A restaurant lives or dies on speed, accuracy, and cost control. A server walking to the kitchen to pass on an order. A manager reconciling the till at midnight with a calculator. A chef with no idea what ingredients are running low. None of these are hard problems — they just need the right system.
Most restaurant POS systems handle the till and nothing else. Stock still gets counted by hand. Supplier orders go out by phone or WhatsApp. Payroll happens in a spreadsheet. Vendra connects everything — front of house, kitchen, purchasing, payroll, and accounting — in one place. No separate apps. No re-entering data at the end of the day.
What restaurant management software needs to handle
- Visual floor plan with table-based order management
- Order splitting and merging across tables and covers
- Kitchen preparation workflow — send order to kitchen, mark as ready, notify server
- Menu product configuration with variants — portion sizes, extras, modifiers
- Ingredient stock deduction on every sale to track kitchen inventory in real time
- Daily Z-report with cash count reconciliation at session close
- Tips and service charge handling with separate accounting treatment
- Cash, card and mobile money payment methods per transaction
- Staff shift management and payroll processing
- Supplier ordering for ingredients with purchase orders and bills
- Recipe costing using BOM-style ingredient cost analysis
- Multi-outlet management for restaurant groups on the Pro Plus plan
How Vendra manages a restaurant from front to back
Table-based POS and floor plan
Vendra's restaurant POS opens on a visual floor plan showing all tables in the dining area. Each table is colour-coded by status — available, occupied, or waiting for payment. A server selects a table, takes the order, adds menu items with any required modifiers (portion size, extra toppings, sauce choice), and submits the order. The table card on the floor plan updates immediately to show the order is in progress.
If two tables want to share a bill, you merge their orders into one. If a group at one table wants to split by individual covers, you split the order into separate bills and process each payment independently. These operations take a few taps — no manual recalculation.
Kitchen order workflow
When a server submits an order from the POS, Vendra sends a preparation ticket automatically to the kitchen printer. The kitchen team sees the table number, the items ordered, and any special instructions. When the food is ready, it is marked as prepared and the server is notified at the POS terminal. The kitchen ticket workflow eliminates verbal handoffs and paper dockets that get lost or misread during a busy service.
Every sale at the restaurant POS deducts from ingredient stock in real time via pos_stock_control. If you configure recipe-level tracking using Bills of Materials, selling a grilled chicken dish reduces the chicken, oil, and seasoning quantities by the exact recipe amounts. The kitchen team can see what ingredients are running low without leaving the line to check a storeroom.
Menu variants and modifiers
Menu products are configured with variants and attributes in Vendra. A steak can be ordered in three portion sizes — each variant has its own price and deducts a different ingredient quantity. A pizza can have extra toppings added as attributes that prompt the server at the POS when the item is added to the order. Combo meals are configured as product combos — the POS calculates the combo price automatically and routes each component to the correct kitchen station.
Z-report and daily cash reconciliation
At the end of each shift or trading day, the session is closed with a Z-report. The server or manager counts the cash in the drawer, enters the count by denomination, and the system compares it against the theoretical cash total from all cash transactions during the session. The Z-report shows total revenue, payment method breakdown — cash, card, mobile money, tips, service charges — and any cash over or under. This report feeds directly into accounting as the day's revenue entry. No manual journal entries required.
Visual floor plan
Colour-coded table status on screen. Servers see occupied, available, and waiting tables at a glance. Table selection opens the active order instantly.
Kitchen printer routing
Orders route automatically to the correct kitchen printer on submission. Different product categories can route to different stations — hot kitchen, bar, desserts.
Ingredient stock deduction
Every sale takes the ingredients off the kitchen stock immediately. Set up recipes (Bills of Materials) per dish for exact deductions rather than whole-item deductions.
Z-report reconciliation
When the shift ends, close the session and get a full Z-report: total revenue, payment methods, tips, service charges, and cash in drawer versus expected.
Mobile money payments
Accept cash, card and mobile money at the table. Each payment type is tracked separately so the session report and accounts balance correctly.
Staff payroll
Employee records and working schedules feed into the payroll module. Run payslips for all staff each period without a separate payroll system.
Supplier ordering and ingredient purchasing
When an ingredient drops below the minimum stock level you've set, Vendra drafts a purchase order for your supplier automatically. You review the quantities, confirm, and the supplier bill gets created when the delivery arrives. No more calling suppliers at the last minute because the kitchen ran out of something mid-service.
Recipe costing and margin analysis
You can set up a recipe (Bill of Materials) for each menu item that lists the ingredients and quantities used. Vendra calculates the cost of each dish based on what you paid for the ingredients. Compare that to the selling price and you see the margin per dish. When a supplier raises prices and you update the purchase cost, the recipe cost updates automatically — so you always know which dishes are making money and which ones aren't.
Staff shifts and payroll
Each staff member is an employee record in Vendra with an assigned working schedule, department, and role. Servers log into the POS with their individual PIN, so sales are tracked per server. At payroll time, the Payroll module processes basic pay, tips (if distributed through payroll), and any applicable deductions according to local employment rules. Payslips are generated for each employee and can be sent directly from Vendra.
Which plan do I need?
Single-outlet restaurants typically start on the Pro plan at $27/month — this covers restaurant POS with floor plan, kitchen printing, ingredient stock deduction, purchasing, payroll, and full accounting. Restaurant groups with multiple outlets needing consolidated reporting across locations need the Pro Plus plan at $50/month.