Australia’s spending slowdown is on the verge of a turnaround. With hospitality being one of the top non-discretionary household spends, more and more business is starting to flow in through reservations systems for restaurants. In fact, the number of restaurant reservations in Australia surged 26% year-on-year, reflecting a sharp rise in demand. 

Operators are feeling the pressure to manage bookings efficiently, and many are turning to a smarter solution: integrating their reservation system for restaurants directly into their POS.

Read on to know why that shift matters, and how it can reshape your floor operations, guest experience, and revenue.

Is your reservation system integrated?

Many restaurants rely on separate restaurant booking systems or third-party platforms to handle their restaurant reservations and table bookings. When your POS and restaurant booking software aren't talking to each other, it creates unnecessary friction and it’s easy to:

• Overbook tables during peak hours

• Miss opportunities to fill cancellations with walk-ins

• Lose visibility of how bookings convert to actual spend

• Lose customer & loyalty data that you can use to improve your marketing

Staff spend more time reconciling systems than serving guests, and you lose out on precious data.

POS-integration Matters More Than Ever

When your table reservation system for restaurants is integrated with your POS, your team gains more control, your data becomes more powerful, and your guests receive a more seamless experience.

Having your reservations system integrated into your POS ensures that you get:

• A single source of truth: Every booking, whether made online, over the phone, or in-person at the door, lives in one system. All the invoice data is included in your POS sales reports. No reconciliation headaches, no duplicate entries.

• Easier table management & coordination within staff: Hosts, managers, and servers get a clear view of which tables are seated, which are turning, which have upcoming bookings, and which are free. And the best part? They can view and adjust bookings across multiple tablets or mobile POS systems, instead of everyone crowding around one device.

• Smarter marketing & retention: Every reservation becomes part of the customer record in Abacus. Once the guest has dined that information then gets synced to their customer profiles on Liven Engage. That means, order history, and loyalty activity sit together, powering targeted marketing automations and more personalised guest experiences.

• Reduced no-shows: The deposits feature on Abacus Reservations, along with automated approval messages and reminders help cut down on no-shows.

Flexible setup for every venue

Not every venue uses reservations the same way. That’s why Liven supports multiple approaches:

• Use Abacus Reservations: Don’t have a restaurant reservations system yet? Use the Abacus Reservations add-on to quickly start gathering and accepting online & offline bookings with deposits, reminders, and walk-in management, all inside POS.

• Integrate Reservation Systems with Abacus: Abacus integrates with leading restaurant reservation platforms like Inline, NowBookIt, SevenRooms, or OpenTable. This means guest profiles, bookings, and tables sync straight into Abacus POS.

• Choose where control lies: Let your FOH staff manage everything in Abacus POS, or keep reservation management in your third-party platform dashboard. Either way, the data flows into Abacus, ensuring consolidation without changing your workflow.

Abacus POS Does More

Abacus POS already brings together your Kitchen Display System and Table Ordering to help restaurants speed up service and boost revenue. Integrating your restaurant reservation system adds one more layer to that unified operating environment, ensuring every interaction, from booking to bill and beyond gets streamlined.

Whether you’re just starting with online bookings or already using a reservations platform, Liven’s Abacus POS brings it all together, giving your team clarity, your guests consistency, and your business a single source of truth. 

The most efficient operators are making the shift. Talk to our team to join them!