A till used to be a drawer that opened. What is sold under the name now is a record: what was ordered, by which table, how many people were eating, what it came to and how it was settled. That record is the entire difference between knowing your takings and knowing your business, and it is worth being clear about what has to be in it before comparing prices.
The record, line by line
One order carries more than a total. It carries a table or a collection slot, so you know where it went. A line per item, with modifiers, because that is what the kitchen works from and what a refund argues about later. A cover count, which is what turns a night's takings into a spend per head you can actually compare week to week. A status, so the floor knows what is coming. And a settlement, because an order that was comped and one that was paid look identical in a takings figure and mean opposite things.
Why it is priced by the site
Most products for independent rooms charge per site and let you add terminals, because the thing being sold is the record rather than the screen. That is the pricing you want with one room and two counters. Suites built for chains often price per terminal instead, and the difference appears the moment you put a second screen at the bar. Ask which model a quote uses before you compare two monthly figures.
What the cash drawer never gave you
A drawer tells you what came in. It cannot tell you that Tuesday's covers are up and the spend per head is down, which is the sentence that changes a menu. It cannot tell you which six dishes make most of your food margin, or that the two-for-one on a Wednesday brings people who order nothing else. Every one of those is arithmetic over a record of orders, and that is what you are buying.
How many tills a room actually needs
Usually one, plus a handheld or a tablet where the queue forms. A second full terminal earns its place when two people are taking payment at once for long enough to matter, which in most rooms is a Friday and a Saturday. Before buying the second screen, count the minutes it would save on those two nights and price it against a handheld, because a handheld usually wins and it moves.
Reading a week back from the record
Take one week of the record and ask it three questions. Covers by day, so the quiet Tuesday and the two Fridays a month that pay for it are visible as numbers rather than a feeling. Spend per head by day and by service, which is where a menu change shows up first, because covers move slowly and spend moves at once. And the items ranked by margin rather than by count, which is the list that decides what goes on the specials board. None of that needs a report bought from the vendor; it is arithmetic over the lines the till already holds, and a till that cannot export those lines is a till that has decided you will not do it.
Questions people ask about restaurant till system
Can I run a till on a tablet I already own?
In most modern products, yes, if it runs a current browser. That is worth checking before you buy hardware from the vendor, because a modest monthly price and a large first invoice for hardware is the common shape of these quotes.
What happens to the record if I stop subscribing?
Ask, and get it in writing. The answer you want is that you can export every order with its items and totals in a file you can open, at any time, without support's help. Anything less means the record of what your business sold belongs to somebody else.
Is a till system the same thing as a card machine?
No. A card machine moves money; a till records what the money was for. Plenty of rooms run both from one supplier, which is convenient and makes the two prices hard to separate. They are still two purchases.