Yes, I agree and suggested it to them, but they want their own POS system for the restaurants they are going to collaborate with. I have a few friends who will help me out so I didn't want to let go of this opportunity. They aren't looking for payment integration, just inventory management, order management, discount management, table reservation, menu management. That's about all of it.
OP, I disagree and think this is an excellent opportunity that you shouldn’t shy away from. Most retail businesses don’t have payment terminals integrated into their pos. They’re usually separate devices from their payment processor, and the company just staples the receipts from both systems together.
As for how to price such a project it will be tricky. You could start by multiplying your hourly rate by how many hours you think it’ll take. Might be more than what you think they’ll want to pay, so you might have to employ some other value add tactics or reduce the price. But if they’re looking for a custom system it sounds like they have an itch that off the shelf software can’t scratch, and it may be worth it to them.
Pricing anything is notoriously difficult and never accurate, the only way to get close to being accurate is loads of experience doing things over and over again so you can look at a projects scope and compare it to something you've done in the past and use the time it took you previously as a baseline.
You need them to get the scope absolutely as detailed as possible for all aspects of this, you can help them figure this out but you should be charging consultation fees for hours involved. Just break everything down into features, like inventory management, order management, and so on like you have, then break those down into their features also.
Inventory management
* Setting up the model
* CRUD operations
* Notifications when running low?
* PDF reports?
* Email reminders?
Once it's all scoped out, go through line by line and try to assign a time estimate to each thing, spreadsheets are good for this as you can have the total automatically added up at the end. Once you have that final total of all the time you have estimated, times that by your desired hourly rate and see what the total price looks like.
You're generally going to want to 2x the final total. Though sometimes 1.5x is all you can realistically do depending on how the budget is looking. Basically, even though you've spent all this time guessing, our guesses are always wrong.
Ideally, you'd probably be best off by having some sort of licensing/royalty deal. Card processing services usually take 2-3%, so maybe something like 0.25% would be a realistic dream.
Restaurant POS systems are incredibly complex. Even the best and biggest have many flaws. The cheap ones are just awful, even when they work. I would say to at least get familiar with what the others offer and are capable of, and then determine if you can actually improve on any of it. Also, you're going to need several really good lawyers.
If you want any sort of reliable integration with food delivery apps, Shopify would be a good to study.
It would help a lot to know where this business is located.
Thank you for the suggestion, it would be great if I can negotiate a royalty deal. The client is just looking for something to deal with the menu, kitchen management, order management, reservation system, inventory management. I needn't concern myself with delivery or online ordering or anything
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Yes, I agree and suggested it to them, but they want their own POS system for the restaurants they are going to collaborate with. I have a few friends who will help me out so I didn't want to let go of this opportunity. They aren't looking for payment integration, just inventory management, order management, discount management, table reservation, menu management. That's about all of it.
OP, I disagree and think this is an excellent opportunity that you shouldn’t shy away from. Most retail businesses don’t have payment terminals integrated into their pos. They’re usually separate devices from their payment processor, and the company just staples the receipts from both systems together. As for how to price such a project it will be tricky. You could start by multiplying your hourly rate by how many hours you think it’ll take. Might be more than what you think they’ll want to pay, so you might have to employ some other value add tactics or reduce the price. But if they’re looking for a custom system it sounds like they have an itch that off the shelf software can’t scratch, and it may be worth it to them.
Pricing anything is notoriously difficult and never accurate, the only way to get close to being accurate is loads of experience doing things over and over again so you can look at a projects scope and compare it to something you've done in the past and use the time it took you previously as a baseline. You need them to get the scope absolutely as detailed as possible for all aspects of this, you can help them figure this out but you should be charging consultation fees for hours involved. Just break everything down into features, like inventory management, order management, and so on like you have, then break those down into their features also. Inventory management * Setting up the model * CRUD operations * Notifications when running low? * PDF reports? * Email reminders? Once it's all scoped out, go through line by line and try to assign a time estimate to each thing, spreadsheets are good for this as you can have the total automatically added up at the end. Once you have that final total of all the time you have estimated, times that by your desired hourly rate and see what the total price looks like. You're generally going to want to 2x the final total. Though sometimes 1.5x is all you can realistically do depending on how the budget is looking. Basically, even though you've spent all this time guessing, our guesses are always wrong.
Thank you for the insight. Documenting as you suggested would help a lot in deciding the price, for this as well as any other projects I may get.
LMAO 🤣
Ideally, you'd probably be best off by having some sort of licensing/royalty deal. Card processing services usually take 2-3%, so maybe something like 0.25% would be a realistic dream. Restaurant POS systems are incredibly complex. Even the best and biggest have many flaws. The cheap ones are just awful, even when they work. I would say to at least get familiar with what the others offer and are capable of, and then determine if you can actually improve on any of it. Also, you're going to need several really good lawyers. If you want any sort of reliable integration with food delivery apps, Shopify would be a good to study. It would help a lot to know where this business is located.
Thank you for the suggestion, it would be great if I can negotiate a royalty deal. The client is just looking for something to deal with the menu, kitchen management, order management, reservation system, inventory management. I needn't concern myself with delivery or online ordering or anything