Restaurant management software: the eight systems and what to buy first

Restaurant management software is the set of systems a restaurant runs on: a POS, plus tools for inventory, scheduling, payroll, reservations, online ordering, phone answering and accounting. Start with the POS, check which of the other seven your POS plan already covers, then add one tool at a time for the job that costs you the most hours or sales.

Toast and Restaurant365 each sell several of these jobs in one platform, and many single-job tools connect to the POS. Every tool on this list reads from the POS or writes into it, so the POS you choose limits the rest.

What does each system do?

System	What it does	Examples from vendors' own pages	Connects to
POS	Takes orders and payments, holds the menu, sends tickets to the kitchen and records each sale	Toast, Square, Clover, SpotOn, Lightspeed and TouchBistro. See our POS explainer and POS buying guide	Card processing, kitchen screens and printers, and every tool below
Inventory and food cost	Counts stock, costs recipes, tracks waste and builds orders to suppliers	MarketMan's Starter plan is $249 /monthly and lists real-time recipe costing, actual vs theoretical reporting and waste management	POS item sales, supplier invoices, accounting
Scheduling and time clock	Builds schedules, handles shift trades and time off, and records clock-ins	7shifts has a free plan for single locations up to 15 employees. Homebase Basic is $0 for 1 location, up to 10 employees	POS sales for labor forecasts, payroll
Payroll	Pays staff, handles tips and files payroll taxes	Gusto Simple is $49/mo + $6/mo per person. Square Payroll starts at $35 per month + $6 per person paid	Time clock, tips from the POS, accounting
Reservations and waitlist	Takes bookings, manages tables and the waitlist, and keeps guest profiles	SevenRooms' Starter package lists CRM and guest profiles, branded reservations and waitlist management, and table management, priced by quote	POS checks and guest spend, marketing
Online ordering	Takes pickup and delivery orders from your website, app or delivery apps	Toast lists online ordering in its Digital Storefront Suite. ChowNow lists direct online ordering and prints a 2.95% + $0.29 per transaction fee	POS menu and modifiers, kitchen screen
Phone answering	Answers calls about hours and menus, transfers calls, and can take orders and bookings	Maple Voice answers calls; Maple Pro adds phone orders and reservations. SevenRooms sells a Voice AI add-on that books reservations	POS for orders, reservation system for bookings
Accounting	Keeps the books, reconciles daily sales and bank deposits, and pays supplier bills	Restaurant365 lists a restaurant-specific general ledger, daily sales and bank reconciliation, and automated accounts payable, priced by quote	POS sales, payroll, inventory and invoices

What does your POS already cover?

Before you buy a separate tool, read your POS plan's feature list. A built-in tool shares the POS menu and staff list, with nothing to connect. Compare its features with the separate tools in the table above before you pay twice for the same job.

• Toast: the pricing page lists suites for team management (scheduling and tips), payroll, supplier and accounting (xtraCHEF invoice automation, accounting sync and food cost analytics), and online ordering in its Digital Storefront Suite. Its comparison chart marks which come with an add-on, where additional fees may apply. It also offers new restaurants a POS and payroll bundle starting at $69/month + $9 per employee/month.
• Square: the restaurant pricing table marks shift scheduling, timecards and tip pooling as missing from Square Free and included in Square Plus and Premium. Reservation integrations are marked for Premium only. Square Payroll is a separate charge.
• Clover: the full-service bundles include shift management, online ordering and stock tracking, and list payroll integrations as an optional add-on.
• TouchBistro: the pricing page FAQ says the Point of Sale plan includes staff management, floor plans and reporting, and that a kitchen display, inventory, online ordering, loyalty and reservations cost extra.

In what order should you buy them?

This table is our editorial reading of where each kind of restaurant feels the pain first. Your own weak spot should override it. Quick-service and drive-thru stores have their own order in our QSR technology guide.

Restaurant	After the POS, add	Then	Often waits
Full-service dining room	Reservations and waitlist, because tables are what you sell	Scheduling, then inventory once food cost drifts	A branded ordering app
Café or bakery	Online ordering for pickup	Scheduling and payroll together as the team grows	Reservations
Bar	Inventory, to track pours and bottle counts	Scheduling with tip pooling	Online ordering
Takeout and pizza	Online ordering and phone answering, since orders arrive both ways	Inventory	Reservations
Several locations	One POS and one menu across stores, then accounting that reports by location	Scheduling and payroll across stores	Tools only one store can use

How do you fill in the buying worksheet?

Copy these six questions into a sheet, one column per system you are thinking about. Answer from a normal week.

1. Hours by hand: how many hours a week does someone spend on this job now? Count schedule building, stock counts, re-typing online orders, or answering the same phone question.
2. Sales or money lost: what does the gap cost? Unanswered calls at dinner, no-shows at empty tables, or stock thrown out.
3. Already covered: does your POS plan include this, or would a plan upgrade cost less than a separate tool?
4. Connection: is your POS on the tool's own integration list? Ask what moves across: full orders with modifiers, sales totals only, or staff and hours.
5. Cost for a year: add the monthly fee, per-location and per-employee charges, per-transaction fees and setup. Gusto's $6/mo per person, for example, adds $180 a month for a team of 30.
6. Owner: who will set it up, and who fixes it when an order or a shift goes missing?

Buy first the system with the most hours or sales at stake whose connection to your POS you have confirmed. Add one system at a time, and give each a month before the next, so you can tell which change helped.

Where does phone answering fit?

Phone answering needs the POS only when you want phone orders or bookings written into your systems, so answering questions and transferring calls can start at any point. Maple Voice costs $150/month billed monthly or $85/month billed yearly for answering, hours and FAQs, and call transfer. Maple Pro costs $350/month billed monthly or $220/month billed yearly and adds phone orders into a supported POS and reservations on OpenTable. Check your POS on the integrations page, and compare other answering services in our phone answering shortlist.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted guide combines vendors' own pricing and product pages with an original system table, buying order and worksheet. The buying order is editorial judgment. It does not report a test of any product or a quote from any vendor, and it does not promise any result.