that reduces your manual data entry work and thus eliminates error possibilities. This enhances work proficiency, streamlines order and payment processes, and gives real-time reports essential for the owners to create effective sales & marketing strategies.  

5.Enhancing Customer Experience

The automated table booking & seating arrangement, efficient reservations, and customization features, and quick order and billing processing give complete satisfaction with a pleasant dining experience to your customers. 

6.In-depth Reporting and Analytics

This best software for restaurant management provides real-time insights into the overall performance of your restaurant. It gives thorough reports on your employees’ performance, sales, and other MIS reports & analysis help management to get actual sales and expense details to classify the drawbacks and strengths of their business.

7.Centralized Employee Management

The best Restaurant Staff Scheduling software effectively manages the timing of employees, their payroll, and other performance related operations. Thus, efficiently managing staff shifts and leaves improves customer service and satisfaction and reduces extra labor costs.

1.Efficient Scheduling

The user-friendly tools of the best restaurant scheduling software help managers arrange the shifts of their staff automatically based on shift preferences, staff availability, and the restaurant’s workforce needs. This automation process drastically reduces the work burden of the restaurant’s manager by 6-7 hours per week. Features like creating employees’ schedules in advance lower the stress level of managers, and keeping full staff attendance during rush hours or seasons decreases additional labor costs and gives satisfactory customer services. The efficiently scheduled staff shifts reduce unwanted burdens on the staff and enhance their work proficiency and satisfaction.

2.Better Communication

Features like connecting schedule changes or swap shifts among staff, notification for schedule changes, upcoming shifts, leaves, and other staff’s schedule management become easy using the best restaurant staff scheduling software. It creates a collaborative environment and communication between staff and management that keeps restaurant work uninterrupted, and prolific. 

3.Improved Labour Cost Control

Using customization and advanced staff shift scheduling helps restaurant managers manage restaurant operations efficiently and reduces unwanted labor costs. Keeping track of employees’ shifts, overtime, changes in shifts, and other features eases management to accomplish the need for additional workforce during peak season time and arrange estimated labor costs, if any. 

4.Increased Employee Satisfaction

The advanced features of restaurant staff scheduling software assist managers in making seamless arrangements for staff, allocating shifts, swapping shifts, and handling overtime or non-utilized staff. This automated process reduces the chances of errors in shift scheduling and helps smooth workflow that keeps staff happy at work by offering them shift preferences as and when possible. Thus, staff can efficiently balance their personal and professional life, resulting in their work efficiency. 

5.Enhanced Productivity

Workforce schedule management is an onerous task for big restaurants, which need automation using the best restaurant scheduling app with unmatched features and functionality. This system helps enhance staff scheduling proficiency, reducing extra labor costs by arranging the appropriate staff attendance, and avoiding staff inefficiencies to boost the overall performance of your business. This results in growth in your reputation and revenue. 

6.Simplified Payroll

The best restaurant scheduling software with payroll software eases administering work hours and salary of employees, overtime salary, and more. The real-time payroll reports reduce work duplication, save time, and error possibilities, and make the staff salary process accurate without delay. It enhances workplace respect, satisfaction, and retention among employees.

7.Improved Compliance

The best restaurant scheduling software designed by encompassing labor laws and regulations assists restaurant administrators in accurately managing shift scheduling and tracking routine and overtime work hours to ensure that it meets the labor law guidelines perfectly or not. This prevents restaurants’ image from getting spoiled by unnecessary disputes, penalties, or legal issues.

Selecting the right restaurant scheduling app helps you accomplish smooth restaurant operations like shift schedules, overtime and under-assign work tasks, inventory & payroll management, and more.

1.Assessing the Size and Complexity of Your Staff

You can select the best restaurant scheduling software by considering the number of employees and size of your restaurants/branches. Ensure the software comprises features to meet your multiple branches, schedule and change employees' shifts, overtime management, and more. The software needs to allow add or cut off employees based on your business requirements. 

2.Considering Your Restaurant’s Operational Hours and Shifts

Different restaurants have their working (morning, afternoon, and evening) hours based on their serving food specialty. Ensure your chosen restaurant scheduling app or software includes features for employees’ shift scheduling/changing/ managing part-time, full-time, and contact-based staff based on your business demands. 

3.Identifying Pain Points in Your Current Scheduling Process

The manual process for employee shift administration becomes the most cumbersome task for restaurant managers. Your chosen software requires easy managing of all key tasks to get rid of all tedious manual operations of shift scheduling and make it fast, trouble-free, and seamless which results in enhancing proficiency and productivity of your restaurants.

1. Sumup 

The best reservation management software that offers solutions to enhance restaurant management operations like reservation, table booking, staff scheduling, accounting, and more. 

Features

• Supports major payment systems like PayPal, Cards, Cash, etc.
• Inventory tools include automated stock alerts and bulk uploads
• Sales analytics tools, sales tracking
• Employee management, inventory management
• Multi-store support, EPOS app and software

Pros

• Easy to install 
• No monthly charges (for card readers)
• Free EPOS system and online store
• Automated tools for marketing
• Presence in over 30 countries

Cons

• The limited range of EPOS hardware 
• Medium customer support
• Higher online transaction charges compared to other rivals 
• The annual contract requires for POS system software

Pricing

1. Monthly Costs

• $0 - for using only card readers 
• $99 - Connect Lite POS plan
• $199 - Connect Plus POS plan
• $289 - Connect Pro POS plan

2. Payment Processing Costs

• 2.6% + 10 cents (for in-person transactions)
• 2.90% + 15 cents (for online invoice transactions)
• 3.5% + 15 cents (for card-not-present transactions)

3. Hardware Cost

• $54 - for SumUp Plus card reader
• $64 - for the SumUp Plus cradle bundle
• $99 - for SumUp Solo touchscreen
• $169 - for SumUp Solo Printer Bundle
• POS bundle – Ask for a quote

2. NCR Voyix 

It is a cloud-based software system that gives efficient hardware and software solutions for restaurants, banks, retail, and other businesses. Its POS comprises robust integrations, secure payment, regular updates, customer marketing tools, and more. 

Features

• POS, Retail Inventory Management
• Sales Order Management, Reports
• Online Payment/Ordering 
• Mobile Access
• Email Marketing
• Pricing/Item/Kitchen Management

Pros

• User-friendly interface
• Flexible Payment Processing
• Good customer support
• Best customer management tools
• Reports 
• Strong inventory management

Cons

• Limited customization options
• Few integrations & technical issues
• Higher costs/hidden charges
• Long-term contracts
• Customer support medium with long wait time

Pricing

• $0/month - 2.95% processing + $0.15/txn [NCR Payments, 3-Year Contract, No Upfront HW Cost]
• $170/month - 2.5% processing + $0.15/txn [NCR Payments, 3-Year Contract, No Upfront HW Cost)

3. Toast 

A popular cloud-based POS system that makes restaurant operations seamless with its best features like employee scheduling, order processing, CRM, inventory management, etc. It is useful for all sizes of restaurants from single to multiple restaurant locations.

Features

• Best for all sizes of restaurants 
• Multi-store reporting
• Order/menu/table/delivery/reservation management 
• Centralized inventory management
• Enterprise-grade security 

Pros

• Easy to operate, great interface
• Supported POS with user-friendly menus, reporting, and back-end
• Allows easy third-party integration
• Easy to access information 

Cons

• Complicated setup process 
• Incompatible with Apple devices. 
• Slow customer support. 
• Limited customization options
• Confusing price structure 

Pricing

• $0 per month
• $69 per month
• Custom - Get a quote

4. Cake POS 

It is a guest management system with POS helpful for all sizes of restaurants to simplify their restaurant operations, and enhance customer satisfaction, and revenue. It will continue its process even if there are no internet connections and offer the best features & functionalities. 

Features

• POS, Customizable workflows
• Guest manager app, Guest history/ profiles & feedback
• Online ordering, Offline mode
• Built-in analytics
• Payment processing

Pros

• Employee Management
• Integrated Solution
• Tableside ordering
• Affordable pricing
• Real-time analytics

Cons

• Two two-year contracts require
• Onboarding errors 
• Longer response time for customer support 

Pricing

• Free trial
• POS Software and Services Bundle - $69/Month
• POS Hardware Bundle - $69/Month
• Guest Manager - $59/Month
• Guest Manager Activation Fee - $99 (One-Time Fee)

5. Sling 

It’s a popular software that streamlines scheduling management, communication, and time tracking for restaurant businesses where staff work in different shifts. It offers shift scheduling, time tracking, managing tasks, messaging, reporting, and many other features.

Features 

• Employee Scheduling, Overtime calculations, 
• Task management, Shift swapping
• Payroll integration, Multiple location support
• Labor cost management
• Reporting & Analytics

Pros

• Best features, functionality, and support
• Efficient attendance management and attendance tracking 
• Cost-effectiveness
• Accessibility

Cons 

• Loading problem
• Customization restrictions
• Data monitoring and privacy concerns

Pricing

• Free - $0
• Premium - $2 per user/Month 
• Business - $4 per user/Month

1. Complex Scheduling Needs

The most challenging task in restaurant operations is shift management within an available number of employees. In case a smaller number of employees require distributing double shifts become a challenge. In addition, the absence of employees due to unavoidable situations, sick leave, or social reasons, becomes a tough situation for the manager to manage with limited staff. Similarly, with a large number of restaurant staff keeping track of employees for overtime or idle at work, is again a costly affair to manage in addition to overstaffing, lack of communications & staff accessibility.

2. Employee Turnover and Availability Changes

In hotel and restaurant businesses, the employees are considered as the key assets and thus it becomes a significant task to be aware of the turnover of your staff. It has become a challenging matter for all restaurants to retain good staff for longer, manage sufficient staff during festive seasons, and manage wages during the off-season. From hiring employees to providing training, shift scheduling, wages, investing all efforts in employees, getting better services, and employee retention are some struggling factors for restaurant businesses.

3. Communication Gaps

Dealing with the restaurant's staff becomes as tough as climbing a mountain. Even with strict rules and regulations of the workplace, many employees take leave without prior notice or communication. This gap of interaction requires assigning their duties to other employees and thus, it becomes dog-tired work for that person.  Such frequent incidents disturb the entire workforce chain and create disputes and dissatisfaction among staff causing poor customer service and finally impacting the growth of the business.

4. Balancing Employee Preferences

Lack of job satisfaction and an unpleasant work environment imbalance employees’ minds and interest in continuing jobs. Many employees demand shift preferences, day-off, or flexibility in work hours due to personal reasons or to balance their work/personal life. Thus, it becomes sometimes very tough, especially in peak seasons for the management to manage the situations to fill the gap of a skilled workforce.

5. Cost

Scheduling employees’ shifts with budget limits becomes a challenging task for the management. Without a proper restaurant staff scheduling system, understaffing or overstaffing disturbs the budget and impacts the sales and revenue of the business.

The best restaurant management software comprises outstanding features that enable restaurant businesses to run efficiently. This is one of the key reasons for the global rise of the total addressable market for this software which is expected to reach approximately USD 15.85 billion by 2031.

The Restaurant Scheduling Software in India is the most beneficial system for all sizes of restaurants to automate their manual complex task. Choose the right restaurant scheduling staff software, which is easy to operate, affordable, and comprises rich features like shift scheduling/changing, mobile accessibility, payroll, inventory management, payment processing, online order/table booking, internal communication, reporting, and other features. Select the software based on your restaurant size that meets your business needs, streamline complex operations during the peak seasons, and enhance the productivity and proficiency of your restaurants.