IPad POS for beer tap room

Our daughter is in the process of securing a license for a tap room in the East Bay Area of Northern California. I’ve been doing research to help find a good POS/bar system for iPad. Found one but it won’t keep bar tabs, so it’s a non-starter.

It occurred to me that someone like Roberto might have some thoughts on the subject, but any and all input would be appreciated

BTW, they’re going to have really good craft beers but my daughter’s been in ‘the biz’ for 10 years and they’ll have some good wine too. More when they get built out.

First mistake is targeting a device, rather than the app. Find the app that meets her needs, then worry about the devices it supports.

Actually she’s seen some apps that work on iPad and the bars that use them are very happy. I was just trying to widen the playing field for her. She’s also a pretty solid Apple nut, but otherwise I wouldn’t fault your advice.

Anyone with alternate OS ideas welcome as well.

The IOS based Mobile POS world is far more developed than Android or Windows 8. Most Apps are initially written for IOS and then adapted to support other OS.

FWIW, this is a pretty interesting software package combining POS, Consumer Information and Keg management:

I have been working with Shopkeep for years as a retailer, it has some shortcomings and probably is not right for a taproom. I have researched the heck out of cloud based POS for retailers. If I could change instantly I would probably go with Revel which is based in the Bay Area or Lightspeed. You can’t do enough due diligence on your POS system because once you are in one, it is hard to change. I got Shopkeep because they were one of the first to be cloud based and they are well priced.

Thanks. Yes, but Lightspeed seems to be retail software (at least their highlighted customers are all retailers and there is no restaurant functionality shown) where Revel has restaurant/bar specific functionality. In a beer bar environment you really can’t function without keeping open tabs. In today’s world, the idea of being able to enter orders at tables and have them go directly to the people at the beer taps is pretty cool too.

I found an online system comparison of these things and Revel showed very well except that they seem to require that you start with a hardware package you have to buy from them. I’m not into it enough yet to know if their hardware pricing is competitive.

Sorry, we use pieces of paper and an abacus on our bar, can’t really help you.

Very sophisticated!!!

We’re looking at Lightspeed for our retail wine store. I’ve been asking around, and a couple of retail clothing stores have said it’s a little sluggish sometimes. Anyone here have any firsthand experience?

If you want to collect tips on credit card receipts, then one system we’ve been using successfully is Ambur
http://www.amburapp.com/

It is a one time fee of $1000 for unlimited iOS devices at a location. It is not cloud based and has an open approach to merchant service providers.

You can download the app for free and try it out before buying.