Technology

Best Cloud EPoS for UK Hospitality Groups

Kobas

28 Oct 2026 9min read

There’s no single best cloud EPoS for every hospitality group. The right choice depends on how many sites you run, how much of your back office you want in one place, and your team structure.

With each new venue in a hospitality group comes more data, more people and more cost. Without a central system, reports can take hours to pull together, Head Office makes decisions on outdated figures, and training staff across multiple systems slows down output. And that’s just part of it.

Most groups therefore reach the same point: an entire system review with an outcome that can introduce efficiency and consistency across all venues.

The quick answers:

Multi-site restaurant, pub and bar groups wanting one connected system for EPoS, stock, staff, loyalty, reporting, and more: Kobas
New or single-site venues wanting a low-cost, quick start with plans to grow to a small group: Kobas or Square
Groups that are happy to build back-of-house through various partner apps: Lightspeed or Toast
Large enterprise or mixed leisure estates wanting a tailored, highly integrated setup: Tevalis or Access Hospitality

Why centralised systems matter more in a hospitality group
What a hospitality group needs from an EPoS system
Best cloud EPoS systems for UK hospitality groups
Frequently asked questions

Why centralised systems matter more in a hospitality group

Even with a single venue, juggling separate tools for tills, stock, rotas and more can be costly and inefficient. Once you add a second or third site, managing those different systems can be become even more challenging.

Reporting slows down. When each venue or each tool holds its own data, building a group view means exporting and merging spreadsheets. By the time the report is ready, the numbers are already out of date. A process that is admin heavy and prone to human error.
Decisions are made on old figures. Without live, estate-wide reporting, Head Office can’t spot a struggling site, a stock variance or a labour overspend until days or weeks later.
Training gets harder. Staff who move between venues, or get promoted into management, have to learn several systems. That slows onboarding and makes consistent standards harder to hold.
Costs creep up. Every extra tool usually means another subscription, another support team, another contract and another integration to maintain.

A central cloud EPoS fixes this by putting every venue on one core system, with one set of data that Head Office can see in real time.

What does a hospitality group need from an EPoS system?

Capability	What it looks like	Why it matters for a group
Central, real-time reporting	Sales, stock and staff across the estate, with a per-venue breakdown, from any device.	Head Office acts on today’s figures, not last week’s export.
Central menu and pricing control	Push menu and price changes to venues within one place, with price bands for local variations.	One change rolls out everywhere, without re-keying at each venue.
One stock system	Suppliers, allergens, menu costing, ordering and transfers between sites.	Accurate GP and allergen data across the group, central stock movement tracking, and more.
Central item library	One EPoS item library, with price banding where needed.	Cleaner, comparable reporting across the entire group.
Audit logs	Stock and cash-ups traceable by venue and staff member.	Faster investigation of variances and better accountability.
Group-wide loyalty	Guests recognised and rewarded at every venue.	Encourages guests to visit your other sites.
Roles, permissions and fast set-up	Granular access by role and venue, and quick configuration for new sites.	Openings go live faster and staff only see what they need, reducing mistakes.
Offline resilience	Venues keep trading if the internet drops, then sync.	Service doesn’t stop when the connection does.

The best cloud EPoS systems for UK hospitality groups

Here are six platforms UK hospitality groups commonly shortlist, with who each one suits and how it’s built.

1. **Kobas: best all-in-one cloud EPoS for multi-site groups**

Headquarters: UK
Best for: multi-site restaurant, pub and bar groups, plus single sites that want to centralise their processes
How it’s built: native all-in-one platform covering EPoS, stock, workforce management, loyalty, reservations, online ordering and reporting. Specialist third-party platforms available. Built specifically for hospitality businesses.
Payments: custom payment rates on every plan via Kobas Payments and an integration with Dojo
Kobas is built for small to medium multi-site food and beverage businesses that have outgrown disjointed systems. Because every module is native, sales, stock and staff data sit in one place, giving Head Office live estate-wide reporting with a per-venue breakdown. Menus and prices are controlled centrally with price bands, and group-wide loyalty recognises guests at every venue. It runs in hybrid mode, so venues keep trading offline and sync to the cloud when the connection returns, ensuring service stability and data protection. Kobas allows businesses to scale from the essentials to full functionality, so it suits independents, multi-siters, franchisees and food halls.

2. Square: best new and small multi-site businesses

Headquarters: US
Best for: new and single-site venues
How it’s built: core EPoS with add-ons and partner apps
Payments: processed through Square, no third-party integrations available
Square offers a low-cost way to start trading quickly whether it’s for a retail or hospitality business. Its core EPoS covers the basics with insights, add-ons and partner apps for extra functionality across the back office. Groups should check how well reporting, stock and central control scale across several sites in a central system and whether the payment processing fees are industry-competitive.

3. Lightspeed: best for front-of-house and reporting with partner integrations

Headquarters: Canada
Best for: hospitality or retail businesses focused on front-of-house and reporting
How it’s built: EPoS and reporting, with back-of-house through integrations
Payments: Lightspeed Payments built in; check requirements by plan
Lightspeed focuses on front-of-house and reporting, with back-of-house functions such as stock and staff handled through integrations. It suits groups that are comfortable building their back office from partner apps.

4. Toast: best restaurant-specific front-of-house platform

Headquarters: US
Best for: restaurants wanting an all-in-one front-of-house platform
How it’s built: restaurant-specific EPoS, hardware and add-ons
Payments: processed through Toast
Toast is built specifically for restaurants, combining its EPoS with its own hardware and add-ons. Payments run through Toast. Pub and bar groups, or groups needing deep back-of-house tools, should check what’s covered natively if requiring central management.

5. Tevalis: best for enterprise and mixed leisure estates

Headquarters: UK
Best for: enterprise and mixed leisure estates
How it’s built: configurable modules with 150+ integrations
Payments: integrations with various third-party payment platforms
Tevalis offers configurable modules and more than 150 integrations, which suits large or mixed leisure estates wanting a tailored setup. Businesses who want a customised setup with multiple specialist third-party platforms would benefit from using this provider.

6. Access Hospitality: best for large groups wanting one core supplier

Headquarters: UK
Best for: enterprise groups wanting one core EPoS with a mix of native and acquired products
How it’s built: modular suite of native and acquired products
Payments: check options and rates
Access Hospitality brings a wide range of products under one supplier through a modular suite. Because the suite includes both native and acquired products, ask how well the modules share data, pricing and contract structure, and how the different systems are used day-to-day from a login perspective.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best EPoS for a multi-site restaurant group in the UK?

Groups wanting EPoS, stock, staff, loyalty and reporting in one native system often shortlist Kobas as a system that was developed specifically for multi-site hospitality businesses. Large enterprise estates often look at Kobas, Access Hospitality or Tevalis, while smaller venues tend to start with Square or EposNow, but can also start with Kobas and easily scale up as their requirements grow.

What’s the difference between cloud and traditional EPoS?

Traditional EPoS keeps data on tills or servers in each venue. Depending on the exact approach, this can make group reporting difficult as some data may only be accessible on-site on the till. Cloud EPoS centralises it, giving live estate-wide reporting from an online platform that users can log in to at any time and from any device.

What happens to a cloud EPoS if the internet goes down?

Hybrid systems such as Kobas ensure that venues can keep trading offline and sync data to the cloud when the connection returns. Other systems may be entirely WiFi based which runs the risk of not being able to trade at all when WiFi drops. Ask each provider about their offline mode and how it affects different functions such as the Point of Sale and card machines.

Do I have to use my EPoS provider’s card payments?

Not always. Square and Toast process payments themselves and may not provide the option to integrate with any other payment providers, while others offer integrated payments as an option. Being tied to one processor can limit your ability to negotiate rates as volume grows.

How much does EPoS cost for a hospitality group?

This depends on the provider and how their pricing is structured. That might be a tiered subscription approach, completely modular, or a mix of both.

Costs to be aware of:

Some EPoS providers may offer a lower subscription rate per venue and higher card payment rates. This approach can mean less commitment on subscriptions, but less predictability from rising costs during busy trading periods. In many cases, this approach can end up costing the hospitality business more.
Hardware compatibility and requirements are different per provider. While some EPoS providers may be hardware agnostic and able to reuse existing hardware, others may require you to use specific hardware only they provide. Switching providers where needing all new hardware can be an expensive upfront project for a hospitality group.
Additional costs can creep up quickly across a group. Check with providers on costs such as per-device licence fees, per-user add-ons, credit-based costs within the cloud-based back office platforms, and any potential other hidden costs. Important to note that managing this cost can become more complex when using a highly integrated setup with various different platforms.

How this information was gathered: This comparison draws on each provider’s published product and pricing information (checked October 2026) alongside what UK hospitality groups share with our team at Kobas. Features and pricing may change so please confirm details directly with the provider.