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Every restaurant has its unique style, meal preparation techniques, staff management and approach to customer relationships. Yet all restaurants face a common challenge: staying profitable while delivering exceptional service in an increasingly competitive market. Rising costs and stiff competition are squeezing profit margins, with restaurants in Australia operating at 3.8% – lower than the broader hospitality sector. As industry-wide margins grow tighter and customer expectations rise, keeping operations lean and efficient becomes essential for success.
Savvy restaurant owners understand the need for efficiency. They’re turning to technology to help them simplify processes, reduce errors and provide the insights they need to run profitable operations.
However, all tools are not created equal. To unlock real benefits, you need technology tools that are adaptable to your business. For example, a modern point-of-sale system like Square for Restaurants supports any service model, whether full-service, quick-service or hybrid. It keeps your front- and back-of-house completely in sync and provides actionable data via an integrated analytics tool. This allows you to track every dollar spent on ingredients and labour so you can identify areas where costs are ballooning and where you can cut back.
If that sounds like the solution you need, read on to discover how the right tools can help you build a more efficient business. Plus, get valuable insights from successful owners who use Square to power their business.
Centralising admin for easier operations
You don’t open a restaurant because you love handling administrative tasks, but chances are they take up a fair bit of your time. And you’re not alone: three-quarters of Australian restaurant owners said they’re spending more time on various business activities than last year, as highlighted in the Square 2025 Future of Restaurants report.
Many systems are clunky and disparate, forcing business owners to log in to several different programs to take care of payroll, timecards and sales reporting.
For Mo Saad, co-owner of Fricken, choosing the right system helped simplify their operations. “We definitely wanted to go with an integrated solution like Square. We had a list of checkboxes of what we needed out of a POS, and Square ticked all those for us.”
By consolidating administrative tasks into one intuitive platform, you can refocus your energy on the parts of the business that truly matter.But streamlined administration is just the first step in building efficiency. Once your back-office operations are in order, it’s time to turn your attention to the customer experience.
Improving accuracy for happier customers
When it comes to customer service, mistakes can be costly – financially and in terms of customer loyalty. A misheard order, a forgotten modification or a kitchen mix-up can create a ripple effect that throws off an entire service. Using modern restaurant tools can make a crucial difference in preventing these costly errors.
For instance, Square point-of-sale (POS) systems deliver far more than simple payment processing. Servers can instantly send detailed orders to the kitchen, complete with specific cooking instructions and dietary restrictions, eliminating the traditional handwritten docket that could be misread or lost in the chaos of a busy service.
Square Kitchen Display System (KDS) takes accuracy even further by serving as a digital command centre for your team. Instead of paper tickets cluttering the pass, orders appear on a single, clear, organised screen where you can filter items and sort tickets to ensure everything for a table comes out together. Square KDS also tracks critical order information, including placement time, source and pickup times for delivery orders. This comprehensive tracking helps alert staff when orders are running behind, maintaining consistent service times and keeping customers satisfied and impressed.
The shift to digital order tracking made a huge difference in keeping Sloppy Joe’s service in sync. “Prior to using KDS it was just dockets, and you just had dockets flying left, right and centre, and that’s where orders get missing,” explained co-owner Joe La. “So now we’ve implemented the KDS alongside dockets for when we are bagging up. So no mistakes. It’s well streamlined, as well.”
Evaluating costs and cutting waste
When customers are reporting a great experience and operations are running smoothly, it can be hard to step back and see the bigger picture. Yet, that’s often the best time to evaluate your processes and identify areas for improvement. Here’s where data comes in.
At a minimum, things like sales reports should help you figure out your current state of affairs. But they’re also a tool that can help you make important decisions on everything from your business hours to restaurant costs, inventory and even your expansion strategy.
We’ve just done a year-on-year comparison with customer retention versus new customers. We’re now utilising the back end of Square in a whole new way. Whether it’s that, or our cover count, or our average spend, or how many transactions we’re doing, we’re really analysing our business and understanding it.”
When it comes to inventory, an effective management tool can help eliminate waste. Square Inventory Management automatically monitors stock levels and sends low stock alerts when it’s time to reorder. By analysing historical data, you can predict busy periods and stock appropriately without over-ordering perishable ingredients that may go to waste.
Enhancing staff productivity
When you first opened a restaurant, you might have had a good handle on how many people you needed to schedule during certain slots. But as your business grew, keeping track of staff performance and scheduling across locations became increasingly complex. That’s where data-driven insights become invaluable.
Square’s staff management tools help streamline your team’s activities, from shift management to team communication and staff delegation. Staff can easily view their schedules, request time off or swap shifts through mobile apps, eliminating the confusion of paper schedules and reducing stress around work-life balance. With features like built-in time tracking, inventory management and integrated POS systems, Square creates a comprehensive ecosystem that helps your team work more efficiently while feeling more engaged and valued. When your staff see you investing in tools that make their jobs easier, it sends a clear message: their time and well-being matter to your business.
Switch to a modern, flexible system
The difference between a good restaurant and a great one often comes down to how smoothly it runs behind the scenes. Outdated systems that are slow to evolve can hold your business back. Square is different. You can adapt its suite of tools to fit your restaurant’s unique needs instead of shoehorning your business processes to fit inflexible systems. “We looked at everything that we were using and we really wanted to nail and focus our proficiencies,” Benjamin said. “Square enabled us to run seamlessly, from payments through to the restaurant platform – super user-friendly, easy setup. Square’s been great for us.”
Beyond core restaurant management features, Square integrates seamlessly with over 100 business apps – from QuickBooks to Fresh KDS – through the Square App Marketplace. By leveraging these modern, adaptable tools, you can boost efficiency across every aspect of your operation, from order accuracy to staff productivity to cost management. The result? A smoother-running restaurant that’s better equipped to delight customers and drive profitability in today’s competitive market.
Running a business is no easy feat, but Square is here to help. We have all the tools you need to start, run and grow your business, whether selling in person, online or both. And we’ve made all our tools work together as one system, saving you time and money – and making decisions easier so you can get back to doing the work you love and focusing on whatever’s next.
