Restaurant POS: what it needs to do beyond the card reader

Friday, 8 p.m. The phone rings on the counter. One tablet takes an order from a delivery platform, another takes one from the website, and the cashier writes a phone order by hand on a slip. Four places orders come from, one person who has to see them all.

When a restaurant owner searches for “restaurant POS”, this is usually the scene they want to stop. But Google shows them 200-lei card readers and rankings of American systems. Nothing about the orders that get lost between screens.

Three things that are all called “POS”

In hospitality, the word POS covers three different things. You pay for all of them, but they do different jobs.

The payment terminal is the card reader. Since 1 January 2026, accepting card or other modern payments in Romania no longer depends on any cash threshold, and the fine for not doing it can reach 50,000 lei. So you have one anyway.

The fiscal cash register is what prints the fiscal receipt. It's mandatory for restaurants selling to the public, and the exemption for online commerce doesn't cover home deliveries made by restaurants on order. Your accountant can confirm the details for your situation.

The ordering software is the part no law asks for. And it's the only one that decides whether an order reaches the kitchen or gets lost between the phone and the tablet.

You buy the two devices once and you've met your obligations. The software you choose based on how many orders you want to stop losing.

What a restaurant POS has to do

A good restaurant POS doesn't make your menu look nice. It gathers your orders in one place and gets them to the kitchen without anyone rewriting them.

In practice, check for these:

• Orders from the website, the phone and the counter show up on the same screen.
• Every order prints on a kitchen ticket, with everything the customer asked for.
• When a new order comes in, someone knows right away, even if they're not next to the computer.
• Delivery zones, fees and opening hours are set once, not explained on every call.
• At the end of the month you see how much you took in and what sold best.

If a system ticks these, what's written on the box matters less. If it doesn't, the “best POS for hospitality” from an American top 10 won't help you in Brașov.

Where the money actually leaks

Most restaurants we see already have a card reader and a cash register. What they're missing is the link between online orders and the kitchen.

Delivery platform orders arrive on the platform's tablet, with a commission taken from each one. Website orders, where there is a website, land in an email inbox or a panel nobody opens on a Friday night. And the phone stays on handwritten slips.

You only see the result at the end of the month: forgotten orders, customers who waited an hour and don't come back, and commission paid on orders that could have come in directly.

What to ask before you sign

“Do I need new hardware?” Usually not. A desktop POS runs on the computer at the counter, plus a receipt printer.

“Does it replace my fiscal register?” No, and it's good to know that from the start. The fiscal receipt stays with the cash register. The ordering POS prints the ticket for the kitchen.

“What happens if the internet goes down?” Ask every provider exactly this. Our answer is direct: the desktop POS doesn't work offline. If the restaurant's internet drops, you install the app on any phone with mobile data and take orders from there until the connection is back.

“How much do I pay per order?” With some systems, nothing on top of the subscription. With others, a percentage of every sale. The difference adds up fast.

What happened at Dr. Sandwich

Before the website, the Dr. Sandwich location took orders by phone only. Between 20 August and 30 September 2026, in six weeks, it received 145 completed orders through the website, worth 14,858 lei. All of them went straight into the ordering system, not into an inbox.

It's one location and a short period, not a promise for every restaurant. We wrote up separately how we measured the numbers, sources included.

Friday, 8 p.m., with one screen

Same Friday night, different counter. Website orders and phone orders come in on the same screen, the printer prints the kitchen ticket, and the owner gets the alert on their phone while at home.

That's what the POS included in SiteCare does. Start (199 lei/month) comes with a website with SEO, pickup and delivery orders, card and cash payment, and a desktop POS with receipt printing on one device. Pro (349 lei/month) adds three devices, a kitchen display, owner and cashier apps with new-order alerts, and a courier app. No setup fee and no commission on orders.

And if website orders come to less than 1,000 lei in a month, you don't pay for that month.

A website that brings orders. Or you don't pay. See what each plan includes.