Best Restaurant POS For Mac Software

If you’re running a bar or restaurant and are looking for Point of Sale software for your Mac, we’ve taken a look at the best restaurant POS software for Mac to make life easier for you and your business.

Restaurant POS software designed for Macs isn’t that common but there are a few solutions designed specifically for the needs of restaurants and bars on a Mac.

If you’re still in two minds about switching to a Mac based POS system, it’s well worth the investment.

Using Apple devices such as Macs and iPads gives your restaurant a modern, professional touch and also pays for itself in the long-run through savings in efficiency and organization.

If you complement your Mac with iPads, orders can be wirelessly transmitted from iPads to the kitchen for example so there’s less risk of orders getting mixed up or lost.

Using a Mac and other Apple devices is safer than using a PC as well since Macs are generally more reliable than PCs and less vulnerable to viruses, malware or hacking.

Before You Begin

Before deciding on which restaurant POS system is right for your Mac, there are a few things to consider first.

Although price is usually the main concern, while POS for Mac software isn’t cheap, it’s a lot cheaper than paying for entirely new POS hardware for your restaurant or bar.

Normally prices range from around $400 to more than $1000 but most vendors quote prices based on your business size and needs.

Note that there’s no such thing as free restaurant POS software for Mac  and even if there were, it wouldn’t be a good idea to trust the running of your business to a free software that likely has no after sales support.

Other than price, some important things to look for when deciding which system to go for are:

• What’s the support plan like? Is it free or do you have pay to extra?
• What’s the payment model like? Is it a one-off payment or monthly subscription model?
• Is there a customer loyalty plan feature? A great way of marketing your product at little expense.
• Does it support payment handling? Most offer their own integrated payment solution although all will work with the payment system you currently have in place.
• Are updates necessary and if so, how much do they cost?
• Is training included in the price or is it an extra service?
• Is a free trial available? We’ve indicated which ones offer a free trial but most vendors will be willing to let you try their POS system for free even if not specifically offered.

With this in mind, here are the best Restaurant POS system for Mac.

1. Waiterio POS System

Waiterio is designed specifically for the catering trade and is available in the Mac App Store.

Waiterio sends orders to the kitchen as soon as waiters take them and is suitable for restaurants, bars, pubs and any other business in the food industry.

You can also design your own menu, print invoices or receipts and generate reports.

You can download it from the Mac App Store.

2. MacPOS Café

MacPOS Café is aimed at small businesses, bars and restaurants and works seamlessly between your Mac and iOS device.

MacPOS Café is extremely easy to use – staff can be trained to use it in literally minutes. All you have to do is set it up with the inventory you want. You can create any item of food for sale and upload your own pictures if you want: You can create highly customized inventory reports limited to In Stock Only, Low Stock Items, Best Sellers, Profit, Total Sales etc: You can also view the monthly sales for up to the last 3 years to spot sales trends: All of this data you can also export to Excel. MacPOS Café costs €399 although there are also 3 other different pricing plans for MacPOS – Express ($179), Standard ($299) and Pro ($499).

All have a slightly different range of features and you can see the difference between them in the MacPOS feature comparison list. For instance, the Express version lacks Barcode Label Printing, Quantity Discounting and Tip Handling.

You can try a free trial of the different versions of MacPOS here.

3. PayGo

PayGo is a Cloud POS system based on FileMaker – a powerful database software for Mac that is used as an alternative to Microsoft Access on Mac.

PayGo is designed for small businesses of all kinds and FileMaker Pro gives it the power to track inventory, sales, orders, customers, loyalty programs etc.

The fact that it’s cloud based obviously means you need a constant connection to the internet for it to work but this should be no problem for restaurants with WiFi and payGo offers free Live Support during the first year.

Although it’s aimed more at retail than bars or restaurants, you can easily adapt it via the Event Setup Screen where you can add inventory and prices:You can also add a Merchant Account to PayGo so that you can process payments through it.