The best way to manage your restaurant or chain is to use a restaurant management system (RMS). But with many systems out there, what are the top features you should be looking for?

Restaurant management system features vary from one system and company to another. Some offer basic features, while others are continuously adding new features, new integrations, and regularly updating old ones.

In this article, we’ll highlight the top restaurant management system features that matter to restaurants and F&B chains, including hotels.

What is a restaurant management system?

A restaurant management system (RMS) is software that helps you manage a restaurant. From managing your workflow to your menus, to your inventory, to table booking and cancellations, it’s all in the restaurant management system.

Whether it’s a single restaurant or you want to manage multiple restaurant locations, a restaurant management system helps you manage it all.

Many restaurant management systems include a customer relationship management (CRM) system, giving you more power and control. serVme is one such restaurant management system.

Top restaurant management system features to look for

What makes a restaurant management system stand out is the features included and the potential integrations you can add.

In this section, we’ll be looking at the top restaurant management system features to consider for your F&B business.

Payment processing

A major feature to look for in a restaurant management system is payment processing. It’s how a restaurant can accept multiple payment methods such as credit and debit cards, cash, online payments, among others.

serVme currently offers payment processing directly via our dashboard or through our point-of-sale (POS) integrations.   

POS system integrations

POS integrations are among the most important restaurant management system features you should look for.

You’ll find there are POS integrations for small and medium-sized restaurant businesses, single restaurants, chains, and hotel restaurants. 

Discover our list of the top POS systems for restaurants and F&B operations

Seating management 

Managing in-house seating is about maximizing your restaurant space to ensure you can serve a fair number of guests.

You don’t want to squeeze in as many chairs and tables as you can. Seating management software helps you accommodate guests, offer multiple seating options, and make a profit from your seating arrangements.

Seating management is considered part of your restaurant’s operations because it lets you manage your servers and their movements inside your restaurant.

Booking and reservations

Reservation software is often combined with seating software. For high-end F&B and hotel restaurants, booking a table helps guests and staff make the most of the restaurant experience.

Table-booking software also includes managing your guest wait-list and walk-ins. 

Floor planning features

Whether you’re a new restaurant, opening a new branch, or revamping a current location, one of the top restaurant management system features you’ll need is the restaurant floor planning feature.

It’s one of our most important features at serVme.

As you can see, managing your seating arrangement and your reservations is important. But without a clear floor plan that ensures smooth flow between your servers, tables, cleaning staff, and guests, you’re in for a lot of headache.

Inventory management

An essential part of managing a successful restaurant business or chain is managing your inventory.

Using an RMS with inventory management or one that lets you integrate with inventory management software can improve your restaurant operations on various levels.

For instance, managing your inventory not only helps you cut food costs but also reduces food waste.

serVme, for example, lets you integrate with inventory management software like Foodics, Lightspeed, and others.

Guest data, analytics, and reporting

An essential feature in any restaurant management system is being able to gather and unify guest data. Depending on which RMS you’re using, you can get and add various details to a guest’s profile.

From basics such as their name, phone number, and email, to adding information about which of your restaurant locations they frequent, their allergies, their favorite foods and beverages,…etc.

Besides collecting guest information, your restaurant management system should include analytics and reporting features. There are many customer analytics restaurants need to measure. Your RMS should be able to measure most of those analytics.

If you’re using serVme as your RMS, you can generate reports directly from your dashboard, and compare analytics week-on-week, month-on-month, or year-on-year.

Restaurant marketing solutions

Restaurants rely on various marketing tools to communicate and engage with their guests. Using restaurant marketing automation tools not only speeds up many repetitive and manual tasks but also helps you create personalized guest experiences.

Marketing solutions can vary from social media publishing tools like Buffer to email and SMS marketing.

If you’re using SerVme, you don’t have to worry about integrating with external tools. One of serVme’s top restaurant management system features is the email campaign and SMS automation features.

Learn more in The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Restaurants 

Miscellaneous integrations

Last but certainly not least, you should look for a restaurant management system that lets you add integrations to serve your business.

As your business grows, you may need to add loyalty software, marketing tools, POS integrations, or any kind of integrations. 

The RMS you’re using should be one that gets regular updates and new integrations.

For example, serVme began operations in 2017. Today, we’re partners with over 30 POS integrations, not to mention marketing tools. And we’re constantly adding new ones and striking partnerships to help our clients grow and expand their footprint.

Our latest partnerships include an integration with Saudi-based Foodics and UAE-based Network International.

SerVme, your go-to restaurant management system for F&B and hotels

There are many RMS features to consider for your restaurant. You may not use or need all of the above features when you’re just getting started.

But using a restaurant management system that grows with you and ensures you can find your needs when it’s time to grow, speeds up many of your processes.

You don’t want to use an RMS only to have to switch to another one with more features and benefits when you add new branches.

This is where serVme comes in. We help restaurants, hotel restaurants, and F&B chains and enterprises manage all of their dining operations from a single dashboard.

As a serVme user, you’ll get all of the above features and more. For example, serVme lets you review times when your restaurant is busiest so you can organize your servers’ shifts accordingly.

Besides letting your guests make online and phone reservations, serVme helps you visualize your floor planning and redesign.

For hotels, serVme offers the property management system needed to integrate serVme within your hotel. That way, your marketing team can draw data from restaurants to support the hotel’s broader marketing strategy.

Final words

Managing your restaurant is a lot of work. But you don’t have to go through the journey alone. The first step is knowing you need a restaurant management system, the second is finding the software that suits your needs.

To see how serVme’s restaurant management software can help your restaurant, book your free, personalized demo.