A friend in St Maarten approached me with the question if I could help out a colleague who’d been abandoned by his IT guy and held at ransom to get his systems/data back. Of course I could!
It quickly became obvious that the restaurant needed a POS replacement so they’d be able to put away pen and paper and continue business as usual.
So I started an investigation into the previous system and current wishes. From the initial investigation to delivery took only 3 weeks, mostly delayed by the state of the local (WiFi) network at the restaurant.
The project moved iZi from PixelPoint to cloud-based SaaS solution Lavu, one of the leading US restaurant POS vendors. This makes getting service or hardware very straightforward and avoids using markups by the local IT shops for common of the shelves hardware.
Lavu POS 4.0
- Cloud-based software so no maintenance nor updates to install, always latest version
- Leading US-based POS vendor with 24/7 support, so no need for local IT supplier
- No local server to install nor maintain, no Microsoft Windows licences needed, no hardware server to replace, no UPS
- iPad-based terminals, so minimum maintenance for daily operations, just keep a spare iPad in case of theft, breakage, water damage or hurricanes
- Full-service vendor, so if desired they can deliver both software and hardware
- Plenty payment integrations so very easy integration with existing bank systems
- Support for in-house TV screens or large monitors to showcase the menu items or promote happy hour or menus and increase sales
- Reuse existing ticket and kitchen printers with new POS system
Other POS systems that were considered are:
- LightSpeed, similar cloud-based POS but mainly popular in Europe at the time of the project
- Loyverse, free (really!) POS system that does not include inventory and HR management that works on both Android and iPads
At this moment, LightSpeed seems a better choice because of the more modern backend system and interface. But Lavu is learning quickly from competitors and adapting to meet their offers. Loyverse is better if you (or one of your employees is slightly more “computer-capable” because you are more on your own than with LightSpeed or Lavu.
Christian Peper 