Guide: how to choose restaurant management software
Good restaurant management software connects the table booking, the waiter's order, the fiscal receipt and the kitchen stock into a single flow. The wrong choice leaves you with a paper reservation book, a menu in Word and a cash register that knows nothing about what you sold. This guide shows how to choose restaurant management software: the features that matter, the Romanian legal obligations and the real cost.
The essential criteria (short answer)
- Check the four core modules: reservations with a floor plan, a menu with recipe cards, orders sent to the kitchen and stock control.
- Ask for a link to the fiscal cash register, so the receipt is issued once, from the same order.
- Test the whole flow during a busy service: booking, seating, order, send to kitchen, payment, report.
- Ask for reports by day, by dish and by waiter — without them you can fix neither the menu nor the shifts.
- Work out the total cost: subscription, terminals, kitchen printers, staff training and the time to set up the menu.
The essential features
- Table reservations with a floor plan: table allocation, estimated duration, waiting list and no-show tracking.
- A QR digital menu, synced with recipe cards, portion weights, production cost and the margin of each dish.
- Orders taken tableside on a tablet and sent automatically to the kitchen or bar screen, split by station.
- Stock control with automatic depletion from the recipe card, inventory, suppliers, purchase orders and waste logging.
- Shift time-tracking for waiters, cooks and bartenders, with hours worked and staff cost per service.
- Sales reports by day, by dish and by waiter, plus average check and table turnover.
Table: separate tools vs. dedicated restaurant software
Many venues start with a paper reservation book, a chat group for shifts and a standalone cash register. The table compares the fragmented approach with a single system, on the criteria you feel in every service.
Separate tools vs. dedicated restaurant software
| Criterion | Separate tools | Dedicated restaurant software |
|---|---|---|
| Reservations | A book at the host stand and messages on the phone | A live floor plan with tables allocated in real time |
| The menu | A printed file, updated by hand at every price change | A QR digital menu, tied to recipe cards and stock |
| The order | A handwritten ticket, physically carried to the kitchen | The order goes from the tablet straight to the kitchen screen |
| Stock | Inventory in a spreadsheet, once a month | Automatic depletion from stock for every dish sold |
| Reports | Recalculated by hand from the cash register's Z report | Sales by day, by dish and by waiter, generated automatically |
What Romanian law says
- A fiscal receipt is mandatory for every payment taken on site and must be issued by an electronic fiscal cash register (OUG 28/1999).
- Fiscal cash registers must be connected to the ANAF IT system, which periodically collects the fiscal reports.
- The 14 allergens must be communicated to the customer for non-prepacked food — on the menu or in a visible, available document (EU Reg. 1169/2011, art. 44).
- Every business that prepares and serves food must apply procedures based on HACCP principles (EC Reg. 852/2004).
- Restaurant and catering services carry the reduced 11% VAT rate, while alcoholic drinks and CN 2202 soft drinks fall under the 21% standard rate (rates applicable since August 2025 — check the current level).
- The D406 (SAF-T) informative return also applies to small companies, starting 1 January 2025.
- Prices and portion sizes must be fully displayed on the menu; the consumer protection authority (ANPC) checks that customers are correctly informed (OG 21/1992).
What matters, by type of venue
- À la carte restaurant: the floor plan, table turnover and routing orders to the right kitchen station.
- Café: speed at the till, products with modifiers (plant milk, syrup) and hourly reports.
- Bar: per-serving pour sizes, weekly alcohol inventory and the variance between theoretical and actual consumption.
- Pizzeria with delivery: the digital menu, orders split by channel and prep times on the kitchen screen.
- Catering and food courts: orders per event, recipe cards scaled by portion count and the cost per event.
Practical example
Example: a 60-seat bistro with 8 employees. Before, reservations lived in a book and orders were handwritten and carried to the kitchen. After moving to a single system, the waiter sends the order from a tablet, the kitchen screen shows it within seconds, stock is depleted automatically from the recipe card, and at closing the report shows sales by dish and by waiter.
The measurable effect: the time between taking an order and it appearing in the kitchen dropped from about 4 minutes to under 30 seconds, and a table freed up on average 15 minutes earlier per service. With two seatings a night, that means extra covers with no extra staff.
Common mistakes
- Buying a system just for payments and keeping reservations in a book — the two never line up again.
- Choosing a solution that does not drive the fiscal cash register, so the receipt is punched in a second time, by hand.
- Not entering recipe cards with portion weights, so stock is not depleted automatically and production cost stays a guess.
- Ignoring shift time-tracking, even though staff cost is the second largest expense after raw materials.
- Signing a one-year contract without testing on a Friday night — exactly when the system actually matters.
How 4restaurants.net helps
- Reservations, the floor plan, orders, stock and time-tracking live in a single account, with no manual re-entry.
- The QR digital menu is generated from the same recipe cards that compute production cost and margin.
- The waiter's order appears on the kitchen or bar screen, with the time, the table number and the station.
- Reports by day, by dish and by waiter are built from real sales, not from estimates.
- It connects to the rest of the 4b2b ecosystem: invoicing through 4invoices and SMS or WhatsApp notifications through 4notify.