Hospital Cafeteria POS Systems 101 (A Complete Guide)

A practical guide to getting the most out of your dynamic hospital cafeteria POS system and hospital gift shop POS system.

 

High-Level POS Features Your Hospital Cafeteria and Gift Shop Need:

  1. Payroll Deductions Control: Your employees can quickly and easily scan their badges at the time of purchase, and account balances will be updated automatically and in real-time (saving you time on the back end by dramatically reducing data entry and processing). With a fast, hassle-free checkout process, employees can maximize the use of their work break and take advantage of shorter lines in the cafeteria and gift shop.
  2. Interdepartmental Charges: Eliminate the stressful process of manually tracking interdepartmental charges with a dynamic, automated tracking system. Through the automation process, you can take advantage of real-time stats and analysis in your accounting department (or connect to a third-party accounting system).
  3. Employee Discounts: Easily connect with a database listing discounts available on select items so that your employees can access these benefits without hassle (and speed up the checkout process). Your HR team will love you as this data can be used to make the benefits package more appealing.
  4. Employee Meal Plans: Meal plans are common but actively tracking the data is not. With Bepoz, employees can track their use of meal plan benefits in real-time, cafeteria staff and management can enjoy streamlined tracking with an automated process and Hospital admins can monitor how frequently these benefits are being used and can analyze how they are being used.
  5. Food Service and Retail Inventory: Master your inventory once and for all with smarter, active (real-time) inventory tracking system. Improve the freshness of your products, the effectiveness of your storage space and the inventory levels that influence streamlined operations.
  6. Meal Planning and Rotation: Ensure that customers have access to quality foods and snacks that they enjoy with a daily rotation of specific menu items. You can analyze sales to determine which menu items are preferred, and you can offer these on a limited basis so that customers are excited by the unique options available on a day-by-day basis.

 

Hospital Cafeteria POS 101 – The Rundown

Regardless of the hour, your hospital cafeteria may be bustling with activity. This is a place where hospital staff take much-needed breaks and refuel before continuing on with their shifts. The cafeteria also provides patients’ guests with the opportunity for replenishment and respite. With so many people to serve throughout the day, cafeteria staff may work tirelessly to prepare meals and snacks, to resupply the inventory of grab-and-go options, to track inventory and more. In this type of fast-paced environment, an awkward, outdated hospital cafeteria POS system can be more than an inconvenience. It can impede on your staff’s productivity, create unnecessarily long lines and result in the need to manually tackle some tasks, such as tracking inventory. If you are tasked with overseeing multiple cafeterias in a large medical complex or at multiple hospitals, the impact of a clunky POS system for hospital cafeteria use is undeniably more pronounced.

At Bepoz, we understand the unique benefits that the right hospital cafeteria POS system delivers, and we know that these benefits are essential for improved daily management and streamlined operations in your facility. Through our detailed understanding of the challenges that hospitals face for cafeterias as well as other direct sale locations, like gift shops, we have developed effective hospital point of sale software solutions. We want you to fully understand the benefits of upgrading to modern hospital cafeteria POS systems, and we have created a complete guide to assist with your system upgrade.

Features to Look for in a New Hospital POS System 1 - Hospital Cafeteria POS Systems 101 (A Complete Guide)Features to Look for in a New Hospital POS System

There are a seemingly endless range of POS systems that you could choose from, but your cafeteria and gift shop areas have specific needs that must be taken into account. The best POS system for hospital cafeteria and gift shop use offers incredible benefits regardless of how large or small your facility is. Rather than invest in a separate hospital gift shop POS, a multi-functional POS system for hospital cafeteria and gift shops use from Bepoz is customized to address all of your needs and to simplify management. Consider that hospital POS software enables you to track sales and inventory cohesively across the gift shop and the cafeteria. At the same time, it may manage employee discounts, enable online or advance orders and streamline processes in other ways. A closer look at what you can expect from the best POS system for hospital cafeteria and gift shop use reveals the incredible benefits waiting for you to take advantage of.

Payroll Deductions Control

At Bepoz, we know how draining it is to manage and track payroll deductions, and our customized cafeteria and hospital gift shop POS systems can be perfectly adapted to meet your needs in this area. Regardless of whether your hospital uses employee badges with RFID technology, barcodes or magnetic stripes, we can accommodate your current infrastructure without the need for a time-consuming and expensive upgrade. Your employees can quickly and easily scan their badges at the time of purchase, and account balances will be updated automatically and in real-time. Your employees will never have to wonder if their balances are updated, and they will not need to provide a separate payment when making purchases in the gift shop. With a fast, hassle-free checkout process, employees can maximize the use of their work break and take advantage of shorter lines in the cafeteria and gift shop. They also do not need to worry about toting cash or credit cards around because they can pay securely through their employee badges. On the back end, data entry and processing related to payroll deductions is dramatically reduced, and analytical reports can be reviewed in real-time.

Interdepartmental Charges

Some hospitals and medical facilities track interdepartmental charges through a cumbersome, tedious process that creates an accounting nightmare. With POS cafeteria hospital systems that are integrated with all dining areas and gift shops throughout the facility or across a chain of facilities, this stressful aspect of operations is entirely eliminated. This is because a POS system for hospital cafeteria use automatically tracks charges for all payment stations on a department-level basis. Through the automation process, you can take advantage of real-time stats and analysis in your accounting department. Our Bepoz solutions can also link to third-party accounting systems to accommodate your facility’s unique needs. When hospitals function with outdated data and incomplete analysis of sales numbers, inventory and charges, they inevitably fall behind. They risk losing money unnecessarily, making embarrassing and costly errors and even exposing the company and staff members to security risks. A POS system for hospital cafeteria use from Bepoz delivers dynamic, real-time solutions while saving hospitals time, energy and money.

Employee Discounts with POS Software 1 - Hospital Cafeteria POS Systems 101 (A Complete Guide)Employee Discounts

Do your employees receive discounts on on-site purchases as a job perk, or have you thought about how you can easily implement this as a new benefit? At Bepoz, we tailor the best POS system for hospital cafeteria and gift shop use to your needs. Our specialized software solutions can easily connect with a database listing discounts available on select items so that your employees can access these benefits without hassle. At the same time, the cashiers can process sales quickly to benefit everyone else in line. With a POS system for hospital cafeteria use, your HR team can monitor how extensively benefits are being used so that they can make the benefits package more appealing going forward.

Employee Meal Plans

Meal plans are commonly offered to hospital employees, but tracking the use of meal plans is a challenge without access to the right technology. A hospital cafeteria POS system from Bepoz enables customization of meal plan features and benefits on a per-employee basis, and it tracks the use of meal plans in real-time through an automated process. Regardless of whether your employees receive a dollar-based meal plan or a specific allocation of meals per week, the POS cafeteria hospital software can accommodate your needs. Employees can ensure that they are maximizing the benefits that they are entitled to without hassle. Because they can track their use of meal plan benefits in real-time, they can plan ahead when their benefits for the week have been used. Cafeteria staff and management enjoy streamlined tracking with an automated process. Internally, hospital administration can monitor how frequently these benefits are being used and can analyze how they are being used.

POS Food Service and Retail Inventory Management 1 - Hospital Cafeteria POS Systems 101 (A Complete Guide)Food Service and Retail Inventory Management

An important aspect of running busy hospital dining areas and gift shops is related to inventory management. In your cafeteria, you must actively monitor sales of packaged items so that you can re-order products in a timely manner. You also must monitor sales of food items prepared onsite so that essential ingredients and supplies can be ordered. When inventory falls short, you are unable to meet customers’ needs, and your sales may plummet in some cases. This holds true in a gift shop as well. From maintaining fresh flowers and balloons to greeting cards, snacks and other items, the profitability of a gift shop is dependent on how well inventory is tracked and managed. You likely understand through the frustration of first-hand experience how challenging this can be to do manually or even with outdated technology. A hospital cafeteria POS system from Bepoz actively tracks sales in real-time and provides you with quick analytical review of inventory as needed. Likewise, a hospital gift shop POS solution from Bepoz operates in similar fashion. Inventory tracking and management benefits of a well-designed hospital point of sale system extend beyond keeping shelves stocked and meal options available. It affects the freshness of products, the effective use of storage space, the amount of inventory on hand and other vital aspects that influence streamlined, efficient operations.

Meal Planning and Rotation

Your cafeteria may be the most convenient dining option for employees and guests, but it is not the only option. A critical aspect of running a hospital cafeteria involves ensuring that customers have access to quality foods and snacks that they enjoy. A POS system for hospital use facilitates and tracks sales of everyday items, such as bottled beverages, bagged chips and more. A Bepoz hospital cafeteria POS provides for daily rotation of specific menu items. You can analyze sales to determine which menu items are preferred, and you can offer these on a limited basis so that customers are excited by the unique options available on a day-by-day basis. Because the menu can be programmed on a rotation or on a scheduled basis, management does not need to adjust the system manually each day in order to accommodate a rotating menu. The display screen for the hospital point of sale system will only show items that are available on that specific day, and this dramatically streamlines the efforts of cashiers.

Learn More About Bepoz POS Solutions for Hospitals

The bottom line is that the right hospital cafeteria POS system saves time, energy, resources and money. It goes well beyond simply processing transactions in the cafeteria. In fact, it bolsters inventory management, analytics, operational processes, menu offerings and more. A list of best POS system for hospital cafeteria use will undoubtedly include innovative Bepoz solutions. Our hospital cafeteria POS system can be tailored specifically to meet the unique needs of your facility. You can incorporate features for a POS hospital gift shop and cafeteria together for enhanced benefits, and you can even integrate systems from different branch locations. Are you ready to learn more about what sets a Bepoz POS system apart from the typical POS system for hospital cafeteria and gift shop use? Contact us today for a demo of our dynamic POS systems.

Learn More About Hospital POS Systems

The Benefits of POS in Hospitals

Video Transcription for Hospital Point of Sale Demonstration

Hello this is Tim and I’m here to tell you about Bepoz point of sale for hospitals. If you have one location or many locations, Bepoz can help you centrally manage your operations for cafeterias and gift shops. There’s many other things that Bepoz adds to this. Bepoz can help you manage payroll deductions, interdepartmental billing, meal plans for physicians or executives, vouchers and discounts for volunteers, and inventory for gift shops and cafeterias. So let’s take a look at Bepoz.

Handling Standard Cash Transactions

So this is the login screen for Bepoz. You can log into Bepoz using a number, an employee card or a fingerprint. So I’m going to use a card today for our login. So I logged in, and that decides my permissions in the software once I get there. So now let’s ring in a transaction. This transaction will be a cash transaction. So we’ll just ring a few items and this is cafeteria style, so I have no modifiers. Now Bepoz does have the capability of managing modifiers and sending them into a kitchen, but in a traditional hospital cafeteria, we wouldn’t have those. Now in this case, I also have options for being able to do categories or products. In this case, I have a category, which was burgers, and it lists all of the burgers. So to do that again, I pick burger and then I pick a burger off of the list, but I could have also had all of the burgers hard coded like I have cheeseburger right here. So I have a total here of $36.00 and I have fast tender keys here. Now I can press “cash” and type in an amount, or I could have fast tender keys – I could press 2 $20 bills, now my receipt printer prints and my cash drawer opens. You can teach a monkey to do that in 10 minutes.

Paying with Payroll Deductions or Declining Balances

So let’s do a transaction where we have an employee with a payroll deduction. Now in many hospitals, the employees have an employee badge, and the employee badge has a magnetic stripe, a barcode or an RFID card in it. We can accept any one of those, and in this case, I’ll do an RFID card for an employee card. So when the employee walks up, that they have to do is touch their card on the RFID reader. This brings up their account and in this case I have an account with a declining balance. Now it could have been a payroll deduction, a declining balance, it could have been a meal plan for a physician. Any one of these could have been accessed by the card. So I’ll ring up some items for this person and we will charge them on account. Now if they have a declining balance, that will automatically deduct from their declining balance as if that was a prepaid gift card. If they have a payroll deduction, that will automatically export on the payroll period to the payroll service for the payroll deduction.

Utilizing Interdepartmental Billing

Now we could also do interdepartmental billing in a similar fashion. Now you could issue a number, and you probably already do have a number for interdepartmental billing charges, or I could look them up manually on a list. So I could type in the number you need to look up, or I could look them up by pressing the Finance Department. So I pick it, I’m going to charge to the Finance Department and I ring up whatever it is that they are going to get and I will pay on account. And then your accounting department will automatically get an exported report on a scheduled basis, like let’s say it’s the first of the month or every 2 weeks or as often as they’d like to get, with an Excel spreadsheet that shows up in their inbox or in some file location for them to import into their accounting package or we could set it up that it automatically imports into the accounting package.

Issuing and Redeeming Vouchers

So the next thing is, we’ll look at vouchers you could issue to volunteers or other guests that you want to give a meal to. Now in this case, I’ve printed off a paper voucher. Now I could have issued it on a gift card for that person, but in this case I did it on a paper voucher and the paper has a barcode that I could use to redeem by scanning the barcode at the register. Now I could have done this by just typing in an number too. So I’ll ring up an item that this person wants to get. They want to get a cheeseburger. Now the rule on this is, they get up to $6 and the cheeseburger that I’ve just rung is $7.25. So I’ll scan the coupon and it will automatically discount off $6. So I have $1.25 and that volunteer that gets a $6 credit in the cafeteria can now pay the balance difference with a $5 for their $1.25 and we completed the transaction. Now can that be redeemed twice? If I ring up a burger again and then scan the voucher, it will tell me that this voucher has been fully redeemed. It cannot be redeemed twice. Now this voucher also could have an expiration date. So if the volunteer came in, let’s say 2 weeks later and the voucher was issued with only being valid for 7 days, the voucher would also not work after that expiration date.

Paying with a Meal Plan

So the next thing we can look at is a meal plan for a voucher or an executive. Now your meal plan could be a certain number of free meals or discounted meals per day, week or month, however you’d like to arrange that. So if this person were to come in and present their card, we could scan their card, which would bring up their account. I have this set up with the exact same promotion that we had for volunteers, which is they got a $6 discount. Now there could be some other plan in what they get, but in this case, they get a sandwich. When I ring this up, it says, “You have a valid voucher for this product. Do you wish to redeem this voucher now?” And if I say redeem – so now I have $1.25, just like we had for the volunteer. It’s the same process, it’s just that this voucher has been attached to the account for the executive or for the physician, where as a volunteer you would probably give that to in paper.

Inventory Tracking Systems

So Bepoz can also handle your inventory, not only for your cafeteria with recipe level breakdown of all of your items. But Bepoz can also handle complex inventory needs that are required in a gift shop. So in this case, we’ve got the gift shop set up, I’ve got barcodes, of course we’re scanning barcodes all day long, so I ring up the bottle of water. We could access items on the touch screen and do them by the touch screen too. So I could ring up those items. And again, this process is just the same as the cafeteria, only I’m now selling retail items instead of cafeteria items, but I’m doing them by barcode. But in the background, we’re doing all the inventory deductions and tracking how many you have on hand and doing purchases from outside vendors.

So that concludes our presentation of Bepoz point of sale for hospitals. Of course there’s way more features than we could ever talk about in this short presentation. If you have more questions, please call us and we’ll be happy to talk to you about your needs.