Eight signs you need a new EPOS system, and what each one costs you (2026 guide)
Tills rarely fail all at once. They get worked around, one shift at a time, until the workarounds are the job. Here are the eight signs the till is now the problem, with a number against each, and what to do once you have decided.
- Eight signs, each with its weekly cost
- What to do first, second and third
- Replacement systems from £499 + VAT
Written by the Posso team in Leicester · Reviewed by Paul Robinson, Managing Director · Last reviewed
Short answer
You need a new EPOS system when staff are doing work the till should do. The clearest signs are re-keying delivery orders from a tablet, a till that stops when the internet does, extras written as notes instead of priced, reports you no longer believe, a supplier who has stopped updating, card totals that never match the Z, a wall of platform tablets, and staff working around the till. Each has a cost: 40 re-keyed orders a night at a minute each is over four hours of staff time a week. If three or more apply, the till costs more than a replacement; UK till hardware is typically £300–£1,500 with software at £25–£70 a month. Posso replacement systems start at £499 + VAT.
Key takeaways
- A till needs replacing when staff do its work for it: re-keying, writing notes, reconciling by hand.
- Each sign has a weekly cost you can calculate from your own order count and ticket size.
- Three or more signs at once usually means the replacement pays for itself within months.
- Decide, shortlist, demo the Friday order, then switch on a quiet day with a clean Z report.
Takeaway: Count the minutes your staff spend working around the till each shift; that number, not the till's age, tells you whether to replace it.
Why owners replace the till too late
Nobody replaces a till the week it starts to fail. The kitchen printer jams, so someone shouts the order. The Just Eat tablet arrives, so someone types its orders into the till. The supplier stops answering, so the manager restarts the terminal every morning. Each fix takes a minute and feels free. Eighteen months later the business runs on a dozen of them.
It goes unseen because the cost lands on wages and food rather than on an invoice. A till that costs £0 a month and wastes 40 minutes of staff time a night is dearer than one that costs £30 a month and wastes none, but only one shows up on a bank statement. This guide puts a number against each sign. If you recognise several, the switching EPOS system hub collects what comes next, and how to replace an old EPOS system is the step-by-step.
The eight signs, and what each costs
Work through them with last Friday in mind. Put your own numbers in the arithmetic.
Someone re-keys delivery orders into the till
If Just Eat, Uber Eats or Deliveroo orders arrive on their own tablets and someone types each one into the till so the kitchen gets a ticket, you are paying a person to be an integration. At 40 delivery orders a night and a minute each, that is over four and a half hours a week, and every typed order can be the wrong one. A till with delivery integrations sends the order straight to the kitchen printer.
The till stops when the internet does
A cloud till with no local database turns a router fault into a closed shop. If the counter has ever stood with a queue while someone restarted the router, you have this sign. Cost it on your busiest hour: a takeaway doing 30 orders an hour at £14 loses £420 for every hour down. The fix is software that holds the menu and the day's orders on the terminal and syncs later; see what happens when an EPOS goes offline.
Extras are written as notes, not priced
If extra cheese, large, no salad and double meat go on the ticket as free text because the till cannot price a modifier on the item, staff stop charging for the small ones and extras never appear in a report. Extra sauce at 50p on 80 orders a day is £40 a day, more than £14,000 a year, leaking quietly. A till that prices the modifier, prints it to the kitchen and counts it in the report stops the leak on day one.
You no longer trust the reports
When the end-of-day figure does not match the drawer plus the card settlement, or the item report shows 30 portions of chips on a night you sold 60, you stop using the reports and order stock from memory. Over-ordering fresh stock by ten per cent on a £2,000 weekly food bill is £200 a week in waste. A Z report you trust, by item, hour and tender, is the cheapest management tool you will own.
The supplier has stopped updating or answering
If the last software update was more than a year ago, if the support number rings out on a Saturday night, or if the supplier has been bought and the product renamed twice, the till is on borrowed time. The cost is a risk rather than a weekly sum: the day the terminal dies, you have no replacement path and no one to call. Ring support on a Friday evening; the answer tells you how urgent the switch is.
Card totals never match the Z
With a standalone card machine, someone reads the total off the till and types it into the terminal. Type £32.40 instead of £23.40 once a week and the reconciliation never closes; type £2.34 and the business is £21 short. Half an hour a night hunting the difference is three and a half hours a week. An integrated terminal takes the exact total from the till and puts the settlement on the Z report.
There is a wall of tablets by the till
Three delivery tablets, a website tablet and a phone, each pinging, each with its own prep times and its own way of marking an order ready. At 7pm nobody can see the whole queue, so the kitchen is flooded or idle and the driver waits for an order already going cold. The cost is late orders, platform penalties and a person whose job is watching screens. One till taking every channel into one kitchen display screen replaces the wall.
Staff have built their own workarounds
Prices on a laminated card because the till is wrong. A notebook of phone orders because the till cannot hold a collection time. The drawer counted twice because the first count never matches. Each was once a clever fix; together they are a second system only the people who built it understand, and when your best member of staff leaves, it leaves with them. Ask each person what they do that the till should do and cost it at their hourly rate. That list is your requirements document.
What each sign costs against what fixing it costs
Arithmetic from the signs above for a typical single site; adjust for your own volumes.
| Sign | Typical cost to you | UK typical fix cost | Posso |
|---|---|---|---|
| Re-keying delivery orders | 4.5 hours of staff time a week at 40 orders a night | £0–£60 a month per platform elsewhere | £45 a month, all platforms, unlimited orders |
| Till stops offline | Around £420 of turnover per hour down at 30 orders an hour | Depends on software design | Offline-first local database, included |
| Unpriced modifiers | £40 a day on 80 orders with a 50p extra | Included in most modern tills | Priced modifiers, included |
| Untrusted reports | £200 a week of waste on a £2,000 food bill | Included in software tier, £25–£70 a month | Full reporting and Xero sync, from £25 + VAT a month |
| Supplier gone quiet | Risk of a dead till with no path back | New system: £300–£1,500 hardware | £499 + VAT complete system |
| Card totals off | 3.5 hours a week reconciling | Integrated terminal; 1–1.75% processing | Posso Pay from 1% + 10p, quoted on card turnover |
| Tablet wall | Late orders and a person watching screens | Kitchen display £300–£800 per screen elsewhere | Kitchen display £399 + VAT; all channels in one queue |
| Staff workarounds | Your requirements list, costed at wages | £0–£300 installation elsewhere | Menu build and training included |
Ranges are typical UK figures at October 2026; Posso prices are published on EPOS pricing.
What to do, in what order
First, cost the workarounds: spend one Friday timing every task a member of staff does that the till should do, and multiply by the hourly rate and six shifts. That figure is your decision and your shortlist filter. Second, demo your worst order: take the most awkward real order from last week, with its modifiers, collection time and card payment, and put it through each shortlisted system yourself, then look at the kitchen ticket, the card terminal and the next day's report.
Third, switch on your quietest day: Z the old till for the last time, count the float, and start the new one with the same float so the first report reconciles. Then read the Z every night for two weeks.
What to ask a provider before you sign
What happens if the internet goes down?
If sign two is on your list, ask this first. You want the menu and the day's orders held on the terminal, the card machine still authorising, and a sync when the line returns with nothing lost. Do not accept a description; ask them to unplug the router on the demo and put a modified order through to the kitchen printer.
Which of my current channels and devices will connect?
List them: each delivery platform, your website ordering, your card machine, your kitchen printer, your accounts package. Ask which connect natively, what each costs per month, and which you would have to replace. A supplier who can take your existing Teya or Dojo terminal saves you a contract exit. Get the answers in writing before the price is agreed.
What comes across from the old till, and what does not?
Customer names, numbers and addresses can usually be imported from an export; historic sales almost never can, because every till stores it differently. Ask what format they need the customer file in, who does the menu build, whether you can edit it yourself and what training is included. Export every report you might want before the old licence lapses.
The Posso approach to replacing a failing till
Posso is a hospitality-only EPOS, built and supported from Leicester and running on 500+ UK sites. The £499 + VAT system replaces the old terminal and the workarounds around it: touchscreen terminal on Windows 11 Pro, kitchen printer, receipt printer, cash drawer, menu build and training, with software from £25 + VAT a month, a two-year warranty and the hardware owned outright.
Each of the eight signs maps to the standard build. Just Eat, Uber Eats and Deliveroo orders come straight to the till and kitchen for £45 a month with unlimited orders, so nobody re-keys and the tablet wall comes down. Modifiers carry their own price and print to the kitchen. The database is local and offline-first, so a router fault does not close the counter. Card payments run through Posso Pay, Posso's own merchant service, from 1% + 10p quoted on your card turnover, with the exact total pushed to the terminal and the settlement on the Z report; Teya and Dojo terminals are also supported.
Reporting is by item, hour, staff member and tender, with Xero sync, and a kitchen display screen at £399 + VAT shows every channel in one queue. Your customer database transfers; historic sales do not. Support is UK-based, Monday to Friday, 9am–9:30pm, with an urgent out-of-hours line for till-down problems.
Setup (menu build + configuration) is free; on-site installation for larger sites is priced on application. Systems are preconfigured and shipped plug-and-play.
Where to look elsewhere
If none of the eight signs apply, do not replace the till; a system that prints to the kitchen, prices modifiers, reconciles with the card machine and produces a Z report you believe is doing its job. If the business is really a shop, with barcodes, suppliers and stock counts, a retail platform with proper stock control will serve you better.
Related guides
Related guides
How to replace an old EPOS system
The step-by-step: exports, menu build, float, first Z report and first fortnight.
Read the guideSlow till system: fixes
When the till is slow rather than failing: what to check before you replace it.
Read the guideWhat happens when an EPOS goes offline
Cloud, local and hybrid behaviour when the line drops, and what to demand.
Read the guideEPOS system installation UK
What installation involves, what it typically costs and what you can do yourself.
Read the guideEpos Now alternative
Switching from one of the most common UK tills: what changes and what to export first.
Read the guideThis is one part of the Posso EPOS system — the same till, kitchen display, ordering and card payments, set up for your type of venue. Every one-off and monthly cost is on the EPOS pricing page.
Signs you need a new EPOS system: frequently asked questions
How do I know if I need a new EPOS system?
Look at what staff do that the till should do: re-keying delivery orders, writing extras as notes, typing card totals by hand, restarting the terminal every morning. Cost those minutes at your hourly rate across a week. If the total exceeds the monthly cost of a modern system, typically £25–£70 in the UK, the till already costs more than its replacement. Three or more of the eight signs is the usual threshold.
How much does it cost to replace an EPOS system in the UK?
UK till hardware typically runs £300–£1,500 one-off, with cloud software at £25–£70 a month and installation of £0–£300 elsewhere. A complete Posso replacement is £499 + VAT including the terminal, kitchen printer, receipt printer, cash drawer, menu build and training, with software from £25 + VAT a month. Four hours of re-keying a week alone covers the software several times over.
Can I keep my card machine when I change EPOS?
Sometimes. Integration needs the till and the terminal to talk to each other so the exact total passes across without typing, and that depends on the pairing. Posso integrates with Posso Pay, its own merchant service, and with Teya and Dojo terminals. If your current machine cannot integrate, you are back to typing totals, so factor a terminal change into the switch.
What is the best day to switch tills?
Your quietest trading day, usually a Monday or Tuesday, with the menu checked the day before. Z the old till for the last time, count the float and start the new one with the same float so the first report reconciles. Then read the Z every night for a fortnight.
Will my sales history transfer to a new EPOS?
Almost never, because every till stores it differently. Your customer database usually can be imported from an export. Before the old licence lapses, export the reports you want to keep as spreadsheets: monthly sales, item sales for the last year, staff reports.
Should I fix my current till or replace it?
Fix it if the signs are one or two and the supplier is responsive: a printer routing problem or a slow terminal can often be resolved, and [slow till system fixes](/slow-till-system-fixes) covers the common ones. Replace it if the signs are structural: no offline mode, no modifier pricing, no delivery integration or a supplier who no longer updates. Support cannot add those.
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