How to Choose a Restaurant POS System in India

Every vendor has a long feature list and most of it will not matter to you. What matters is whether the software matches how your place actually runs:

• Full-service dine-in. Table layout, running tabs, course-wise firing, split bills, table transfers.
• QSR and counter. Raw billing speed, a token system, minimal taps per order.
• Cloud kitchen. Aggregator integration first, everything else second.
• Bar. Peg-wise stock, open tabs, happy hour pricing.
• Multi-outlet. Central menu control, per-outlet pricing, consolidated reporting.

A system built for one of these can be genuinely bad at another. Ask which format the vendor has the most customers in.

Whatever your format, these are the floor:

• GST billing done properly. Correct slabs per item, CGST and SGST split, unbroken invoice numbering, a filing-ready summary.
• KOT that reaches the kitchen. Printed or on screen, but automatic. Nobody should be writing an order out twice.
• Offline billing. Your internet will drop during a rush. The till must keep working and sync afterwards.
• Recipe-linked inventory. Without it you have no real food cost and no way to spot leakage.
• Role-based access. A cashier should not be able to void bills or read your margins.

The monthly figure on the website is rarely the figure you pay. Ask specifically:

• Is it priced per outlet, per till, or per user? Per-till pricing gets expensive fast.
• What is the one-time setup or onboarding fee?
• Are inventory, analytics and aggregator integration included, or are they add-ons?
• What does support cost after the first year, and is phone support included or extra?
• What happens to the price at renewal?

Add it all up over three years. A cheaper monthly rate with four paid add-ons often ends up costing more than an all-in plan. Our pricing page lists what is included rather than what is extra, which is the comparison worth making.

Do not watch the demo. Take the tablet and do it yourself:

1. Bill a real order from your own menu. Count the taps. Now imagine forty of those in an hour.
2. Pull the internet out mid-bill. See what happens. This tells you more than an hour of slides.
3. Split a bill three ways after items have already been fired.
4. Add an item with a recipe and check that stock actually moves when you bill it.
5. Open the reports and find yesterday’s food cost percentage. If it takes more than a minute, you will never look at it.

• Can I export my own data, and in what format? A vendor who makes leaving hard is telling you something.
• How long does support take to answer during dinner service? Ask for the actual number, not the promise.
• Who trains my staff, and how long does it take? If a new cashier needs more than a day, the interface is wrong.
• What hardware am I locked into? Software that runs on an ordinary Android tablet saves you a terminal purchase now and a replacement later.
• Can I talk to a customer of yours running my format, in my city? The hesitation in the answer is the answer.

A demo is a rehearsed performance. A trial is your kitchen on a Saturday night. Load your actual menu, run a full weekend, and see what your staff say on Monday. They will find in two days what you would not have found in two months of evaluation.

Billing Rasoi gives you fourteen days with every feature open and no card needed, which is long enough to cover two weekends. Look at the full feature set first, or see how it handles Indian restaurant billing specifically.