Restauranteurs are always balancing plates, figuratively and literally. Once a restaurant passes that crucial point in time where management takes a step back from the short-order line, there’s certainly a shift towards streamlining the efficiency of operations, balancing multiple sides of the business simultaneously.
Without a doubt, operations are the biggest headache because restaurants are service operations at heart, and restauranteurs must focus on bringing operational efficiency in without upsetting the quality of service that loyal customers expect and advocate. Both happy staff and easily served customers rely on seamless payments after enjoying restaurant service. Otherwise, the restaurant risks its status as a going concern.
Payments are a thorn in the side of many restaurateurs. As service operations, the business payment solution must secure transactions not just between customers and the business but between the company, its employees, and even rideshare food delivery contractors or gig workers of some kind. Streamlining tipping distribution and payroll takes a sophisticated payment solution—and bringing all manner of payment options in is the essential requirement to satisfy employees and diners alike.
Cashless Online Business Payment Solutions Are Essential
Cash is dead! Long live digital payments! While cash is still legal tender, there’s a heavy opportunity cost in failing to offer multiple (i.e., comprehensive) payment solutions to vendors, employees, partners, rapidly multiplying gig-economy workers, short and long term creditors, or other various stakeholders. Furthermore, relying on traditional payroll methods could cost a restaurant a lot of time better spent on other business goals. Online payments exist to cut out as many intermediaries as possible, all in the name of efficiency. Getting everyone paid out, from vendor payables to gratuities has been a fixation for many a restaurant owner for decades, and online payments help employers streamline that process.
According to Toast, 88% of guests pay with their [credit or debit] card while “73% of diners agree that restaurant technology improves their guest experience”. Most significantly, from a business perspective, “95% of restaurateurs agree that restaurant technology [i.e., digital payments] improves their business efficiency.”
Consider the following business payment solutions:
- Debit & Credit Cards
- Interac e-Transfer
- Electronic Funds Transfer
- Virtual Wallet
- Cryptocurrency
What do these solutions have in common? They all rely on mostly unseen ledgers recording secure transactions. And it’s the way of the future for businesses and payments stakeholders like vendors or employees alike. Efficiency for businesses means a variety in payment options to take care of similarly varied accounts payable.
The more payment options restaurants procure, the more streamlined the business becomes. We’re not just referring to enhancing a customer’s experience when making purchases but also highlighting how brick-and-mortar restaurants can expand enterprise online. Food delivery has boomed over the last several years (in part driven by the COVID-19 pandemic), and online transactions are key to the payments component of this business model.
Efficiency and ease of online payment options means more customers for restaurants down the line because the restaurants are able to offload the burden of payments management. Streamlining payments ultimately means more sales and profits, and more significant growth. But it remains to be seen whether some online payments methods will take off for restaurants, and one type stands out in particular.
The Cryptocurrency Wave
Cryptocurrency has disrupted the payments industry, and all stakeholders must adapt to exponential increases in demand for cryptocurrency transaction integrations. Individual cryptocurrencies number in the tens of thousands, but their most common technology would be blockchain.
In economic terms, blockchain capabilities provide accessible cryptocurrency accounts and the ability to transmit valid blockchain ledger entries. If restaurants are to benefit from this fledgling payment solution, they’ll need to buy and store top cryptocurrencies for crypto floats (much like cash floats). They’ll also need to be able to sell cryptocurrency for capital withdrawals from the restaurant, and trade between accounts so as to receive and disburse tips. In fact, a cryptocurrency payments solution should require capacity to handle multiple trades, as tips get split between front-of-house, back-of-house, delivery contractors or staff, and more.
Moreover, the economic value of any given cryptocurrency constantly changes (with some exceptions like stablecoins), so cryptocurrency payment solutions must be user-friendly and precisely close transactions with an agreed-upon spot (or future) price. An integrated crypto payments solution must streamline and automate for user experience on both ends of the trade to make this option worth including at a restaurant.
One final caveat to all this is that restaurants still need cash management. But that’s something to celebrate since it gives the business yet another method to handle a long list of payments. A truly comprehensive multiple payments strategy cuts down business owners’ reliance on extensive composites of accounting, banking, and point-of-sale technological services. Business payment solutions need an integrated approach so that the end customer, even restaurants’ silent partners or restaurant employees, can receive payment anywhere and any time, in person or online, in their preferred currency.
Pateno is the only business payment solution you will ever need. Our innovative payment solutions ensure a more streamlined, secure, and flexible way to transfer money. Via our API technology, you can initiate payments from existing web pages, portals, and apps, scaling your capabilities as your industry changes. From tip disbursement to loan management payments, our highly intuitive and simple-to-use system can be easily integrated, instantly enhancing and streamlining your money transfers. Contact our sales representative to learn more today.