by Ben Dwyer Revel Systems was founded in San Francisco by two young entrepreneurs in 2010 and offers an iPad-based POS system designed for three types of businesses: quick service restaurants, sit-down restaurants and bars, and retailers.
The company calls itself “credit card processor-neutral,” so you can choose whichever credit card processor best meets your needs. However, Revel offers its own payment processing solution – Revel Advantage – and suggests that customers utilize that option.
With Revel, you can take credit and debit cards, gift cards, and even PayPal or bitcoin payments.
Since its launch, Revel has attracted a great deal of media attention and remains a popular system. Read on to learn whether it’s the right choice for your business.
What You’ll Need to Use Revel Systems
To use Revel’s POS solution, you’ll need an iPad. Revel also recommends a barcode scanner, a cash register, a credit card reader, and a receipt printer. You’ll also need an Internet connection.
If you plan to take credit cards, you’ll need a merchant account with a processing company. Revel’s POS solution works with many credit card processing companies.
Hardware and Accessories
The Revel POS system isn’t a set bundle of equipment, which can be beneficial for businesses that want a more tailored POS package. It means you won’t be paying for equipment you don’t need or want, but you can add the components that you do need. At its most basic, your Revel system could consist of simply an iPad with the Revel POS application. Revel works with certain models of iPad Pro, iPad Mini, and iPad 2018. The company does not currently support Android or Windows devices, and has not announced plans to do so.
If you need a POS solution that can run on an Android or Windows platform, be sure to check our our POS system directory to find the right choice for your needs.
As for accessories, Revel offers compatible accessories to make using its POS system easier. It sells barcode scanners, cash drawers, coin dispensers, digital menu boards, iPad stands, keyboards, credit card readers, printers, and scales.
Revel supports several major brands, including Honeywell, Star, Dymo, Epson, Zebra, APG, Ingenico, IDTech, and Brecknell. This type of “mix and match” offering lets you create the right Revel system for your specific business needs.
Revel Features
What draws customers to Revel is that it’s full of incredibly useful features. While Revel systems offer many restaurant and bar-specific functions such as tabs and delivery management, it includes features for retailers or service-based businesses as well.
Revel offers QuickBooks integration, the ability to process sales from anywhere in the facility, employee management, inventory functions that include combination capabilities, CRM functionality, delivery and order status tracking, appointment scheduling, and more. Additionally, Revel has thorough guides on many of its popular features.
Order Status Tracking
Nothing ruins the customer experience faster than waiting too long for an order. The order tracking status in Revel automatically launches a timer as soon as the order is submitted, so you can see how long each order takes to prepare.
Delivery Management
Keep track of your deliveries through Revel in one of two ways: utilize Revel’s DeliveryXT solution or integrate with options such as DoorDash.
DeliveryXT is an integrated delivery platform that includes an app for assigning drivers as well as an app for the driver themselves to accept deliveries or get directions. The management app has reporting capabilities to see how your deliveries are going and even track where drivers currently are.
With delivery optimization, the system suggests deliveries that maximize route efficiency, helping decrease total time spent delivering orders. You can also provide arrival estimates to your customers by text.
The DoorDash option, DriverXT powered by DoorDash, allows you to use Revel to accept delivery orders without needing to maintain your own in-house delivery staff. DriverXT supports a 5-mile delivery radius, provides delivery time estimates, and includes order pickup confirmations.
Note: DriverXT is only available for Revel customers that utilizes Online OrderingXT, Reven’s online ordering platform.
Delivery Roles
Within the Delivery Management module, you can set the role of “driver” or “manager” for each employee with access to the delivery system. “Drivers” have access to fewer functions and can only view orders that have been assigned to them or unassigned orders. An employee that is designated as a driver can create and receive orders, add items to an order, and access cash drawers or virtual tills. The virtual till option allows drivers to keep records of the cash they receive as they complete deliveries. When the driver has access to the physical cash drawer, they can denote a “cash drop” to indicate that they’ve transferred the money from their possession to the cash drawer.
An employee designated as a driver manager has more authority. The driver manager can assign orders to particular drivers, check-in a driver or end the driver’s shift, adjust checks for tips, adjust driver mileage, and more. The driver manager also has the ability to approve delivery to addresses that fall outside of the pre-set delivery boundaries.
Inventory and Combos
Are you running out of the ingredients you need to make your most popular dish? Revel’s inventory function tracks your inventory in real time, alerts you when something’s running low, and automatically generates a purchase order.
Tracking inventory down to the ingredient level also helps with “combo” meals. Everyone knows upselling is a great way to boost the bottom line. Revel’s POS solution provides the option for creating menu combos or modifying orders, making it easy to increase profits, while the ingredient inventory function ensures that you have the needed items on hand for your combos.
Mobile and Online Ordering
Many customers want to order with their mobile devices, and Revel makes that possible. Customers place their orders through an app and choose whether they pick up the order or receive a delivery. The app adds flexibility with the option to pay by PayPal.
Not everyone wants to order with their mobile device, though. That’s why Revel offers an online ordering option for restaurant pickup.
Called Online OrderingXT, the online option allows customers to browse your menu / online storefront or skip right to ordering their favorite items. The platform provides branding and customization and can connect directly to any kitchen display systems (KDS) that you use in your restaurant.
Drive-Thru
But what about drive-thru orders? Revel can handle that as well. The DriveThruXT platform is flexible, allowing you to choose whether you’d like a turnkey solution complete with menu boards and order timers or a lightweight option with mobile order takers.
You can mix and match options such as digital menu boards (for indoor or outdoor use), drive-thru order confirmation screens to ensure order accuracy, timer systems to help expedite drive-thru orders, and an order management queue on a kitchen display system to help keep staff on the same page.
Self-Serve Kiosks
Increasingly popular at counter-serve restaurants, self-serve kiosks allow customers to input their own order. Revel’s KioskXT, a customizable kiosk option, lets customers place and pay for their order without requiring a separate cashier. As with the full POS, the kiosk option allows you to suggest upsells, modify dishes, and accept gift cards. There’s also functionality to switch to a manager dashboard, enabling authorized employees to perform refunds, cancel items, and access inventory management screens.
Lastly, you can capture needed information to streamline the ordering process, enabling names, buzzer numbers, or table numbers to identify a customer’s order.
Revel offers a KioskXT demo video on its website.
In-Restaurant Ordering and Tabs
If you’ve got more than one iPad, your servers can take orders right at the table thanks to Revel. You can connect as many iPads as you like for maximum efficiency, cutting down on the time servers would otherwise spend writing down orders by hand and then keying them in to the system elsewhere. With tableside ordering, they can enter the order once.
Is there a group in your restaurant or bar that wants to start a tab? Servers can quickly open and track tabs according to customer name or credit card. You can even pre-authorize the card to start the tab so that you won’t need to swipe the card again when closing it out.
Note that you’ll need to enable tabs in the Management Console before servers and bartenders can use that function.
Fuel Pump Management
Do you run a gas station? Revel has you covered. Its fuel pump management feature allows you to monitor fuel inventory, authorize or stop pumps remotely, and test the pump. Customers can combine their retail and gas purchases, too.
E-commerce Capabilities
If you’ve got products you want to sell online, Revel’s e-commerce capabilities enable you to set up an online store. You choose how you want to display your products, and you can push changes to the online store easily.
If you want something more advanced than Revel’s online option, you can create a solution through partners such as Magento and BigCommerce.
Appointment Scheduling
Revel appeals to service providers, too, in part due to functions like appointment scheduling. With appointment scheduling, you can set up the services you offer, and then easily book clients by employee or location.
Once you’ve set up your services, you can simply click the calendar icon in your Revel screen, which will bring up a calendar page for you to book slots.
When you click on “new appointment” on the calendar, the system will prompt you to choose the service and shows a time estimate for the length of the appointment based on the chosen services. However, you can also add or remove time from the estimate.
Alternately, customers can book their own appointments online. They’ll have a choice of available providers and the times available for the service they intend to book.
When you complete bookings, you’ll be able to see details of the upcoming service in your calendar by clicking on a client that has an appointment. You can also edit customer details.
QuickBooks Integration
QuickBooks is popular accounting software, and Revel’s POS solution enables you to manage your accounting from within its app, saving you time and effort. Revel talks a bit about its partnership with Intuit (maker of QuickBooks) and promises an easy integration.
Daily sales and inventory adjustments are automatically synced to your QuickBooks account for easier receipt management. If you’d like, you can also sync employee labor data to pay employees from QuickBooks using Intuit Payroll.
You can set up QuickBooks integration using a setup wizard in your Revel dashboard. The system will ask you to authorize data sharing between Revel and Intuit to enable auto-syncing.
From there, you can also choose if you’d like to import employee time data, set up sales tax, activate discounts, and more. Once you’ve completed those steps, you’ll see a table that lists different activities to be tracked with checkmarks indicating whether the data will be managed by your Revel point of sale system or by your QuickBooks account.
If anything looks incorrect, or you wanted the other system to record a particular type of information, you can edit the settings to reflect the correct tracking.
Employee Management
Employee management can be a challenge, but Revel aims to simplify it. You can schedule employees, manage payroll, control who uses the app and their privileges, and analyze staff performance using the free Homebase add-on. Homebase offers scheduling capabilities, team-wide messaging, and integrated time tracking.
If you’d like, you can take employee management a step further by utilizing integration with QuickBooks and Intuit Payroll to take care of payroll functions.
CRM
Satisfying customers doesn’t have to be a mystery. Revel’s customer relationship management tool records customer information and purchase behavior so you can offer them what they want, when they want it.
Simply add customers to your customer database, and then you’ll be able to start tracking important information, including their rewards card number and points, any balances on a house account, past orders, and more.
Additional Management Features
Revel systems also include specialty features like social media management and mobile device management.
With social media management, you won’t miss out on a single tweet or post. You can tweet, see who checked in on Facebook, Foursquare, and Yelp, and read Yelp reviews.
The mobile device management function gives you peace of mind. What happens if one of your restaurant’s iPads gets lost or stolen? Revel’s mobile device management function lets you lock down or remotely wipe any device.
Gift Cards and Loyalty Management
Revel offers both proprietary and third-party gift card programs. For its proprietary solution, the company partners with Plastic Printers, who will help you design your cards.
For third party programs, Revel integrates with several different companies – including Incentivio, ValuTec, Paytronics, and more – but note that only Revel’s proprietary gift cards work with online ordering. No matter which option you choose, you’ll need to purchase the cards from the gift card company.
Additionally, you’ll need to set up the option to sell gift cards within the Management Console. You can either create pre-set amounts, or allow the customer to choose the amount of the card at the time of the gift card purchase.
To redeem gift cards, you’ll simply select “gift card” from the payment methods in the checkout screen.
You can also accept partial payment by gift card. If the customer wants to use a specific amount from the card, you can simply enter that amount before tapping “gift card.” If the customer wants to use the full balance, it will automatically apply the entire amount to the balance when you tap “gift card” as the payment method.
If the amount available on the gift card exceeds the current bill, the balance due will drop to zero and the customer can use the card again at their next visit. If the bill is greater than the amount available on the gift card, the gift card amount will be deducted from the bill and the customer can choose another payment method to pay the balance.
Gift cards can be reloaded and reused.
Loyalty Program
LoyaltyXT, Revel’s customizable loyalty program, allows you to send personalized messages to customers and incentivize repeat business. You can add new members from your POS system or from a dedicated web portal, which will also allow them the option to track their earned points. If you’d like, you can choose to offer new members a welcome gift as an incentive to join the loyalty program.
Reporting
Revel provides you with reports on customer behavior, employee performance, best and worst selling items, and more. You can access this data in real time.
In addition to the basic sales and labor reports, you can drill down to get more detailed information, including a report on returns/exchanges, ingredient-level inventory, reports of discounts or price adjustments, payment summaries, gift card reports, and more.
Reports offer the ability to filter by variables such as employee, order type, and payment status.
Revel Pricing for Credit Card Processing
Revel’s website doesn’t publish credit card processing costs, because it’s not a credit card processor.
Fortunately, Revel works with multiple credit card processors, so you’ll have options when looking for processing. Want to know exactly what you’ll pay for credit card processing? Use this no-obligation quote request tool to see pricing from the processors that support Revel.
The fees for credit card processing are in addition to the POS software and the hardware and accessories you may need to purchase.
Revel Systems Pricing
While Revel doesn’t publish all costs on its website, the company does provide some starting points to help you decide what’s in your budget.
The POS system software starts at $99/month per terminal, in addition to the cost of hardware (iPads, registers, etc.) you may need to purchase. However, there is a 2-terminal requirement for this rate, so the minimum would be $198/month for the two terminals. Additionally, that rate requires annual billing on a 3-year contract.
Credit card processing rates are in addition to this monthly fee, but are not specified. Revel offers its own processing, called Revel Advantage, but states only that it offers a “transparent, flat fee.” You can read more about flat rate credit card processing and if it’s right for you in our article on flat rate credit card processing.
If you’d prefer to use a different processor, that’s an option. In that case, your processor will set the rates for accepting cards. You can get a quote for credit card processing using Revel POS systems for free in minutes by signing up here at CardFellow.
Have you used this solution at your business? Leave a Revel systems review!
