Restaurant POS Questions, Answered Without the Sales Spin

It depends mostly on your menu size and how many counters need training. A single café with a straightforward menu is far quicker than a multi-station restaurant with a large modifier matrix. We give you a real timeline in the proposal rather than a marketing promise, and we do not start charging for go-live before the dry run passes.

Yes. Your menu, categories and prices can be imported rather than retyped, and if you are coming from spreadsheets we can work from those. Historic sales transactions are a separate question — some systems will export them and some will not — so tell us what you have and we will say plainly what can and cannot come across.

No. Configuration and training happen before go-live, and installation at the counter takes a short window outside service. We plan the cutover with you and stay on hand through your first days of service.

Your menu with prices and any modifiers, your registered business details for the invoice, your discount rules, the branches and counters in scope, and a list of the hardware you already own. The more of this is ready, the faster the configuration goes.

Core locally supported POS operations are designed to continue locally: orders are written to a database on the store machine, so the counter can keep taking orders and printing receipts. Kitchen workflow can continue where it is configured locally. Synchronization can resume when connectivity returns. How much continues depends on your configuration and hardware, and we confirm that with you during scoping rather than promising a blanket guarantee.

No, and you should be suspicious of any POS vendor who does. Hardware fails, printers jam, tablets run out of battery. What we will claim is architectural: the counter does not depend on a server in another city to ring up a sale. Everything else is configuration, and we test it with you before go-live.

For core service, no — that is the point of the local-first design. You do need connectivity for things that are inherently online: reviewing figures remotely, connected integrations, and any cloud synchronization you have configured. If your connection is unreliable, tell us during scoping; that is precisely the situation this architecture is for.

They live in the local database with everything else. When connectivity returns, synchronization can run. Nothing is held in a browser tab waiting to be lost.

Often yes. WSI POS supports compatible hardware and peripherals depending on configuration, and bring-your-own-device is a supported starting point. Send us the models and we will tell you honestly which ones we have verified rather than claiming universal compatibility.

Thermal receipt printers are the standard choice, and kitchen tickets can go to a kitchen display, a kitchen printer, or both depending on how your stations are set up. Specific models are confirmed during scoping — we would rather check your printer than have you discover a problem on opening day.

If you handle cash, yes — a drawer that kicks open on receipt print is the normal setup. If you are card and e-wallet only, it is optional.

Yes. WSI POS includes a customer display view that can run on a second screen or tablet where your setup supports it. It is configured per deployment, so mention it during scoping if you want one.

BIR registration and accreditation are issued through the BIR's own process and are tied to the registered taxpayer and the specific machine — a software vendor cannot grant them. What WSI POS provides is Philippine-ready tax and invoicing configuration: 12% VAT computed per sale with a printed VATable Sales line, structured TIN and Permit To Use lines that print on the invoice, controlled invoice numbering, and an end-of-day reading. VAT-exempt and zero-rated sales categories of the kind a BIR-accredited invoice also shows are on our roadmap rather than in the product today. WSI can assist with system configuration and implementation requirements, subject to the applicable BIR rules and your specific registration requirements.

The 20% discount and the associated VAT exemption under RA 9994 and RA 10754 are applied at checkout, with ID capture and the discount recorded per transaction so it shows up in your reporting rather than only on the receipt.

Yes. Order slips, kitchen tickets and the tax invoice are separate documents, so your staff get a working slip while the customer gets the document your registration requires.

Configured charges are part of setup. Tell us what you apply and how it should appear on the receipt and in reporting, and we will configure it rather than assuming a default.

Parked orders (open billing) let staff hold an unfinished order against a table or a name and come back to it — essential when customers order drinks, sit down, and order food later. WSI POS keeps parked orders visible with their table label, elapsed time and item count so a busy counter does not lose track.

As proper modifier groups with priced add-ons, not free-text notes. Size, temperature, milk, sweetness, ice level, extra shots and toppings are selected as groups, the price change is visible, and the selection travels with the line item to the kitchen or bar and onto the printed label.

Yes. Split payments and part-cash part-wallet tenders are handled at checkout with the change computed for you.

Each staff member can have their own account and PIN, with roles controlling what they can reach. Voids, refunds and discounts can route through a manager approval PIN so those actions leave a trail.

Product-level stock is tracked with quantities and low-stock thresholds, and every movement is recorded as a sale, a cancellation restore, or a manual adjustment so the count has a trail. Recipe and ingredient-level depletion is on our roadmap, not in the product today — we would rather say that clearly than let you plan around a feature that is not there yet.

Your data lives in a database at your store, and you can export it. Ask us to walk through the export path during scoping so you can see for yourself what you would keep.

You export your data and keep it. We would rather earn the renewal than hold your business records hostage to make you stay.

Support terms are part of your proposal, and the same team that configures your store is the team you call. We do not route restaurant operators through a scripted first line.

Each branch runs its own counter, kitchen display and local database, so a problem at one branch does not stop another, and new branches are rolled out from a configuration template. A consolidated multi-branch management console with centralised publishing and group reporting is on our roadmap — it is not in the product today.