Switching POS without closing: a week-by-week plan for diner chains

The fear that keeps owners on a POS they dislike is simple: switching sounds like closing. It doesn’t have to be. Here is the plan our onboarding desk uses with diner chains.

Week 0: decide and export

Export everything you can before you change anything. From your current POS, download:

• Items/menu with categories, prices, taxes and variations (CSV or Excel)
• Modifiers and combos, if your system exports them
• Customers with phone, email and loyalty balances
• Suppliers
• Sales reports for at least the last 12 months, as files for your records

Check your contract end date and notice period, and whether your card terminals are tied to the old POS.

Week 1, evenings 1–2: the menu

1. Send the menu to the onboarding desk (or import the spreadsheet yourself — see Import your menu).
2. Review the import: names, categories, taxes. This is the moment to clean up drifted names (“3 stack” vs “Short stack”).
3. Build modifier sets — egg style, toast, sides, add-ons — and attach them.
4. Build combos for breakfast specials and family deals.

Week 1, evening 3: locations and prices

1. Add each location, with its address and receipt layout.
2. Create price lists for locations that charge differently (see managing prices across locations).
3. Set tax groups per location.
4. Add the commissary as a location if you have one.

Week 1, evening 4: staff, tables and printers

1. Create roles (cashier, server, kitchen, manager) and invite staff with location access.
2. Add tables per location.
3. Add receipt and kitchen printers and send a test ticket to each.
4. Open the kitchen screen on the kitchen tablet if you use one.

Week 2: train, then go live one location at a time

Train on a quiet shift. Fifteen minutes per role is enough with a one-page cheat sheet:

• Servers: open a table, add items with modifiers, send to the kitchen, split a check.
• Cashiers: take payment, refund with approval, close the register.
• Kitchen: read tickets or the screen, mark items done.
• Managers: approve discounts, check the day’s report.

Go live at the quietest location on a slow morning. Keep the old system logged in but unused for a day, in case you need to look something up. Fix what you learn — usually a printer address, a missing modifier or a tax on the wrong item — then roll out the next location within days.

The first two services

Have someone on call. With GetDinerPOS, book your go-live window with the onboarding desk and we stay on WhatsApp and phone through the first two services.

After the switch

• Import customers and loyalty balances.
• Turn on the online store generated from your menu (how).
• Start weekly counts of your five most expensive ingredients.
• Cancel the old POS according to its notice terms.

The full checklist and free import request are on the switching page. If you are leaving a specific vendor, see the alternatives guides for Toast, Square, Clover and Lightspeed.