EPOS stands for electronic point of sale. An EPOS system is the screen, software and card reader a business uses to ring up sales, take payment and keep a record of what it sold. In a UK café, pub or restaurant it usually also sends orders to the kitchen and adds up the day's takings. "EPOS" and "POS" mean the same thing in practice, and "till" is the everyday word for the same counter set-up.
Shop around for a new till in the UK and you will see three phrases used almost interchangeably: till system, POS system and EPOS system. Sales pages switch between them in the same paragraph. That is mostly harmless, but the differences matter when you are comparing quotes, because two products with the same label can do very different jobs.
Here is what each term usually means for a café, restaurant or pub, and the questions that cut through the labels.
What a till is
"Till" is the oldest and plainest word. Historically it meant the cash register: a drawer for notes and coins with a keypad on top that added up the sale and printed a receipt. Many pubs and cafés still have one, often with buttons programmed for each product.
Today people say "till" for whatever is on the counter where staff take payment, whether that is a cash register, a touchscreen or a tablet on a stand. If someone says "we need a new till", they usually mean the whole counter set-up, not just the drawer.
What POS means
POS stands for point of sale: the moment and place where a customer pays. A POS system is the hardware and software that handles that moment. In practice it covers:
- Ringing up items, with prices, options and discounts.
- Taking payment by cash or card, and giving change.
- Printing or sending a receipt.
- Recording the sale so it shows in reports.
The term is used worldwide. American and Australian providers almost always say POS.
What EPOS adds
EPOS means electronic point of sale. It is the term UK businesses use most, and for a modern café it means the same as POS. The "electronic" was added to separate computerised systems from purely mechanical cash registers. Since almost every POS sold today is electronic, the distinction has mostly faded.
When a UK provider says EPOS, it is often signalling a system that does more than take payment: stock levels, staff logins, reports and links to accounting software. But that is a habit of marketing, not a definition. Plenty of products called "POS" do all of that too.
What a modern café or pub POS usually includes
Whatever it is called, a full hospitality POS today tends to bring several jobs together that used to be separate boxes:
- The counter till for cash and card.
- Table service: open bills or tabs, table numbers, a floor plan, sometimes a handheld for staff to take orders at the table.
- Kitchen routing: orders going to a kitchen printer or a kitchen display screen.
- Ordering channels: QR table ordering, a self-order kiosk, online ordering for collection or delivery.
- Back office: menu editing, staff roles, cash-up, sales reports, and on bigger plans stock, recipes and accounting exports.
One system doing all of that means one menu to keep up to date and one set of figures at the end of the day. Separate systems mean entering the same menu in several places and adding up reports by hand.
Cloud POS vs a traditional till
The bigger difference today is not EPOS versus POS but where the system lives.
A traditional till keeps its software and data on the device behind the counter. It works without the internet, but changing a price may mean doing it on each till, and reports may only be available on site.
A cloud POS runs on a tablet, phone or laptop and keeps the data online. Menu changes and reports reach every device at once, and you can check takings from home. The trade-off is that it depends on a connection, so ask what happens if the Wi-Fi drops and whether there is an offline mode.
How much does an EPOS system cost?
There are two ways to pay for one. A traditional EPOS is usually bought or leased as a package: a touchscreen terminal, software licence, installation and support, often on a contract of several years. A cloud EPOS is a monthly subscription that runs on a tablet or laptop you may already own, with card readers and printers bought separately.
Whichever you choose, add up the whole cost: the monthly fee, hardware, card processing rates, any per-order commission, and what it costs to leave. Our guide to what a café POS costs in the UK breaks this down, and our cheap EPOS page shows what Café QR costs.
Questions that matter more than the label
When you compare quotes, ignore what the product is called and ask:
- Which ways of ordering does it handle? Counter only, or table service, QR ordering, kiosk and online too?
- What hardware does it need, and can you use devices you already own?
- How do card payments work? Who processes them, at what rate, and is there a separate commission?
- What does it do for the kitchen? Printer, screen or both?
- Can you start small and add features later without changing system?
- What does the contract say, and what data can you take with you if you leave?
Our checklist for choosing a café POS goes through each of these in more depth.
Where Café QR fits
Café QR is a cloud EPOS system with QR ordering built in. The till handles counter sales, the kitchen display system shows orders as they come in, and floor plan and tabs cover table service. It runs in a browser. If the internet drops, the till keeps taking cash (and your own payment types) and uploads those sales when it's back; card payments, tabs and manager approvals wait for the connection, and table QR and online ordering need one.
The POS plan is £39 per venue per month, and Order & Pay, for QR ordering on its own, is £9.99. The first month is free with no card needed. See the full list on the features page or compare plans on pricing.