How Booking Software Can Increase Your Efficiency and Maximize Bookings

Booking and reservation software is designed to simplify the process of managing appointments, events, and reservations. Increase efficiency, reduce errors, and improve customer satisfaction with user-friendly platform. Try it today!

The restaurant industry is a dynamic and challenging environment, where the difference between success and failure often hinges on efficiency, customer experience, and razor-thin margins. With the right technology, restaurateurs can streamline operations, enhance guest satisfaction, and improve profitability. In this guide, we will explore some of the top-rated restaurant management systems that are transforming the hospitality sector.

Brand: Toast

Specs: Meet the best-rated restaurant POS system.

Toast is a powerhouse in the restaurant POS (Point of Sale) landscape, boasting the title of G2’s #1 rated restaurant POS system. This platform is designed with restaurateurs in mind, offering a suite of tools that simplify operations, from speeding up service to streamlining online ordering.

See why Toast is G2’s #1 rated restaurant POS.

Toast delivers a comprehensive platform that not only handles your transactions but also provides detailed reporting and analytics to help you make informed decisions for your business. With Toast, all your restaurant technology needs are connected, providing a seamless operational experience.

From faster service and simpler online ordering, to detailed reporting and more, it’s all easier with a platform built for you.

Toast's user-friendly interface ensures that your staff can provide faster service and that your customers enjoy a smoother online ordering process. Detailed reporting features give you insights into every aspect of your operation, helping you to optimize and grow.

All the technology you need to start, run, and grow your restaurant, all connected for simplified operations.

One of the key benefits of Toast is the interconnected nature of its services. Whether you're opening a new establishment or looking to advance an existing one, Toast offers a range of functionalities that work together to simplify your operations.

Get 24/7 support how you want it — from real customer service people to self-help resources.

In the fast-paced world of dining, having access to support at any time can be a lifesaver. Toast provides round-the-clock customer service, ensuring that you can get help whenever you need it, whether through direct contact with support staff or through a wealth of self-help resources.

Get what you need, nothing more. Choose the features that work for your business and budget.

With Toast, you have the flexibility to select the features that best fit your business's unique needs and budget. There's no pressure to pay for functionalities you won't use, allowing you to optimize your investment.

You may access Toast's services only through devices identified by Toast as compatible with and capable of accessing or supporting Toast's services using a wired or wireless connection to the internet.

It's important to note that Toast's services are optimized for use with approved Toast hardware, which ensures the best possible performance and support for your system.

Toast's services do not function with every device and may only be used on approved Toast Hardware. Toast may alter which devices are approved as compatible with its services in Toast’s discretion from time to time.

This means that as technology evolves, so does Toast's lineup of compatible devices. This approach allows you to keep your system up-to-date and functioning smoothly.

Toast is not a payment card processor, but it is a payment facilitator that partners with processors to offer card processing services.

By partnering with payment processors, Toast provides a streamlined payment experience without the complexities of managing payment processing in-house.

Cost: Starting at $0/month

The pricing for Toast is designed to accommodate a wide range of budgets, with options that start at no cost and scale with the needs of your business.

Brand: Tock

Specs: The reservation platform that works for the hospitality industry.

For over a decade, Tock has been at the forefront of reservation platform technology, providing innovative solutions to some of the most pressing challenges faced by the hospitality industry.

A better version of your business starts here.

Tock's platform is designed to elevate your business by allowing you to sell not just ordinary reservations but also unique experiences, like a chef’s counter or cocktail class, driving additional revenue streams.

Sell ordinary reservations alongside unique experiences, like a chef’s counter, cocktail class, or happy hour.

With Tock, you can diversify your offerings and cater to a broader audience looking for something beyond the traditional dining experience.

Tock helps you drive revenue to every service.

The platform's versatility ensures that every service you offer has the potential to generate income, maximizing your business's profitability.

Control the flow of your dining room with flexible floor plans, powerful waitlists, and customizable communication.

Tock gives you control over your dining room's layout and flow, enabling you to manage waitlists effectively and communicate with your guests in a way that suits your brand.

We offer one flat rate and don’t charge cover fees.

Tock's transparent pricing model means you pay a flat rate, without the worry of hidden charges or cover fees that can add up and impact your bottom line.

Consolidate and streamline operations with Tock’s all-in-one platform.

By bringing all of your operational tools into one platform, Tock helps you consolidate your processes, leading to greater efficiency and less room for error.

Powerful integrations, partnerships, and discovery tools ensure your business is easy to find and easy to book.

Tock's robust integrations and partnerships, along with its discovery tools, make it simple for potential guests to find your business and secure a reservation.

With Tock, you’ll always own and have easy access to your guest data.

Data ownership is crucial for understanding your clientele and making informed decisions. Tock ensures that you have complete control and access to your guest data at all times.

Use it to make informed decisions, offer better hospitality, and grow your business.

By leveraging the insights from your guest data, you can refine your service, tailor your offerings, and strategically expand your business.

Tock drives the industry’s lowest no-show rate with deposits, credit card holds, and prepaid reservations.

No-shows can be a significant issue for restaurants. Tock's deposit and prepayment system minimizes this risk, ensuring that your seats are filled and your revenue is protected.

Use any combination that works for you.

The flexibility of Tock's system means you can customize the reservation process to suit your business's unique needs and preferences.

Backed by 500+ years of cumulative industry experience, our support team is eager to bring your vision to life and help you succeed.

With a seasoned support team, Tock is committed to helping you realize your business goals and ensuring your success in a competitive industry.

Booking a reservation is often the first interaction a guest has with your business.

Tock understands that the reservation process is a critical touchpoint in the guest experience and strives to make it as smooth and pleasant as possible.

Tock’s platform is elegant and easy to use, from start to finish.

An intuitive and well-designed platform means that both guests and staff can navigate the reservation process with ease, leading to a better overall experience.

Cost: Starting at $99/month - 3% fee on prepayments

Tock's cost structure is straightforward and competitive, starting at a reasonable monthly rate with a small fee on prepayments.

Brand: Marginedge

Specs: The #1 Restaurant Management System.

MarginEdge is a comprehensive restaurant management system that focuses on managing food costs and automating back-office operations, all in one place.

Manage your food costs and automate back-office operations all in one place.

By centralizing your operations, MarginEdge simplifies the management of food costs and streamlines the tasks that often take up too much time in the back office.

Here’s how it works: Connect your POS and accounting. Send Your Invoices. Get Immediate Cost Tracking.

The system is designed for ease of use: connect your POS and accounting systems, send your invoices through the app, and enjoy immediate cost tracking.

Whether you’re a multi-unit operator or an independent, MarginEdge automates tedious processes, connects systems, and radically streamlines key activities like inventory, bill pay, and ordering.

No matter the size of your operation, MarginEdge is built to automate the mundane tasks that can slow down your business, from inventory management to bill payments.

Submit invoices via photos through our app, emailed files, platform uploads, or EDI integrations—whatever works best for you!

The flexibility to submit invoices in various formats ensures that you can choose the method that best fits your workflow.

We capture all the line item data in 24-48 hours, even handwritten scribbles and notes.

MarginEdge boasts an impressive turnaround time for processing invoices, ensuring that your financial tracking is as up-to-date as possible.

Product-specific—we relate SKU’s across vendors.

The system intelligently manages product SKUs across different vendors, simplifying the ordering process and inventory management.

Direct sync with your accounting system. Coding is based on your rules.

Seamless integration with your accounting system, along with customizable coding rules, means that your financials are always accurate and tailored to your business.

After we process your invoices, record your inventories and pull sales and labor data from your POS nightly, our software crunches the numbers and provides actionable reports that are updated daily!

MarginEdge takes the data from various sources, analyzes it, and provides you with actionable insights that can help you make strategic decisions on a daily basis.

View your sales and cost data all in one place—updated daily— so there are no more surprises at the end of the month.

Having all your financial data in one place, updated daily, means you can stay on top of your business's performance without any end-of-month shocks.

Cost out prepped and plated items with automatically-updated product prices from invoices and quickly see profitability.

The system automatically updates product pricing, allowing you to quickly determine the profitability of your menu items.

Our user-friendly (we promise) Price Movers charts show you changing vendor pricing across products and monitor creeping prices before they impact your profits.

With MarginEdge's Price Movers feature, you can monitor changes in vendor pricing and take action before any price increases affect your bottom line.

Compare your purchased amounts (invoices), sold amounts (POS data), and remaining on-hand amounts (inventories) and see where excess waste might be happening and its financial impact.

The software enables you to compare various data points to identify and address any waste in your operations, which can lead to significant cost savings.

Optimize your entire menu’s profitability by identifying Stars, Puzzles, Plow Horses, and Dogs plotted on a Menu Engineering 2x2 of all your items.

MarginEdge's menu engineering tool helps you analyze your menu's performance and optimize it for maximum profitability.

Get daily sales reports via nightly emails that show year-over-year and week-over-week sales.

Stay informed with daily sales reports that let you track your performance over time, helping you to identify trends and make necessary adjustments.

Multi-unit managers can view sales across all locations at once.

For those managing multiple locations, MarginEdge offers a consolidated view of sales data, making it easier to oversee the entire operation.

View labor costs broken out by category, employee, or job title and compare labor costs to sales performance for optimized staffing efficiency.

Understanding your labor costs in relation to sales is crucial for staffing efficiently. MarginEdge provides detailed breakdowns to help you manage your workforce effectively.

Set up budgets for any categories—food, wine, repairs, etc. based on percentages of sales or a fixed dollar amount, and view how well you’re doing at any time throughout the period.

With the ability to set and monitor budgets for various categories, you can keep your finances on track and make adjustments as needed.

Cost: $330/month/location

MarginEdge offers a straightforward pricing model, making it easy to budget for their comprehensive suite of tools.

Brand: Restaurant365

Specs: Restaurant Management Software to Drive Growth.

Restaurant365 is a robust restaurant management software designed to help small businesses, multi-location, franchise, and enterprise operators drive growth and efficiency.

Restaurant365 is the best software for restaurants, helping small business, multi-location, franchise, and enterprise operators drive growth and efficiency.

Restaurant365's reputation for driving growth and efficiency makes it an excellent choice for a wide range of restaurant businesses.

Running a restaurant business is easier than ever with our all-in-one software used by 40,000 restaurants nationwide.

The all-in-one nature of Restaurant365 means that you can manage every aspect of your business from a single platform, a solution trusted by tens of thousands of restaurants across the country.

Increase sales, control food costs, and optimize labor with our comprehensive restaurant business tools:

The suite of tools offered by Restaurant365 is designed to help you increase sales, control food costs, and optimize labor, three key areas for any successful restaurant operation.

Accounting, bookkeeping, and budgeting software for restaurants:

With specialized accounting, bookkeeping, and budgeting software, Restaurant365 provides the functionality needed to manage your finances effectively.

See and manage your tailored chart of accounts, P&L, income statement, and financial transactions.

The ability to see and manage your financial documents and transactions in one place streamlines the financial management process.

A restaurant inventory management system:

Effective inventory management is critical in the restaurant industry. Restaurant365 offers a system that helps you drive profit by controlling food costs and waste.

Drive profit with food cost and inventory control, labor, and scheduling.

By managing food costs and optimizing labor and scheduling, Restaurant365 helps you improve your bottom line.

Payroll for restaurants:

Managing payroll can be complex in the restaurant industry. Restaurant365 simplifies this process, ensuring you can hire, onboard, pay, and retain workers efficiently.

Hire, onboard, pay, and retain restaurant workers.

The software covers the entire employee lifecycle, providing tools for each stage from hiring to retention.

Trusted by more than 40,000 restaurants, Restaurant365’s back-office software brings together your accounting, store operations, and workforce to create incredible moments that drive profit and growth.

By integrating accounting, operations, and workforce management, Restaurant365 helps you create a cohesive and profitable business.

Detailed sales and labor data is pulled directly from your POS, automatically creating daily sales and labor accrual journal entries for your general ledger.

Automation of daily sales and labor data entry saves time and reduces the likelihood of errors, ensuring your financial records are accurate.

Save time, increase accuracy, and optimize performance.

Restaurant365's tools are designed to save you time, increase the accuracy of your records, and help you optimize your restaurant's performance.

With robust tracking tools, get a pulse on your restaurant's inventory, labor, and scheduling.

The comprehensive tracking tools offered by Restaurant365 give you real-time insights into inventory, labor, and scheduling, allowing you to make adjustments as needed.

With features like intraday polling, operators have complete visibility into up-to-the-minute performance.

Intraday polling provides operators with a real-time view of their restaurant's performance, giving them the information they need to make timely decisions.

Crunch the numbers and finish administrative tasks quicker and more accurately to control prime cost and boost margins.

Efficiency in administrative tasks means less time spent on paperwork and more time focused on controlling costs and improving margins.

Streamline administrative work throughout the employee lifecycle with solutions for hiring, onboarding, scheduling, payroll, and benefits.

Restaurant365 streamlines the entire employee management process, making it easier for you to focus on running your restaurant.

Give managers time back to focus on what matters most: guest experiences, team engagement, and productivity.

By reducing the administrative burden on managers, they can dedicate more time to improving guest experiences and team engagement, ultimately leading to increased productivity.

Get accurate, timely data that's easy to find and share.

With Restaurant365, data accuracy and accessibility are paramount, ensuring that the information you need is always at your fingertips.

See what's working, what's not, and what's happening unexpectedly in real-time with out-of-the-box and custom reports to drive improvement, growth, and expansion.

The ability to generate both standard and custom reports allows you to understand your business's performance and identify areas for improvement and growth.

Cost: Request a Demo

To get a better understanding of how Restaurant365 can benefit your business and to learn about pricing, it's best to request a demo tailored to your specific needs.

Brand: Craftable

Specs: Improve operations and increase profits with restaurant management software.

Craftable is a restaurant management software that aims to improve operations and increase profits, allowing you to focus on creating exceptional experiences for your guests.

Move out of the back office and cook up better experiences with:

Craftable encourages restaurateurs to spend less time on back-office tasks and more time on what they do best: creating memorable experiences for their guests.

Keep your truffles out of the dirt and in the bank.

With a witty take on managing expenses, Craftable emphasizes the importance of keeping your finances in order to ensure that your profits remain secure.

Our recipe and plate costing tools pull up-to-date pricing directly from your inventory.

Craftable's tools for recipe and plate costing are directly linked to your inventory, providing you with accurate, real-time pricing information.

Our menu engineering and detailed sales reports help you identify where you can serve up more delicious profits at every meal.

The platform's menu engineering capabilities, combined with detailed sales reports, help you identify opportunities to increase profits across your menu.

We automate invoices and payments to provide accurate operational reporting on what matters most — your profit margin.

By automating invoices and payments, Craftable focuses on providing precise operational reporting that centers on your profit margins.

Understand what’s profitable (or not) on your menu.

Craftable helps you gain a clear understanding of the profitability of each item on your menu, enabling you to make strategic decisions.

Our menu engineering tool helps you trim the fat and taste success.

The menu engineering tool is designed to help you optimize your menu for profitability by identifying items that are underperforming and those that are successful.

We connect what you buy with what you sell for a better understanding of plate costs.

By correlating purchasing data with sales, Craftable provides a comprehensive understanding of your plate costs.

Our restaurant management software makes sure what’s going out from your kitchen is profitable.

Craftable ensures that every dish leaving your kitchen contributes to your restaurant's profitability.

Cost out recipes and sub-recipes in seconds

With the ability to quickly cost out recipes and sub-recipes, Craftable saves you valuable time that can be better spent elsewhere.

See plate cost in real time when you map to your POS

The integration with your POS system allows you to see the cost of each plate as it is sold, providing immediate insights into profitability.

Actual vs theoretical costs help measure the efficiency of your food costs

Comparing actual costs against theoretical costs is a powerful way to measure the efficiency of your food spending and identify areas for improvement.

Test new recipes and plates to see if they will be profitable.

Before introducing new items to your menu, Craftable allows you to test their profitability, ensuring that each addition is a strategic one.

No more boxes of invoices hiding in your kitchen.

With Craftable, the era of paper invoices cluttering your kitchen is over. The platform digitizes this process, streamlining your purchasing management.

We digitize your orders so you can manage all your purchases from one place.

Craftable's digitization of orders means that all your purchasing information is centralized, making it easier to manage.

Our restaurant management software makes it easy for your operators to purchase & receive while automatically syncing with AP for your accounting team.

The platform simplifies the purchasing and receiving process for your operators and syncs seamlessly with accounts payable for your accounting team.

Electronic invoicing reduces labor hours and accounting errors and eliminates double entry.

By moving to electronic invoicing, Craftable reduces the time spent on accounting tasks and minimizes errors.

We integrate with over 6000 food & beverage vendors.

Craftable