A cash register totals a sale and prints a roll, while a POS system records every item, modifier and table as data you can read back, which matters because most Australian business records must be kept 5 years, and 7 for company records.
Skai Solutions connects phone orders into hospitality POS systems in Australia and New Zealand, so we spend our days inside the difference between a till that records and a till that only totals. This page compares the four categories of till a venue actually buys, what each costs from published rates, the record keeping rule that applies whichever you pick, and which reader should buy which.
No, and the difference is not the screen. A cash register is an adding machine with a drawer and a printer. It adds a sale, opens the till and prints a roll. When the roll is full you change it, and what happened that day exists only on paper and in the register's running total.
A point of sale system is a database that happens to take payments. Every sale is a row: the item, the modifier, the time, the staff member, the table, the payment method. The till function is one feature on top of that record, not the point of it. That is the whole distinction, and everything else on this page follows from it.
The reason it matters to a venue rather than to a shop is that a restaurant sale is not one item at one price. It is a table, split across four people, with two modifiers, one course held back, one item that ran out at seven o'clock and a surcharge that applies only on Sunday. A register can total that. It cannot tell you any of it afterwards.
There are four categories of till a venue here realistically buys. We have left company names out of the table on purpose, because the category decides the outcome and the brand decides the invoice.
| Category | What it does | What it costs | Record it leaves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic cash register | Totals, prints, opens a drawer. Department keys, not a menu. | One off purchase, no monthly fee | Paper roll and a daily Z total |
| Register plus a separate card terminal | Two devices, two end of day totals to reconcile by hand | Register purchase plus a card rate per transaction | Paper roll plus a separate merchant statement |
| Tablet point of sale | Item level menu, basic reporting, cloud backup, usually one site | Published entry plans from about A$0 to A$40 a month plus the card rate | Item level digital record, exportable |
| Full hospitality point of sale | Tables, courses, modifiers, stock, staff clock in, multi site | Quoted per venue; most vendors publish no price at all | Item level digital record plus stock and labour |
The one rate card in that market that is actually published belongs to Square, and because a POS is not a competitor of ours we can name it and link it rather than talking in vague ranges. On its Australian pricing page, read on 8 October 2026, Square lists a 1.6% in person card rate for sellers who signed up on or after 30 May 2024, a Free plan at A$0 a month plus processing, a Plus plan from A$40 a month plus processing, a Square Reader at A$65 and a Square Terminal at A$329.
Treat those as the cheapest published end of the market and not the middle of it. Impos, at the other end, publishes no monthly price and no per terminal figure anywhere on its public site, which is why the honest answer to "what does a hospitality POS cost" is that most of this market quotes rather than advertises. Our restaurant phone system cost page makes the same point about phone hardware, for the same reason.
This is the part of the comparison that nobody selling you a till will raise, and it is the part with an actual legal answer rather than an opinion.
Under the Australian record keeping rules set out on business.gov.au, most business records must be kept for five years, counted from the later of when you obtained the record or completed the transaction. Company records and some employee records must be kept for seven. The records must be "in English or able to translate easily into English". Electronic records are accepted, and the ATO accepts electronic images of paper records where they are "a true and clear reproduction of the original paper records", after which the paper original no longer has to be kept. And you must be able to produce them: "You need to show the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) your records if they ask for them."
Now put a register against that. Five years of thermal paper rolls, stored somewhere dry, legible, and findable on request. Thermal paper fades. Rolls get thrown out when the storeroom is cleared. A venue that keeps its sales record only on a register roll is one flood, one fire or one tidy-up away from not being able to answer. That is not a reason to buy the most expensive POS in the market. It is a reason to know that the five year clock applies to you whichever you choose, and that one of the two options satisfies it by default.
Four things, in the order venues actually notice them.
It knows the menu, not the price. A register has department keys: food, drinks, other. A POS has your items. That is what makes a report about what sold rather than how much came in, and it is what makes a food cost percentage possible at all. Our food cost percentage page needs item level data to be usable, and a register cannot produce it.
It holds the sold out state. This is the one most people underestimate. On H&L, for instance, the control is named: available portions, set per shift, and H&L's own documentation says staff can view it on every POS. A register has no concept of an item being finished. When the kitchen runs out of the fish at seven, a register keeps selling it.
It splits and holds. Split bills, courses held back, a table moved from four to twelve. These are the ordinary mechanics of a dining room and they are not register functions.
It can be read by something else. A digital item record can be connected to accounting, to rostering, to an ordering platform, or to a phone agent. A paper roll connects to nothing. This is the part where we have an interest, so we will say it plainly rather than imply it: the reason Skai Solutions can put a phone order onto a terminal as a ticket is that the POS exposes the menu and the sold out state. Our POS integrations page lists what is connected today and what is not. Against a cash register there is nothing to connect to, and no phone agent, ours or anyone's, changes that.
Here is the honest split, and the first line of it is a recommendation against buying anything new.
Buy a cash register if you sell a short list of items over a counter, take no bookings, run no tables, have one person on and no staff roster to reconcile. A bakery with eight lines and a queue is a register business. The register is cheaper, it does not need the internet, it does not stop working when the connection drops, and nothing about a POS would earn its monthly fee. If that is your venue, the right buy is a register and it is not us either.
Buy a tablet POS if you have a real menu, one site, and you want item level sales without a quoted install. This is where most cafes land.
Buy a full hospitality POS if you run tables and courses, hold stock you need to count, roster staff against sales, or operate more than one site. The quote is higher and so is the reason for it.
Keep the register you have if it works, the five year record question is answered another way, and the money would do more somewhere else. Replacing a working till is one of the easiest ways to spend five thousand dollars and change nothing. Phone handling, by contrast, is usually the cheaper fix, which is the argument our cheapest way to answer the restaurant phone page makes with the numbers set out.
If the system you are moving to is one of the ones we connect to, the integration detail is worth reading before you commit, because what syncs differs by vendor. Our page on the Revel POS integration is one example of what that detail looks like.
Menu build is the work. Every item, every modifier, every price, every category, entered once and checked against the printed menu. For a cafe with sixty lines that is an afternoon. For a restaurant with a wine list it is longer, because the wine list is where the typos hide.
Hardware is usually the smaller half. Terminal, printer, drawer, and for a venue with a kitchen a second printer at the pass. Card acceptance may or may not come with it depending on the category.
Staff training is the half that gets skipped and should not be. A register has six keys and a POS has a menu tree, so the first Friday on a new system is slower than the last Friday on the old one, every time. Train on a quiet shift, not the Thursday before a long weekend.
If you then connect a phone agent on top, Skai Solutions takes about five days to set up against an existing POS menu, which is after the POS itself is live and the menu is correct. There is no point pointing a phone agent at a half built menu.
Before you choose either, it is worth knowing how much of your trade still arrives as notes. Our restaurant cash payments benchmark has the Reserve Bank 2025 figures, the four steps to measure your own venue, and what Australia’s cash acceptance mandate does and does not require of a cafe.
Is a cash register a POS system?
No. A cash register totals a sale, opens a drawer and prints a roll, with department keys rather than your menu. A point of sale system records every sale as item level data, which is what makes reporting, stock and any integration possible. The till function is one feature of a POS rather than the purpose of it.
What is the difference between a POS and a cash register for a restaurant?
A restaurant sale is a table split between people, with modifiers, held courses, items that sell out mid service and day specific surcharges. A register can total that transaction but keeps no record of its parts. A POS keeps every part, which is why food cost percentage, stock counts and sold out handling only work on a POS.
Do I legally need a POS system in Australia?
No. There is no requirement to use any particular type of till. There is a requirement about records: business.gov.au states most business records must be kept for five years, company and some employee records for seven, in English or easily translated, and you must be able to produce them to the ATO on request. A register satisfies that only if the paper rolls survive five years and stay legible.
How much does a POS system cost in Australia?
Most hospitality POS vendors quote rather than publish, so there is no single market figure. The clearest published rate card belongs to Square, which listed a Free plan at A$0 a month, a Plus plan from A$40 a month, a 1.6% in person card rate for sellers who signed up on or after 30 May 2024, a Reader at A$65 and a Terminal at A$329 when read on 8 October 2026. Treat that as the cheapest published end rather than the middle.
Is a cash register cheaper than a POS system?
Over the first year, usually yes, because a register is a one off purchase with no monthly fee. Over five years it depends on what the item level data is worth to you. If you never run a stocktake, never calculate a food cost and never connect anything to the till, the register stays cheaper and you should keep it.
Can a phone agent send orders to a cash register?
No, and no vendor can make that work. A phone agent sends an order by reading a menu and writing a ticket, which needs a system that exposes the menu and the sold out state. A cash register exposes nothing. Connecting phone orders to a till requires a POS first, which is why the integrations list is a list of POS systems.