Why Technology for Check Splitting Is Essential for Restaurants This Holiday Season

The end of the year is a time when many consumers slow down and connect with important people in life. The holidays provide a wonderful opportunity for loved ones to gather together and share a meal in celebration of family, friends, and food.

Of course, restaurants are often expected to host these large merry gatherings. And with large groups, there are large checks, likely being split among several customers. Unless your wait staff is equipped with the right technology to handle the situation appropriately, complications with checks can quickly turn a happy outing into a stressful, awkward ordeal.

This year, keep the customer experience painless and positive. Here are some tech tools you can implement to ensure you have happy customers from start to finish: 

1. Split checks by seat

Your wait staff should be able to split checks at the touch of a button, expediting the check out process and ensuring a seamless customer experience at the end of a meal enjoyed between family, friends, or colleagues.

The ability to split checks by seat with no fuss and no mess is critical when processing the bill for large end-of-year holiday parties.  A good point of sale (POS) system can split checks automatically for the waiter with just a touch of a button, while also having the ability to make that last few modifications manually; for example, merging seats if a married couple is paying together.

2. Split checks by amount

Often friends or colleagues will order a bottle of wine or an appetizer to share with the table. In this scenario, the restaurant POS system needs the ability to split checks by amount, dividing the item up between seats or paying groups at the table. Without this feature, customers are forced to decide amongst themselves who is going to pay for the item, who is going to pay the payer back, and how, and when. The good feelings and positive experience restaurant wait staff has been cultivating during the meal will disappear and restaurant customers will leave the establishment with a poor final impression.

3. Split checks by item

In some cases, your staff will run into appetizers or drinks ordered for either a single seat or a couple of seats. This appetizer or drink doesn’t need to be split into fair amounts across the table, however the item does need to be able to be moved to the correct check.

Restaurant POS systems should enable wait staff to use simple drag and drop features to move items like this to the appropriate seat or diner bill. For example, perhaps that married couple whose seats the wait staff merged earlier, also needs the bottle of wine ordered placed on their bill instead of split across the whole table.

4. Accept Multiple Forms of Payment

The final piece is a robust POS system that allows for multiple payment methods. Whether it’s a mix of different credit cards or a combination of cards and cash, you should have no issue provided you’ve selected the right POS system.

Your POS should accept cash, credit, emv, checks, and gift cards. It’s also important that your system can split orders both by amount and by individual items, depending on how your guests want to pay.

With the right tools, well-trained staff will be equipped with the means to accommodate any of your guests’ preferences, no matter how large the party is or how many ways the check is split. By following these practices, you can keep the merriment going throughout the season, and well into next year.