6 Restaurant Start Up Budget Categories You Don’t Want To Forget

A restaurant start up budget is dominated by the big items. The lease, kitchen renovations, staff wages, permits and licenses, furniture and crockery, capital needs, and a marketing plan all come with big price tags and all headline your business plan as you start to decide if your dream can actually become a reality.

There are some budget categories where you can make savings, however. Finding efficient, cost-effective ways of handling these restaurant start up must-haves can get you feeling better about your future as a restaurateur.

The 6 areas where you can get professional-grade service while saving resources for the bigger spend are:

Sales and service hardware
Sales transaction fees
Inventory costs
Your website
Staff management
Customer loyalty programs

All of these potential startup savings are available if you choose the right point of sale (POS) solution. By embracing the 2020s trend of using a single digital platform to run both your management and service essentials you can save valuable resources by spending less and operating more efficiently.   

Prepare for Success with POS

Everyone with a dream of joining the restaurant industry has heard about the high rate of failure among startups. What you should be focused on is the reasons why startup restaurants succeed—and, according to Statista, more than 13,000 restaurants open each year in the US, adding to an industry 660,000 strong that generates almost 10 million jobs.

One of the keys to that success is sticking to a fixed budget and being aware of how what you spend on your restaurant translates into profit, or at least cash flow.

A restaurant startup cost calculator can be one of the best resources for achieving those goals. In the 2020s, your point of sale system can be that cost calculator. A very impressive, cutting-edge version of a cost calculator.

Modern digital POS solutions sit at the center of a restaurant business. Every sale, purchase order, customer order, discount, tax commitment, and ongoing overhead is passed through it. During service, it’s used to settle accounts, relay orders, and manage tables, and after-hours it is used to power digital inventory, analyze sales information, and organize staff.

This mix of sleek iPad-powered hardware and cloud-hosted business software tools can be the key to efficiencies and savings in those 6 key areas of a restaurant startup budget.

And the cost of the POS solution is itself one of the most important savings.

Affordable Cloud Networks Save Money

Modern POS systems are hosted in the cloud—which is a poetic way of saying a POS provider maintains and manages all your IT needs from their servers and gives you complete 24/7 access over the internet.

This Software-as-a-Service arrangement means restaurant owners and managers can access the best in business software—and in many cases, hardware—for the cost of a monthly subscription to an on-demand, scalable, quit anytime service.

That means no overheads. No lock-in commitments. No IT staff costs. And no IT expertise required in a digital age where online sales are booming.

This low-cost, no overhead arrangement is the key differentiator between startups in the 2020s and their predecessors. Never has it been so affordable to access the best business tools to keep your restaurant on budget through the perilous early years. With your POS solution acting as a modern version of a cost calculator, you can make savings and efficiencies across a range of restaurant start up budget categories.

1. Sales and Service Hardware

Today’s leading POS providers will often include in the cost of the monthly subscription the iPads, card readers, scanners, barcode printers, order printers, and more that it takes to manage a busy service. At times when you’re securing bulk orders of cutlery, tablecloths, and mountains of cookware, it can be a relief to know your front-of-house needs are paid for and locked away.

2. Sales Transaction Fees

Digital transactions are an essential part of restaurant service, but the different payment methods attract different rates of monthly and transaction fees. You can give yourself some control over these potentially hidden costs by securing agnostic hardware that will work with any financial institution. This allows you to shop around for the best deal and take advantage of a competitive industry. 

3. Inventory Costs

Restaurants deal in perishables and breakables, both in the kitchen and on the floor. Sticking to a budget during the cash-poor initial months of business is critical, and a digital inventory is your best asset in keeping track of what’s really being bought broken in your restaurant. Digital inventory breaks down bulk orders to individual units, so bags of flour and bottles of wine become countable objects that you can track.

4. Your Website

The best POS providers not only service your IT needs, they’ll help you mount and manage a profitable website. Every business needs an online presence in the 2020s, and private web builders know it. Being able to include the cost of a user-friendly site for takeaways, reservations, and basic marketing can make a significant impact on your bottom line.

5. Staff Management

Your staff are the human face of your business and a customer’s guide through your menu and cuisine. Keeping the team happy and informed is key to running a good business, so it’s important they can access all they need to perform. Adding a comprehensive staff section to your POS system that includes timesheets, rosters, and tip allocation can help them do their best to impress your guests.

6. Customer Loyalty Programs

While everyone is aware that growth depends on repeat business, it isn’t as well known that engaging a private company or app to create and manage a branded customer loyalty program can be expensive. Again, this service can be included in your POS costs if you choose the right provider.

That data gathered from such programs can provide the additional benefit of revealing the most popular elements of your business. By analyzing who buys what and when, you can more accurately plan for the future and more efficiently deploy your resources during the sensitive early days of a new restaurant.

A POS Solution for Your Restaurant Startup Budget

A digital POS solution is the 2020s version of a dynamic, evolving startup cost calculator. Not only can the right system accurately track your spending and measure your sales, but the low overheads and subscription payments also make running your business more efficient.

Every startup runs a cash-poor gauntlet upon opening, but engaging the right POS solution can be your best asset in surviving and thriving in your dream industry.

At talech, we understand the challenges a startup restaurant faces. That’s why we offer the best in POS solutions with simple pricing, no hidden fees, and no commitments. Our systems are built to grow with you as you succeed, and we customize our solutions to get you started in the right direction. Reach out to us today to sign up for a demo and to learn more about how talech can be your valued POS partner.