Zonal is happy to announce we are now offering two POS solutions: Aztec & Comtrex!
Aztec POS
Aztec has been a part of Zonal since 2003 and continues to move forward as our Enterprise focused solution, while Aztec can run an independent location fine, our customers were always looking for an easier to manage solution for the smaller groups and that is why we acquired Comtrex!
Comtrex POS
Comtrex is not new to the POS game but always focused on doing anything POSsible, and continues to offer features that many other POS systems can’t do today. Comtrex is great for both independents and small chains but can also hold up well as an Enterprise product too!
Contact us today to learn more about our POS options.
The right point of sale system makes all of the difference in your restaurant, bar, theater, or other venues. A good point of sale system offers comprehensive reporting so restaurant owners and managers can understand. It’s intuitive and user-friendly, making onboarding staff a breeze. The system should have integrated solutions like loyalty and online ordering to increase efficiency. Zonal is your one-stop-shop for all of your point of sale needs, whether you have a single location or a multi-location enterprise.
We’re offering two deals in the new year:
Try Zonal for 90 Days for Free!
We’ll let you try our point of sale system for three months with no downpayment needed! To make it even more of a no-brainer, we also work with any credit card processor to make switching even easier. Our system is easy to use; training your staff on Zonal is simple. We offer training videos and a “training mode” on our terminals so you can get familiar with our system. If you love your new system, you can pay outright, lease, or use Zonal as a Service (ZaaS).
Do you have more than 3 locations? We’ll Write Your Enterprise Software for Free
If you have multiple locations, enterprise software is a must for your point of sale system. It makes it easy to run reports on all of your locations so you can identify red flags before they become issues. You can run Zonal reports remotely and schedule them directly into your inbox so you can manage your restaurant locations from anywhere in the world. Read more about why you need enterprise reporting.
Lease Your Point of Sale System
It’s easy to go over-budget when opening a restaurant. Leasing your restaurant equipment, like your point of sale system, can help when you’re short on funds. We work with Lease Corp of America and offer two affordable leasing options. Learn more about the benefits of leasing your point of sale system.
90- Day Deferred Lease Program
You can get Zonal point of sale now, without having to make any payments for 90 days. This leasing option is excellent for restaurants, bars, and other venues that need to conserve capital and let the POS system pay for itself through ROI. The application and approval process through LCA is simple. The finance installation and training costs are bundled together in one lease. You will have the option to own the system at the end of the lease. You may even be eligible for special tax savings under IRS Section 179.
99$/Month for the First SIX Months
You can pay off your Zonal point of sale over an affordable 60-month leasing term through Lease Corporation of America. The first six payments will be just $99, for extra affordability. The credit turnaround time is only 2 to 4 hours so that you can have your point of sale system up and running as soon as possible. If you want a shorter lease term, there are 36 and 48-month terms available as well. It’s application-only up to $150,000.
Breweries are popping up left and right, especially in Orlando and the Central Florida area. According to The Brewer’s Association, there are over 1.7 breweries ber capita in Florida. It’s important to choose the right point of sale system for your brewery to help your establishment run smoothly and make the most out of your customer data. Breweries and bars often have different needs when it comes to a point of sale system compared to a restaurant. Learn more about the best point of sale features for your brewery or bar.
User-Friendly
A good brewery point of sale system is quick and user-friendly. Bars and breweries need to run efficiently, being able to take orders conversationally, keeping up with the customers. Compared to a fine dining or sit-down restaurant, the ordering speed is much faster at a brewery or bar. It’s important to have a system that is easy to use, making new employee training easy and fast.
Happy Hour
Point of sale systems for breweries should have quick and easy promotions like happy hour or two-for-one specials. Ever wanted to run a special but dreaded trying to add it to your point of sale system? Customizable promotions make it easy to set your own beer and alcohol specials to bring in new customers and keep current customers happy.
Food and Drink
Many breweries offer food in addition to craft brews. Your point of sale system should be able to handle food as well as drinks. Even if you don’t offer food now, you may want to have that option in the future.
Inventory Management
The best brewery point of sale systems have comprehensive reporting features and inventory management. It’s important to know which beers are selling the best, so you can keep the customer favorites in stock and increase your profit margins. Know when it’s time to restock so you never run out of inventory. Reporting tools let you take control of your business and make educated decisions about scheduling, pricing, and profits. Are your promotions worthwhile? Do you schedule your employees smartly? Schedule your reports and have them sent to your inbox so you can keep track of your business remotely.
Handheld POS for Breweries
If your bartenders are mobile and take orders at tables, handheld tablet point of sale systems increase order accuracy and speed. Tablets allow your bartenders to take orders on the go, so they don’t have to write them down or try to memorize them. They can instantly place an order and have it ready faster than if they had to share a terminal with other bartenders. Zonal handheld tables are designed to withstand the wear and tear of the brewery and bar industry.
Customizability
A good bar and brewery point of sale system should be easily customizable with easy updates. Add your special brews and customize your offerings so your bartenders can quickly input orders. Speed and accuracy are important for a brewery.
Split Checks
Customers can be difficult, and large parties may want to split the checks in different ways. Your brewery point of sale system should be able to split checks by item, seat, name, or amount.
Security
During happy hour and other busy times, it can get quite hectic in a popular brewery or bar. Security is important to protect profits and inventory. Your point of sale system should be able to set security parameters based on job type, time of day, and function. Does an expensive bottle of wine need a manager’s approval? Set it up on your POS.
Integrated Solutions
The best brewery and bar point of sale systems have integrated solutions like loyalty, online ordering, gift cards, and kitchen display systems to help your business run smoothly.
Loyalty
A good brewery loyalty system offers customizable rewards based on unique customer spending habits. The loyalty app should use your brewery’s branding and send customers notifications through SMS, email, and push notifications to increase customer spending and visit frequency.
Online Ordering
If your brewery or bar is a restaurant as well, a good online ordering system makes it easy for customers to place to-go or delivery orders. When you have your own online ordering platform (app or website) instead of using a third party like UberEats you don’t have to pay a commission on your sales and have complete control over your online ordering strategy.
Digital Signage
Paper menus don’t make sense for many bars and breweries, as the drink menu offerings change daily or weekly and paper menus tend to get torn or wet. Digital signage lets you create a digital menu board and make real-time changes to your menu based on what beers and drinks you offer each day and any specials. Smart features allow you to also show live TV, social media feeds, weather, YouTube, and commercials.
Zonal point of sale is great for breweries and bars in Orlando and all over the country. Our system is easily customizable for your business, has comprehensive reporting and inventory management features, and has integrated solutions that help your brewery or bar run smoothly. The right point of sale for your brewery or bar is essential, helping bartenders to input orders efficiently while making the most out of your customer data. If your interested in getting a point of sale system for your brewery, learn more about Zonal point of sale.
Digital signage is a great customer engagement tool for restaurants. Most quick service, fast-casual, sports bars, family-style, and other non-fine dining restaurants have TVs for customer entertainment. Digital signage turns those TVs into a visual resource with smart features that grab the customer’s attention in a new and interesting way. Read more about the benefits of restaurant digital signage.
What is Digital Signage?
Digital signage is a digital display that businesses in the hospitality industry use for menu boards and other types of content. With digital signage, one TV screen does what takes multiple paper menus, posters, and flyers. The TV can still have the game on and easily switch back and forth between live TV and custom content in just seconds.
Benefits Restaurant Digital Signage
Customer Engagement
People enjoy visuals, especially when it comes to food. A picture of a mouthwatering entree is more engaging and sells better than the best-written description. Menuboards take the place of traditional paper menus and give customers HD images of the food. Digital signage is easy to update, so you can highlight specials or run promotions on the signage rather than print out a separate menu. According to Digital Signage Today, “seven in 10 customers purchasing a product or service because a sign caught their eye, digital signage at the till point is a perfect place to influence customer behavior and drive upsells.” Customers are more likely to add on to their order when they see delicious photos of sides and desserts.
Entertain Customers
Digital signage is convenient for restaurants, allowing for real-time updates through the digital signage manager. It also is entertaining to customers, with fun smart features like social media that allow customers to interact with the brand and post their pictures and comments and see them appear on the digital signage’s social media feed. According to a study “84 percent of shoppers indicate that watching content on digital displays helps the time pass more quickly.” A major benefit of restaurant digital signage is making the waiting times seem shorter and more enjoyable with fun content. Waiting in line turns into an opportunity to build the brand and increase sales.
Save Money
Printing paper is expensive. Digital signage helps restaurants reduce their costs by eliminating the need for paper menus, special menus, and paper advertisements. Any standard TV can turn into digital signage with smart features using Zonal. You can even open your restaurant up to paid advertisements from other brands.
Control Multiple TVs
The Zonal Digital Signage manager web interface allows you to control and customize the content across all of your digital signage platforms, even in different locations. You can create and schedule content playlists for each digital signage from the ZDSM.
Zonal Digital Signage Smart Features:
The benefits of restaurant digital signage go beyond menu boards. Smart features help increase customer engagement. You can run your restaurant’s commercials or live chat with customers.
Smart Features:
Menus– Feature daily specials with crisp images and videos to boost sales.Advertisements- Visually engage customers with your latest commercials and advertisements.
Live Chat– Customers can interact with staff and each other creating a fun and open environment
Weather– Live weather forecasts local to each location.
Social Media Feeds- Customers can see their positive reviews and food posts live on your social media feeds.
RSS Feeds– Really Simple Syndication allows you to create custom news feeds that update constantly. Enter your own message and have it scroll the feed.
Stocks– Customize a live scrolling vertical or horizontal stock ticker with today’s highs, lows, or percentage change. Make your own stock scenes or create your own.
Live TV- Integrate live TV using HD analog or digital input.
Catalog– Display thousands of product images and descriptions using animation and custom content. Set up takes minutes and when integrated with the Kiosk Builder, customers can interact with product lists.
Camera– Photos can be integrated realtime into your digital signage presentations. You can use Android or IPad tablets.
Date & Time– Customize date and time using fonts (over 700 to choose from), colors, and date/time formats so it looks perfect!
HTML5– HTML5 takes animation and Ajax to the net level. Build animated clips or a full animated kiosk and run it seamlessly across all SignagePlayers. It runs on Android and iOS tablets.
Flash– Run any Flash powered SWF, it can be built on Adobe or a 3rd party Flash generator. Bring your signage to live with animation.
YouTube– YouTube has an endless supply of free content to keep customers engaged with entertaining content.
Google – Integrate your Google Plus, Calendar, and Chrome accounts. Host your files on Google Drive and access them remotely.
News Feed– Digg creates one single feed of current news to keep your audience glued to the screens!
PDF– Upload any PDF document to your screens. Save Microsoft Excel and Word docs as PDFs to display as well. PDFs automatically resize to fit any size screen.
QR Codes– Generate QR codes to be scanned by customers for more information or to take them to another website.
Countdown – Integrate your Google Plus, Calendar, and Chrome accounts. Host your files on Google Drive and access them remotely. Perfect for holidays and special events!
Remote Events– Create a limitless number of digital signage applications controlled by a simple Javascript client. Examples include Queuing (when a customer stands in line and picks up a number to be served), Scoreboard (what you would see in a basketball or Beer Pong tournament), and even a Teller director.
There are many benefits of restaurant digital signage from menu boards to running commercials. Zonal digital signage turns any standard TV into digital signage and the Digital Signage Manager has exciting smart features to increase customer engagement and entertainment. Control your digital signages from the easy-to-use web interface across different locations. Digital signage is a modern way to improve customer experience, naturally upsell, and keep your customers wanting more. Learn more about Zonal digital signage.
Point of sale systems are a must today. Few businesses can survive being cash only, not accepting card and EMV payments. More customers than ever are foregoing cash and just carrying their cards. Only accepting cash puts you at a disadvantage from your competitors. Opening a restaurant is expensive, and in the beginning restaurants, bars, stadiums, theaters, etc. have different budgetary restraints and it can take time to recoup the initial costs of opening. Even existing restaurants may be intimidated by the cost of switching from a cash register or outdated point of sale system, even though it will increase profits dramatically over time, it traditionally takes an initial investment. Leasing a point of sale system is a great option for restaurants and other food and drink venues that are on a strict budget.
In order to take your customer’s orders and process the payments, you need a point of sale system. Often when you’re a new restaurant on the scene, you need the customer’s payments to be able to afford the point of sale system (if your budget has run out and you’ve hit a cash flow problem). This can put restaurant owners in a stressful situation, which leasing can solve.
Why Lease?
Opening a restaurant, bar, etc. is expensive. There are lots of expenses to account for before the doors even open. Your venue has recurring monthly costs before your first customer walks through the door. Resources start to drain, and the point of sale system often becomes an afterthought, but it’s super essential for the success of a restaurant. Customers may not give your new place a second chance if it disappoints the first time. A great point of sale system is easy to use and increases efficiency from the servers to the kitchen. Existing restaurants can also find themselves strapped for capital and need a flexible payment option to get a new point of sale system.
Reduce Upfront Costs
One of the biggest concerns with a point of sale system is the upfront cost. Chains and established restaurants are more likely to have the capital to purchase their point of sale system. They expect to be in businesses and use their system for the next couple of years, so buying makes sense. New restaurants do not always have the budget to purchase their system outright or pay a higher monthly cost. Leasing allows these restaurant owners to finance their point of sale system, with a lower upfront cost, and a reduced monthly payment spread out over a specified period of time.
Zonal’s Partnership Leasing Corporation of America
In order to help new restaurants and venues with a strict budget, we partnered with the Leasing Corporation of America to offer Zonal point of sale through an affordable leasing option. Out point of sale solutions can be purchased outright or through Zonal as a Service (ZaaS). Leasing Corporation of America has been in the leasing business since 1988 and has built a trustworthy reputation. We knew they would be the perfect partner with us.
90-Day Deferred Lease
If you really need a point of sale now but do not have the capital to pay for it yet, you can get Zonal through the LCA and defer payments for 90 days. This leasing options allow you to start taking customers and making money. The money your Zonal POS makes is a great ROI; it pays for itself through use. The finance installation and training costs are put together in one lease. At the end of your lease, there is a 1$ purchase option so that you can own your system.
$99 Payments for the First Six Months
You can lease Zonal point of sale over a 60-month term through LCA. The first six payments will only be $99 to give you time to increase your cash flow using Zonal POS. If you would like more flexibility, there’s also 36 and 48-month terms available. You also have the $1 purchase option at the end of the lease.
Think leasing might be the right move for your business? You can go to https://mylease.leasecorp.com/zonalusa to get a price quote and apply now.
As a restaurant owner or manager, the goal is high volume, high retention, and high spending. You want to attract as many customers as possible and provide them with an excellent experience so they will keep coming back. When customers are in your restaurant, you want them to spend as much as possible. Servers train to upsell, while the marketing and loyalty programs encourage spending with rewards and coupons. Learn how to increase average customer spending in your restaurant.
Digital Signage
People are incredibly visual; we love to see pictures. We eat with our eyes first, then the stomach. You can use the preference for visuals over words to increase sales using digital signage. Digital signage allows restaurants to use high-quality images on their menus. You can even incorporate smart features and integrate videos and other advertisements.
Would you rather read about a fantastic sandwich or see a high definition picture of one? A digital menu board trades wordy descriptions for mouthwatering imagines to naturally upsell customers. Digital Signage increases sales by 31.8 percent. You can use any standard TV and turn it into a menu board and use different smart features like social media feeds. It’s super easy, all you have to do is plug in the small device to the TV’s USB port, and then you can manage your content from your computer.
Loyalty Programs
The best restaurant loyalty program naturally incentivizes customers to increase their check size by offering rewards and coupons once milestones are hit. Not all loyalty programs are created equal. Your loyalty program should be customizable, so it harmonizes with your brand from your logo to your color scheme. Loyalty programs can also be great for customer communication. You can send your customers text, email, or push notifications with different coupons, offers, or specials. Zonal creates customized and affordable loyalty apps that send targeted rewards to customers based on their spending habits. Our loyalty programs also integrate with our online ordering platform for a seamless experience.
Should a customer who spends 10 dollars a month receive the same as a customer who spends 50 dollars a week? No, the customer who comes in less frequently should be encouraged to increase visits while the customer who visits frequently should be prompted to increase their spending.
Online Ordering Platform
Customers spend more when using an easy online ordering platform compared to having to call in an order. When customers have to place an order over the phone they often feel rushed, do not always have the menu in front of them, are unaware of specials, and may even have to be put on hold if you’re short staffed. An online ordering platform makes the process simple. Customers can place orders, enter coupons, connect their loyalty account, and check out all through the platform.
An effective online ordering platform allows restaurants to customize their merchant page, so it matches their branding, uses pictures, and is easily updated. Customers who go to an online ordering page that is easy to navigate, feels like an extension of the restaurant, and has excellent HD pictures will have higher spending. Zonal’s online ordering platform is not only easy to update and customize but is also affordable. When you choose a custom online ordering platform, you do not have to sacrifice up to 30 percent of each transaction as you would with a service like UberEats or Grubhub.
Innovative Specials
Limited-edition specials are a natural way to increase spending, by enticing customers with higher-priced menu items that are only available for a short amount of time. The limited-edition aspect gives customers the fear of mission out. The special may be 10 dollars more than what they were ordering, but it will soon be gone and what if it’s incredible and they never got to try it? They are more likely to splurge as feel it’s a “one-time thing.”
Social Media Presence
Social media is vital for restaurants as many customers check Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter when deciding where and what to eat. Your social media pages should be full of high resolution, delicious pictures of menu items and happy customers. Social media is a great way to connect with customers, listening to what they have to say and adjusting your business accordingly. You can push specials, coupons, and other offers on your social media pages to drive business and sales.
Comprehensive Reporting
A comprehensive reporting system can tell what menu items sell the best and which sell the worst. Knowing the stats of your offerings helps you not run out of customer favorites and gives you the opportunity to replace any poor performing menu offerings.
Free Samples
People love free, and if you give them just a taste of something delicious, it will leave them wanting for more. Sample appetizers and desserts to boost customer spending. Many people opt-out of an appetizer or a dessert to try to save money, but if they have a taste of your dessert and it’s fantastic, they’ll have to have it. You can also sample alcohol, or offer flights of beer or wine instead of just glasses for a higher price. Customers like variety and being able to try new things without the commitment of purchasing a full size.
Alcohol Pairing
A sneaky way to increase sales is to suggest wine, beer, or cocktails with different menu items. Customers can be overwhelmed with alcoholic offerings or decide to skip a beverage, but if you recommend a specific drink with their entree on the menu or through the server, it increases sales. The customer feels that they are missing out on the full experience by foregoing the alcohol that was specially selected to pair best with the meal.
Wouldn’t you love to increase each of your customer’s spending? Obviously! There is an entire industry designed to improve customer retention and spending. You can use these little tricks to upsell your customers and get them to spend more with each visit. It’s more efficient to focus on the customers you already have, increasing their visits and encouraging them to have check sizes than it is to find new customers. Customer loyalty is key to a successful business.
