How to Choose a Restaurant POS in India: 12 Questions to Ask Before You Buy

Most restaurant owners buy a POS twice: once on the strength of a demo, and again eighteen months later after living with the first one. The second purchase is always smarter, because it's driven by questions the demo never answered. Here they are, so you can ask them the first time.

Operations under pressure

1. What happens when the internet drops? The only acceptable answer is "billing continues, KOTs still print, everything syncs when it's back". A cloud POS that stops at the router is a liability on the one night you need it most.
2. How many taps to bill a table with a split payment? Have them show you — half UPI, half card, one item discounted. If it takes a minute in a demo, it takes three in a rush.
3. Where do KOTs go? Kitchen, bar, dessert counter — can each station get its own printer or display, automatically routed by item? Manual routing is a comped dish waiting to happen.
4. Can staff use it in a week? Ask for the training plan. Good systems need an evening, not a course.

Money and compliance

5. Is it GST-native? Correct HSN codes, CGST/SGST/IGST splits, composition scheme support and one-click monthly summaries your CA can use. "We have a GST report" is not the same as GST-native.
6. Does inventory work at recipe level? Selling a paneer tikka should deduct paneer, not "1 unit of paneer tikka". This is where 3–5% of revenue leakage hides in most kitchens.
7. What are the total costs? Licence, per-outlet fees, hardware, payment charges, integrations, support tiers. Get it in writing for year one and year three.

Growth and ownership

8. How does a second outlet work? Central menu control with local overrides, consolidated reporting, role-based access. If adding an outlet means "a new account", walk away.
9. Does online ordering land in the same system? Your own ordering site, QR menus and aggregator orders should print as KOTs and deduct the same stock — not live on a separate tablet.
10. Who owns the data, and can you export it? Customer lists, sales history, recipes. Yours, in a standard format, on request.
11. Which hardware does it support? Standard ESC/POS thermal printers, Android tablets, cash drawers, KDS screens — not a proprietary bundle you can only buy from the vendor.
12. Who answers the phone at 9pm? The most-quoted line in our client testimonials isn't a feature — it's that the people who build the system pick up. Ask who provides support and what the response time is after hours.

A shortcut

Run a real trial: one outlet, one busy weekend, your real menu. The POS that survives that with staff still smiling is the one to sign. Our Restaurant POS was built by living through exactly those weekends — offline-first billing, recipe-level inventory, GST-native reports and support from the builders. Book a demo and bring this list.