Orders, till and invoicing: own your system, not rent

A restaurant today pays to be fragmented. A platform takes 25–30 % of every delivery. The till is rented by the month. Bookings run through another tool. Reviews live somewhere else. And digital tax records are now the standard, not the exception. In the end the owner rents five services that don’t talk to each other — and owns none of them.

The real cost isn’t the subscription

It’s the scattering. Each tool keeps a slice of your data: the platform knows your customers, you don’t. The till has your takings but not your bookings. Nothing is connected, so nothing can be steered. You work for your tools instead of them working for you.

And the heaviest line is invisible: platform commission. On a delivered order, a third is gone before you’ve even paid for the ingredients. Across a full service, that’s a wage a month, evaporating.

The simple idea: one system, owned

Instead of renting pieces, you bring the essentials together in one place — and the restaurant owns it:

• Ordering (dine-in, takeaway, delivery) runs from your own website, with no platform commission. Your customers become yours again.
• The till takes payment at the table, item by item, and everything files itself — no loose receipts, no keying errors.
• Bookings are centralised, with automatic reminders and an optional deposit for large tables — no more ghost bookings.

It all speaks with one voice: what you take, what you book, what you sell online — a single dashboard.

Legal invoicing, built in from day one

This is the part many discover too late. In the UK, Making Tax Digital for VAT means VAT-registered businesses must keep digital records and file through compatible software — paper and spreadsheets no longer cut it. A proper system issues the VAT receipt as you take payment, numbers it without gaps, and keeps a clean digital trail — you can void, never delete.

The point: that compliance shouldn’t be a chore bolted on afterwards, but a brick already inside the system. The owner takes payment; the record keeps itself.

What it actually changes

• You keep your margin (0 commission on your own orders).
• You keep your customers (their details are yours, not a platform’s).
• You’re compliant without thinking about it (record-keeping built in).
• You steer instead of react (one place, clean figures for your accountant).

A restaurant doesn’t need ten tools. It needs one system it owns — that takes payment, keeps clean tax records, handles orders and bookings — and lets it focus on the kitchen and the floor.

That’s exactly what we build: a website that feels like an app, with the till and invoicing built in, in the restaurant’s own colours. Owned, not rented.