DakaarEvery restaurant billing system demos beautifully. The differences show up at 9 PM on a Saturday when the internet dies, at month-end when the GST report goes to your accountant, and at renewal time when the "affordable" plan has grown three add-ons. Here is the checklist we would use to evaluate any POS — including ours.
1. What happens when the internet goes down?
This is the single most revealing question. Ask the vendor: can I take orders, print KOTs, and settle bills with the WiFi off — for a whole day? Cloud-only systems stall or degrade into a limited offline mode; the bills queue up, the kitchen waits, and your busiest evening depends on your ISP. An offline-first system keeps the entire workflow local and uses the internet only for extras like remote dashboards. (This is the hill Dakaar POS was built on, so yes, we are biased — but ask the question of everyone.)
2. Is the price a price — or a meter?
Restaurant software pricing in India comes in three shapes:
- Flat subscription — one number per year. Easy to budget.
- Per-bill or % commission — the software taxes your growth. 1% of revenue sounds small until you compute it on a year of sales.
- Modular add-ons — the base is cheap; KOT module, reports module, support plan, "premium" features and extra terminals each cost more. Total cost of ownership is 2-3× the sticker.
Whatever you pick, get the all-in yearly number in writing, including: extra billing counters, kitchen screens, waiter-ordering devices, support, and updates. Dakaar's answer is one flat ₹8,990/year with KDS screens and waiter tablets unlimited and free — but whichever vendor you choose, make them write the total down.
3. GST compliance you don't have to think about
Minimum bar: GSTIN and FSSAI on printed bills, CGST/SGST split as separate lines, per-item tax groups (0/5/12/18%), and a month-end GST summary your accountant can file from. If the vendor says "we'll customise the bill format for you", ask to see it working in the demo, not promised after purchase.
4. Kitchen workflow, not just billing
Billing software that only bills is a calculator. The operational value is in the kitchen loop: KOTs that route to the right printer (tandoor orders to the tandoor station), edits that print a "what changed" slip, and ideally a kitchen display screen with ready/dispatch states. If you run delivery, check that Swiggy/Zomato orders can be tracked under their own order type with commission accounted.
5. Reports an owner actually reads
Skip the 40-report brochure. You need six: daily sales with payment modes, item-wise sales, per-cashier sales, cancellations & edits (the leakage view), GST summary, and a shift/cash-drawer report. Check each exists and loads in seconds. A bonus worth having: a phone dashboard for watching the restaurant remotely.
6. The exit question
Ask: if I leave, what do I get? Your sales history, menu and customer data should be exportable in a standard format (Excel/CSV/SQLite — anything open). A vendor who locks your data is renting it back to you. Dakaar stores everything in a standard SQLite file on your PC with automatic OneDrive backups; we think that should be the industry norm.
The 30-minute test that beats any brochure
Take a free trial and run one real lunch service on it: import your menu, fire 20 KOTs, split a payment, cancel one bill with a reason, and pull the day-end report. Everything you need to know about a POS reveals itself in one service. Dakaar's trial is 7 days, every feature, no card — and the same test works on any competitor. Run it on both and let the Saturday rush pick your software.