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Restaurant EPOS systems and card payments for UK restaurants.
Restaurant EPOS systems and card payments
Restaurant service lives or dies in the gap between the table and the kitchen. An order is taken, walked to a till, keyed again into a card machine at the end, and reconciled by hand after close. Every one of those steps is a chance for a wrong table, a missed course or a mismatch at the end of the night. A restaurant EPOS system is meant to close that gap.
This page covers what an EPOS system for restaurants should do, the features that matter in service, and the UK tips rules that now shape how tables pay. EposCloud is an independent review and introduction service. We look at how your orders, tills and card machines work together, then introduce options from selected providers. There is no obligation to switch.
- Pay at table — handhelds that hold the bill and take payment at the table
- Kitchen display system — orders sent through in the right order and sequence
- Table management — a clear view of covers, courses and which table is at which stage
- Tips handling — recorded by transaction and reported clearly for UK compliance
- Online ordering — in-house and online orders on one system, hitting the kitchen the same way
- Reporting by cover, service period and menu item so you see what actually makes money
- Staff and shift tools — clock-in, per-user logins and control over who can apply refunds or discounts
What a restaurant EPOS system needs to do
A restaurant EPOS system is the till software and hardware a restaurant uses to take orders, send them to the kitchen, handle tips and take payment, with card payments built in. It connects the floor, the kitchen and the card machine so an order is entered once and flows everywhere it needs to go.
For a restaurant, the core jobs are sending orders to the kitchen in the right order, taking payment at the table, splitting bills cleanly, handling tips correctly, and showing which dishes carry the margin. A restaurant POS system in the UK that does those well will do more for a service than a longer feature list that handles none of them smoothly. The real test is your own Friday night, not the demo a salesperson walks you through on a quiet afternoon.
Pay at table and your card fees
Integrated pay at table removes the double job of keying the amount into a separate terminal, which is where most end-of-service mismatches start. It also speeds up table turnover, and faster turnover on a busy night is real revenue.
It is worth keeping an eye on the cost too. Your effective rate is everything you pay to accept cards in a month, divided by the amount you took on cards. Restaurant card fees have a habit of creeping up quietly across busy summer months, and a mixed bill of debit, credit and the occasional business card makes the real rate easy to lose. Our card payment solutions page explains the fee structure, and the free card fee calculator shows what you pay now.
Tips, service charge and the UK rules
One rule now shapes how restaurants handle tips, and an EPOS can help you meet it. Since 1 October 2024, the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 requires UK employers to pass 100 per cent of tips and service charges to staff, apart from statutory tax deductions, and to keep a clear written policy on how tips are shared. Employers can no longer deduct card processing charges from tips, as the government’s tipping guidance sets out.
A restaurant EPOS that records tips by transaction and reports them clearly makes it far easier to evidence that staff received their full share. The system does not replace a compliant policy, and this is general information rather than legal advice, but it does make the record-keeping straightforward.
Funding for refurbishment, kit or a second site
Restaurants carry real capital costs, from a kitchen refit to a new site. If cash flow will not stretch, there are funding routes designed for it, from asset finance for equipment to a merchant cash advance repaid as a share of card takings. Each has a different cost and structure, and some cost more than a conventional loan, so it pays to understand them first. Our business funding page sets out the options, and funding is subject to status, eligibility and provider approval.
There is a practical link worth noting. Your card takings are both the figure a merchant cash advance provider assesses and the number that tells you whether you are overpaying on fees. Sometimes the cheapest way to free up cash is not to borrow at all, but to fix what you pay to accept cards first, then borrow only for what is genuinely needed.
See what your card fees look like
Enter a few figures from your latest merchant statement to see an estimate of what your card payments currently cost your business.
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Restaurants questions
A restaurant EPOS system is the till software and hardware a restaurant uses to take table orders, send them to the kitchen, handle tips and take payment, with card payments built in. Unlike a basic till, it connects the floor, the kitchen and the card machine, so an order keyed once reaches the kitchen and settles at the table without being typed again.
Pay at table means a server takes the payment at the table on a handheld that already holds the bill, rather than carrying the order to a fixed till and keying the amount into a separate card machine. It speeds up table turnover, removes keying errors, and lets guests split the bill or add a tip on the device. In a busy service it is often the single biggest time saver.
Since 1 October 2024, the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 requires UK employers to pass 100% of tips and service charges to staff, bar statutory tax deductions, and to keep a clear written policy. A restaurant EPOS that records tips by transaction and reports them clearly makes that far easier to evidence. The system does not replace a compliant policy, but it supports one.
Many can, either directly or through an integration, so online and in-house orders arrive on the same system and hit the kitchen the same way. If online ordering matters to you, confirm how it connects, whether it syncs the menu automatically, and how delivery-platform orders are handled, because these vary a lot between providers.
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