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Restaurant POS Buyers Guide

restaurant pos buyers guide

Make an informed buying decision when you are selecting a new system

The trending business model in the restaurant POS industry is a little confusing. In the last decade most of the POS system on the market are now owned by credit card processing companies. This has caused a lot of misleading offers to flood the market. One of those misleading practices is the “Free POS” offers you may have seen. being a business person your self can you really fall prey to a “Free” offer of anything. You and I both know nothing is free. If a company is offering you a free system it is because they are over charging you for merchant services. That company offering the Free system has to pay for it somehow! The first consideration in buying a new system is “do i want to be in a long term contract to pay off a free system”?

Partner with a local company that is also invested in your community

Take a look at what POS re-sellers in your community have to offer. Don’t buy a system from across the country or from your bank. Spend your time in creating a dining experience for your guest not chasing down a company on the other side of the country to get something resolved. Investing locally can free you of extra burdens you should not have to deal with.

Look at total cost of ownership not just the start up cost

Ensure when you are calculating total cost of ownership to factor in credit card fees. Factor in all the cost to get a true picture. If merchant services are part of your system include those cost. We have created a restaurant POS buyers guide we invite you to download and examine before purchasing a system. Read our guide and contact us to schedule a demo.

invest in the right POS system

download restaurant pos report

 

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Let’s talk about Free POS systems

Don't get burned by toast

I’m sure you have all seen the ads for free pos systems right? Maybe you have had a high pressure sales person call about their complete tablet POS system that they provide for free. I have often wondered how do business people fall for something that sounds to good to be true. We all know their is no such thing as a free lunch. You get a free lunch when the buyer of that lunch wants something else from you right.

So someone buying you lunch wants something in return from you. OK that on it’s own it not a horrible thing. But what if they were giving you a free lunch and locking you into a usury contract? What if they said enjoy your free lunch but if you leave us your going to pay for that free lunch times ten! Would you still consider that a deal?

Before you enter into any contracts take a look at this article from a neutral third party site Are Toast’s Early Termination Fees Usurious or Expected? After you read this get a hold of your local Heartland POS Dealer for a fair deal.

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The power of choice

POS systems with a choice

Before you buy your next POS system think about your choices in merchant services. You may have noticed over the last couple of years credit card processors have started buying or making POS systems.  In the past you selected your POS system and your credit card processor but like all things that changed. Credit card processors started making their own POS systems and offering them free to get your credit card processing business. Because you are an entrepreneur I’m sure you already know nothing is free! If they are giving you a POS system than they are making it up in your credit card processing rates.

For a very short while Heartland followed this trend and created a POS system and marketed it directly. They did this long enough to realize that while it did work it did not thrive, the model was missing something. What was it missing? The long term local relationship between the POS dealer (VAR) and the business owner. Heartland fixed this issue when they shuttered their own POS system and bought numerous established systems. What, what do you mean they bought POS systems? I know what you are thinking, so lets address that. Yes they bought numerous systems, they purchased Digital Dining, Dinerware, Cash Register Express, and LiquorPOS. Here is what they did something different from other processors. They left the dealer model in place and made it stronger. The second thing they did was to keep their POS systems open to other merchant processors.

Now fast forward to Heartland’s newest POS system known as Heartland Restaurant Point of Sale system which was just launched. They are keeping this system open to other processors too!

Cut to the chase. Now you tell me what is going to happen when you sign up for a free or reduced price system and you want to negotiate your credit cards rates that you have noticed have been creeping higher and higher. So you contact your FREE POS system company and ask them why are my processing fees so high? Why can’t you give me a better deal? We all know how this story ends. It ends with you being stuck with a free POS system you can’t afford. Don’t you wish you had a choice now? Explore Heartland Restaurant POS before you ended up trapped!