Finding great restaurant management software can be a complete game changer for your business. There are a lot of moving parts involved in the day-to-day operations of running a restaurant. If you don’t carefully manage each element, it can directly impact your restaurant’s profits.
Without good technology in restaurants, staying on top of all these different tasks can be a real challenge.
To help you out, we’ve reviewed a bunch of the best restaurant software solutions. These solutions are for various operations and tasks involved in running your restaurant. Choose the right platform, and it can make a major difference to your restaurant’s success.
What is Restaurant Management Software?
Restaurant management software refers to any system you can use to run your restaurant more efficiently. It’s a fairly broad term and can include software like a restaurant POS system, inventory management tools, online ordering software, restaurant marketing platforms, and more.
Top restaurant management software solutions include a range of different tools that help restaurant owners streamline their daily operations and attract more customers.
Some restaurant management solutions focus on a single area of restaurant operations, such as inventory management or employee scheduling. Others take a more all-in-one approach.
Many factors go into running food service businesses. These include managing staff, back-of-house, and front-of-house operations, customer satisfaction, sales data, food costs, payment processing, and more.
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By using the right restaurant management software, businesses can simplify and automate various tasks around these factors. This saves time, adds transparency to restaurant operations, and gets the restaurant running more efficiently.
When choosing restaurant management systems, it's important to consider how these systems can integrate with your other software tools (like your accounting system, calendar, or email software). By using a fully integrated software stack, managing your restaurant operations can be a breeze.
9 Best Restaurant Management Software in 2023
With all of the different software options available, finding the right restaurant management system can seem tricky. To help you out, here are some of the best options for restaurant owners right now.
1. Perfect Venue
Best for Event Management
If you’re looking for the best event management software for your restaurant, Perfect Venue is a smart choice. This platform offers an all-in-one solution for restaurants and venues, making event planning and venue management a far easier process.
Perfect Venue includes tools like a central calendar for easier time management, a payment gateway for faster invoicing and payment processing, and a task management module to stay more organized. There are automated email templates to help you communicate with clients more efficiently, automated BEOs and important documents, and access to advanced analytics to help you make informed decisions.
Whether you offer private dining events at your restaurant, rent it out for functions, or work with event planners on unique events, Perfect Venue will simplify and optimize your venue management processes.
Main Features
- Task and document automation
- Email templates and automation
- Professional digital proposals
- Event analytics
- Integration options
2. Craftable
Best for Inventory Management Software
Craftable is a platform that restaurant managers can use to connect all of their inventory and financial management processes with their sales and accounting systems. The platform is designed to help restaurants gain better insights into their operations.
You can use Craftable to connect your purchasing, recipes, inventory, and sales with your accounting system. This provides greater visibility into how your business is performing, and it allows for more informed business decisions.
The analytics tool is particularly good with Craftable, offering detailed insights into the business. The platform also offers plenty of vendor-related, accounting, and POS integrations.
Main Features
- Inventory and e-procurement
- Accounting and payments
- Business intelligence
3. 7Shifts
Best for Employee Scheduling
7Shifts offers an employee scheduling and team management platform to help restaurants operate more efficiently. The platform provides an easy way to create and post work schedules for any restaurant. Although, the software offers tools for more than just shift management.
You can use 7Shifts to enhance staff training, hiring, managing payroll, and even reducing staff turnover. There are features to help you stay on top of relevant labor laws, task management tools, and even an AI integration option for automatic staff scheduling.
Staying on top of staff and work schedules can be a complicated part of restaurant management, but 7Shifts provides all of the tools and insights to make this process easy. Read our full 7Shifts review here.
Main Features
- Hiring and onboarding tools
- Staff training
- Employee scheduling system
- Payroll integrations
- Employee engagement and communications tools
4. Toast POS
Best Restaurant POS System
Your restaurant POS system is one of your most valuable pieces of software. It’s where you manage your sales and daily operations, and gain insights into your restaurant’s performance. Toast POS offers one of the best POS system options, with easy functionality and a wide range of features.
Toast POS provides an all-in-one POS system where you can improve table turn time, streamline operations, and potentially increase your revenue. The system connects with the front- and back of house, providing a complete overview of your restaurant’s operations and performance. Toast POS also includes easy, functional hardware.
While a restaurant POS system cost can be pretty hefty, Toast is one of the most affordable POS system options available. This makes it an appealing choice for small and new restaurants.
Main Features
- Order entry and management
- Menu management
- Restaurant CRM
- Restaurant gift cards
- Online payments
- Various integration options
5. SpotOn POS
Most Versatile POS System
SpotOn is another popular restaurant POS system. This company doesn’t only offer POS systems for restaurants, but it provides POS systems for all kinds of business use cases. This means the system is versatile and will likely match the needs of any business.
SpotOn offers fully mobile POS systems, allowing you to run your business and accept payments anywhere. This is useful for restaurants that might have a food truck or do popup events. The platform also includes functions for online ordering, restaurant reservations, and e-gift cards. There’s also a website builder attached to the POS system.
This is also one of the most versatile restaurant POS systems, thanks to its many available integrations. SpotOn also offers hardware to match its POS software.
Main Features
- POS terminal
- Online ordering
- Enterprise reporting
- Website builder
- Mobile POS system
- Reservations
6. MarginEdge
Best for Managing Food Costs
MarginEdge is a restaurant management software that offers detailed insights into food costs. This helps restaurants automate their back-office operations. It simplifies and enhances the administrative tasks behind managing your menu, recipe costing, and pricing strategies.
MarginEdge links to your POS system, as well as your restaurant accounting system. You can then upload pictures of all your restaurant invoices to the platform. MarginEdge will automatically process the invoices, and cover tasks like order management, sales reporting, recipe displays, generating a food usage report, and more.
If you want to gain tighter control of your inventory management, food costing, and profit margins, MarginEdge is a helpful solution.
Main Features
- Invoice processing
- Cost management
- Inventory and food usage
- Recipes and menu analysis
- Back office efficiencies
7. OpenTable
Best Restaurant Reservations System
OpenTable is a powerful tool that can help any kind of restaurant business attract more customers and increase reservations. The customer-facing platform helps people discover restaurants near them and make easy reservations.
Small business owners can use OpenTable to bring more feet through the door. The platform also offers useful tools for enhanced reservation management. This includes functions like customer management tools, easy floorplan management, trend reports, and detailed analytics into your restaurant performance.
OpenTable can help you to manage your operations more smoothly, and provide a better customer experience at the same time.
Main Features
- Diner network and online bookings
- Customer management tools
- Detailed business insights
8. Davo
Best Sales Tax Tool for POS Systems
Managing sales tax on all your restaurant transactions can be tricky. This is where Davo comes in.
Davo integrates with your restaurant POS system to automate the sales tax process. The tool will set aside sales tax amounts each day to ensure you’re always in the loop with this important information. Davo will file and pay your sales tax for you. This is an easy way to make sure your business stays compliant.
With Davo, you can keep running your restaurant and accepting sales as normal. The platform will do all the tax work for you. This makes managing a busy restaurant a lot easier.
Main Features
- Automated sales tax calculations
- Files and pays sales tax on time
- Integrates with all major POS systems
9. HotSchedules
Best for Employee Scheduling and Engagement
HotSchedules offers a simple yet effective employee scheduling and engagement solution for hospitality businesses. Managing staff is always tricky, but with software like HotSchedules, it becomes an easier process.
HotSchedules significantly reduces manager admin time, making creating and managing work schedules easy. The platform also assists with all wage compliance regulations. Another great feature of the software is its shift forecasting ability, which can help with more accurate shift planning to meet demand.
Besides being a useful tool for scheduling and managing employees, HotSchedules also includes software for enhancing the employee experience. Communicating with employees becomes easier, and maintaining reliable work schedules becomes a far more efficient process.
Main Features
- Employee scheduling tool
- Demand forecasting
- Compliance notifications and alerts
- Mobile app
Conclusion
Make business more efficient by investing in the right restaurant management software. These tools will save you time, improve your operational efficiency, and ultimately help your business generate more revenue.
With a carefully chosen software stack, running a restaurant can be far less stressful. Software is also an easy way to increase your restaurant's profit potential.
If you’re interested in trying out the best event management software for your business, we recommend Perfect Venue. Sign up for a 14-day free trial, or watch the demo to see how the platform can help you run your restaurant smarter.
