A bar till is tested in the fifteen minutes before last orders, when the room is three deep, every order is a round, half of them are going on a tab and one of them is being split between four people who have just decided that. If a system survives that, the rest of the week is easy. Here is what it takes, and what pubs need that bars do not.
Tabs are the thing that breaks first
A tab has to be opened in one action, added to by anyone behind the bar, moved from the bar to a table when the group sits down, and split at the end without a calculator. The usual weakness is the middle two: a tab that only the person who opened it can see, or one that cannot move rooms. Ask to see a tab started at the bar, added to by a second person and then split three ways, because that sequence is the job.
Rounds, measures and the price of a wrong button
Drink pricing is where a till earns or costs money quietly. A double, a large glass and a pint of the same product are three prices, and if they are three separate buttons somebody will hit the wrong one all night. What you want is one product with its measures attached, priced once. It also makes a price rise a single edit instead of an afternoon.
What a pub needs that a bar does not
Food, a cellar and usually a garden. Pub epos systems are quoted with a kitchen printer and course handling because the same room serving pints at nine was serving Sunday lunch at two, and a till that treats those as one order type will annoy both. If there is a cellar, ask how the till handles a line clean and a wastage entry, because otherwise those become paper again within a month.
Questions people ask about bar epos
Can one system run the bar and the kitchen?
Yes, and most pub products assume it. What to check is whether the kitchen can be closed independently while the bar keeps serving, because that is every evening after nine.
How should a bar till handle happy hour?
As a scheduled price on the product, applied automatically between set times, and visible on the receipt. Anything that relies on staff remembering to press a button will be wrong on the nights it matters.
Do I need handhelds behind a bar?
Rarely. Handhelds earn their place on tables in a garden or a large floor, not at the bar itself, where the till is already in reach and a second screen is faster than a device that has to be woken.
How should tabs be settled at the end of the night?
By the till, against the card that opened the tab, with the record showing what was on it and when it closed. A tab held on a card behind the bar and rung through at closing is a night of rounds nobody can itemise, and it is the first thing a dispute the next morning asks about.
What does a bar till need for measures?
A measure on every line. In the UK, spirits are served in 25 or 35 millilitre measures and draught beer and cider in thirds, halves, two-thirds and pints, so a line that says gin has to say which measure, and a double is a different line. The till holds the measure and prices it; keeping to the law is the licensee's job, and a record that shows the measures is what proves it was kept.