Takeaway EPOS System UK 2026: Costs, Phone Orders & VAT

Takeaway EPOS System UK: What It Must Do and What It Costs

A takeaway EPOS system in the UK has to do four jobs a restaurant till doesn't: take phone orders fast (caller ID, postcode lookup), run delivery zones and quoted times, pull Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats into one queue, and apply VAT correctly to hot, cold and eat-in sales. Software from Square or SumUp costs £0–£69 a month before add-ons, but card and online-order fees usually cost more than the subscription.

I'm Ashish Sharma, founder of Codingclave. We build owned EPOS and commission-free ordering systems for UK takeaways, so I have a stake in one option below. For ranked vendors, see our UK restaurant POS comparison; this guide covers the takeaway workflow.

Quick answer:

• Software: Square for Restaurants is £0 (Free) or £69 a month per location (Plus); SumUp POS Pro is £49 a month ex VAT, plus £19 per add-on module.
• Card fees are the bigger bill: Square takes 1.75% in person, so £10,000 of counter card sales costs £175 a month.
• Aggregator commission is commonly reported at about 12–14% + VAT when you deliver and around 30% + VAT (Deliveroo up to about 35%) when the platform's riders do; our delivery-app fee breakdown has the detail. Your own statements are the real figure.
• VAT (if registered): hot takeaway food is 20%, most cold food 0%, but crisps, sweets, canned and bottled soft drinks, bottled water and anything eaten in your seating area are 20%.
• Owning instead: our EPOS, kitchen display and commission-free ordering build is £2,000–£6,000 for one shop, 3–8 weeks, plus £40–£120 a month hosting (UK takeaway EPOS build: scope and pricing).

The walkthrough shows our base restaurant POS, which was built first for Indian restaurants. UK takeaway builds add the phone screen, delivery zones and UK aggregator connections covered below.

Why a takeaway needs a different EPOS from a restaurant

A restaurant till is built around tables. A takeaway runs four channels at once (walk-ins, phone, aggregator apps and your own website), mostly between 6pm and 10pm at weekends. The queue runs by promised time, most orders leave the building, and the most valuable thing you collect is the customer's phone number and address, which aggregators largely keep.

Menus add their own demands:

• Indian: long menus, spice levels, sundries and meal deals. More on our Indian restaurants and takeaways page.
• Chinese: numbered set meals ('Meal for 2') that regulars quote by number, and sauces as modifiers.
• Pizza: size-based topping prices, half-and-half pizzas and multi-item deals.
• Kebab and late-night: trading past midnight, when offline behaviour and support hours matter most.

If most of your trade is walk-in, a decent restaurant till will do. Once phone and delivery orders matter, the features below stop being optional.

The must-have features for a takeaway EPOS

Every till should give you a fast touchscreen, modifiers, daily reports and staff logins that stop anyone but a manager voiding or refunding. These are the takeaway-specific ones.

Phone-order screen with caller ID and postcode lookup

Caller ID works through a VoIP phone system or a caller-ID unit on a landline. When a regular rings, their record opens: name, address, recent orders and notes like 'side door'. New callers give a postcode and staff pick the address from a list. Ask who pays for postcode lookups, as some address databases charge per search.

Delivery zones, charges and minimum orders

Set zones by postcode district or radius in miles, each with its own charge and minimum: say, free over £15 in your district and £2.50 with a £20 minimum next door (illustrative). Phone and website must apply the same rules, or staff will quietly waive charges. Out-of-zone addresses should be blocked online and flagged on the phone.

Collection vs delivery timing and driver cash-up

Collection and delivery need separate quoted times that stretch as the kitchen queue grows, matching on phone and web. For your own drivers, look for order assignment, a run sheet per trip and a per-driver cash-up at close, so shortfalls show up that night.

One queue for Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats

With a working integration, aggregator orders print to the kitchen alongside phone and counter orders, and marking a dish sold out updates every platform. Without one, staff re-key tablet orders, and items get missed.

I couldn't verify each vendor's current Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats connections from their published pages, and these change. Ask which platforms are live today, whether the link is direct or through a separate order-merging service with its own fee, and whether sold-out items sync back. Then watch a test order arrive.

Kitchen printers vs kitchen display

Printers are cheap and familiar. A kitchen display adds timers, late-order colours and routing by station (tandoor, fryer, pizza oven). Square's display software is free on Plus and £15 a month per device on Free; SumUp's module is £19 a month. Either way, spice level should print large, modifiers like 'no onion' should stand out, and dishes should allow a kitchen name in your chefs' language.

Allergen flags that follow the order to the bag

Tag each dish and modifier once with the 14 regulated allergens, and the EPOS should show them on the web menu, phone screen, kitchen ticket and bag sticker. The legal detail is below.

Card terminal, phone payments and processor choice

An integrated terminal receives the amount from the till, so nobody rekeys it. Watch for lock-in: some EPOS deals only work with the vendor's own processing. For phone orders, keying the card costs most: Square charges 2.5% for manual entry against 1.75% in person. A driver terminal or a payment link sent by text avoids reading card numbers aloud; ask what rate applies to links.

Offline mode: what still works when the broadband drops

Ask the vendor to unplug the router during the demo. Counter and phone orders should keep flowing and tickets should still print over the shop's own network. Aggregator and website orders can't reach you until the line returns, so a 4G backup router is sensible. Ask whether the card terminal stores payments offline, the limit, and who carries the loss if one later declines.

On our custom builds we define and test offline behaviour with you before go-live rather than promise a blanket 'works offline'.

Meal deals, set menus and per-channel pricing

Meal deals need choice slots ('any main + rice + naan') with a value per component, so VAT can be split correctly. If you price higher on aggregators to cover commission, check each platform's terms and keep separate price lists per channel.

VAT on takeaway food: setting up hot vs cold correctly

None of this applies until you are VAT-registered, which is compulsory once taxable turnover passes £90,000 in a rolling 12 months (GOV.UK: when to register). The rules are in HMRC's VAT Notice 709/1 on catering and takeaway food, last updated 8 June 2026. I'm not an accountant, so use this to brief yours.

The hot-food precondition and the five tests

Takeaway food only counts as hot if it is above the ambient air temperature when handed over. It is then standard-rated if it meets any of five tests:

1. Heated so it can be eaten hot
2. Heated to order
3. Kept hot after heating
4. Supplied in packaging that retains heat or is designed for hot food
5. Advertised or marketed as supplied hot

A curry cooked to order in a foil tray passes several. Under section 4.4, freshly baked bread and bakery items that happen to be warm, are often eaten cold and meet no test may be zero-rated; HMRC's example is a pasty left to cool naturally.

Cans, cold drinks, the eat-in rule and meal deals

Cold takeaway food is zero-rated unless it is a type that is always standard-rated. For drinks, HMRC's VAT Notice 701/14 (section 3.7.2) lists cola, lemonade, mixers, cordials, squashes and bottled water as standard-rated, so a cold can of cola is 20%. Milk drinks are treated differently, so ask your accountant about lassi and milkshakes.

Last verified: September 2026, against VAT Notices 709/1 and 701/14.

Sale	Treatment	Till setting
Hot food handed over hot, meeting any test	Standard-rated	20%
Cold food taken away, e.g. a cold salad	Zero-rated	0%
Crisps, sweets	Always standard-rated	20%, even cold
Cans and bottles of soft drinks, bottled water	Standard-rated	20%
Anything eaten in your seating area	Standard-rated, even if cold	Eat-in button that switches rates
Meal deal mixing 20% and 0% items	Split by value (section 4.7)	Value per component
Delivery charge	See VAT Notice 700/24	Ask your accountant

'Premises' includes any area set aside for customers to eat, so two tables and a bench count. Poppadoms, chutneys and similar sides are edge items the notice doesn't rule on individually; confirm them with your accountant.

Making Tax Digital: what your EPOS reports should give your accountant

Your EPOS doesn't file the VAT return; MTD-compatible accounting or bridging software (yours or your accountant's) does. The EPOS should export clean data to Xero, QuickBooks or Sage without retyping:

• Daily Z-reports split by VAT rate, not one gross total
• Sales by channel: counter, phone, website and each aggregator
• Aggregator sales at gross, commission shown separately
• Delivery charges, refunds, voids and discounts as separate lines
• Cash, card and aggregator payouts reported apart

Sole traders should also ask whether Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies to them yet.

Allergens for phone, online and delivery orders: the FSA two-stage rule

For food that isn't prepacked, the FSA's allergen guidance for distance selling says allergen information must be given twice:

1. Before the purchase is completed: in writing on your website or menu, or orally when someone orders by phone.
2. When the food is delivered: in writing, such as stickers on containers or an enclosed menu, or orally by the driver.

Best practice is written information at both points, kept current, and you can't charge for it. A korma sticker might read 'Contains: milk, tree nuts', depending on your recipe. This covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland has its own guidance.

The 14 allergens are celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soya, sulphur dioxide/sulphites and tree nuts. On Indian menus they hide in nut pastes, ghee, cream, paneer, mustard seeds and naan; on Chinese menus in soy sauce, sesame oil and oyster sauce; in pizza and kebab shops in bases, breads, cheese and garlic mayo. Recheck recipes when a supplier changes.

Where Natasha's Law fits: it covers prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food, meaning food packed on your premises before the customer orders, like a sandwich in a chiller. Made-to-order phone and delivery food falls under the distance-selling rule. If you do pre-pack anything, read the FSA's introduction to PPDS allergen labelling.

What a takeaway EPOS costs in 2026

Last verified: September 2026. Square and SumUp figures are from their official UK pages (SumUp quotes ex VAT). 'Third-party' figures come from an ExpertMarket review updated August 2025; confirm with the vendor.

System	Monthly software	Card and online-order fees
Square for Restaurants	Free £0; Plus £69 per location; Premium custom	1.75% in person; 1.4% + 25p online (UK cards); 2.5% keyed
SumUp POS Pro	£49 ex VAT, £0 onboarding; add-ons £19 each	Goodeats 2.7% + 12p per order; cards from 1.69% (third-party)
Lightspeed Restaurant	£69–£219 (third-party)	Check Lightspeed's pricing page
Toast	£80–£150 (third-party)	Quote-based
Clover	Quote-based	Cards from 1.49% (third-party)
Epos Now	Quote-based	Quote-based; check contract length
Codingclave owned build (ours)	£40–£120 hosting	Your chosen processor's rates

Square's optional extras include Kiosk at £35 a month per device and Restaurant Inventory from £79 a month per location (Square UK pricing; SumUp UK pricing).

Hardware checklist

Item	What to budget
Till: tablet on a stand, or a fixed register	Square Stand £99 + VAT (iPad extra); Square Register £699 + VAT
Card terminal, plus one for drivers	Square Terminal £149 + VAT; SumUp readers £25–£169 + VAT (third-party)
Kitchen printer or kitchen display	Square 21.5-inch display £549 + VAT; printers by quote
Receipt printer, cash drawer, caller-ID unit or VoIP, allergen label printer, 4G backup router	Quote

Ask whether your existing printers, tablets and card machine are supported before buying new. Our build price covers software only.

An illustrative month, with the maths shown

Assumptions: one shop, £10,000 a month in counter and doorstep card sales, £4,000 in own-website orders (160 orders at £25), one kitchen screen. Hardware and VAT on fees are excluded.

	Square Plus	SumUp POS Pro + KDS	Owned build
Software or hosting	£69	£68	£40–£120
In-person card fees	£175 (1.75%)	about £169 (1.69%, third-party)	about £175 at similar rates
Own-website order fees	£96 (1.4% + 25p)	about £127 (2.7% + 12p)	about £96 at similar rates
Monthly total	about £340	about £364	about £311–£391
Upfront	Hardware	Hardware	£2,000–£6,000 + hardware

On Square's Free plan the same month is about £286: no subscription, plus £15 for kitchen display software.

If those same £4,000 of orders came through the apps instead, commission at the commonly reported 12%–35% would be £480–£1,400 a month, before VAT on commission. That gap dwarfs any difference between tills.

Step 1, any direct ordering: move £2,000 a month (80 orders) off the apps at an assumed 20% commission (£400) to direct ordering at 1.4% + 25p (about £48). That saves about £352 a month, and Square's or SumUp's own online ordering gets you most of it with no build fee.

Step 2, an owned build: a £4,000 build only makes sense if you also want the phone screen, zones and driver cash-up your way, full ownership of customer data, or several outlets on one system. If its hosting replaces a subscription you'd otherwise pay, the £352 pays it back in about 11–12 months. If hosting is an extra £40–£120, the net saving is £232–£312 and payback about 13–17 months.

Curious what owning would save your shop? WhatsApp Ashish on +91 92771 84741 with your monthly sales by channel and I'll run the rent-versus-own maths with you, including when renting wins.

Rent an EPOS or own your system with commission-free ordering?

Our base is Saffron POS, our restaurant POS software, with kitchen order ticket printing and a kitchen display. UK builds, quoted in GBP:

• Single shop: £2,000–£6,000 for EPOS, kitchen display and a takeaway online ordering website, 3–8 weeks
• Multi-outlet: £8,000–£12,000
• Hosting: £40–£120 a month
• Branded food-ordering app: £3,500–£14,000, 5–12 weeks (branded takeaway app details)

Out of the box, Saffron POS connects to Indian delivery apps only. Caller ID, postcode lookup, UK aggregator connections and card-terminal integration are built for your shop in the UK project and priced in the quote.

On support: I'm based in Lucknow, India, where UK dinner service falls late in our evening. We agree support hours and an emergency contact in writing before go-live; hold us to the same checklist as any vendor.

When an off-the-shelf EPOS is the right call

Choose Square's Free plan or SumUp, not our build, if you're opening next week, most sales are counter and cash, you have few regulars yet, or you'd rather pay monthly than find £2,000+ upfront.

When owning your system makes more sense

Owning fits when regulars ring or reorder, aggregator commission is one of your largest costs, you need caller ID, zones and driver cash-up working your way, or you run more than one outlet. The trade-offs: you pay upfront, rely on your developer for changes, and a website only earns if you push regulars to it. Keep the aggregators for new customers; our commission-free ordering playbook covers moving regulars across.

How to switch EPOS without losing a weekend's trade

Off-the-shelf systems can go live within days; our custom builds take 3–8 weeks. Either way:

1. Export first: menu, customer names, numbers, addresses and order history, as CSV.
2. Set up the menu: VAT per item, eat-in switching, meal-deal values, allergen flags, printer routing.
3. Rehearse on a quiet weeknight with mock phone, counter and delivery orders and a practice cash-up.
4. Keep the old till as backup for one weekend.
5. Connect aggregators one at a time, checking test orders and sold-out sync.
6. Retire the tablets and old contract after a clean Friday and Saturday.

12-point checklist before you sign

1. Contract: term, exit fees and auto-renewal in writing; 'free' software is often paid for through card rates, add-ons or a 36-month term.
2. Hardware: bought, leased or rented, and who owns it at the end?
3. Processor lock-in: can you bring your own? Get in-person, online and keyed rates.
4. Twelve-month total on your real turnover.
5. Data export: menu and customer records as a free CSV when you leave.
6. Aggregators: which are live, how connected, extra fees.
7. Caller ID and postcode lookup: included or add-on?
8. Zones and minimums identical on phone and web.
9. Offline behaviour, shown with the router unplugged.
10. Support hours covering Friday and Saturday until close.
11. Allergen flags reaching the web menu, ticket and sticker.
12. VAT and reports: per-item rates, meal-deal splits, per-rate Z-reports.

Common mistakes takeaway owners make with EPOS

The mistake I hear about most from UK takeaway owners is choosing on monthly price, when card and online-order percentages are the bigger bill. Others:

• Signing a long hardware lease without adding up the full term and exit cost
• Not capturing caller data, so the customer list lives with the aggregators
• Keeping three tablets and re-keying orders on a Friday
• Verbal-only allergen information, with nothing written on the menu or container
• One VAT rate for everything, forgetting cans, crisps and the eat-in seats

Takeaway EPOS in London, Essex and Birmingham

In London, dense postcodes and short delivery radii make zone pricing and accurate quoted times the main battle; see our restaurant and takeaway EPOS page for London. In Essex towns, delivery areas are usually wider, so radius-based charges, minimum orders and driver cash-up do more work. In Birmingham, long curry menus and heavy Friday phone volume mean caller ID and a fast phone screen pay off first. We work with all three areas remotely and quote in GBP.

Your next step: see a phone order go from call to kitchen

• WhatsApp Ashish on +91 92771 84741 for a demo and a GBP quote.
• See scope and pricing for our UK takeaway and restaurant EPOS builds.
• Prefer a scheduled call? Book a free demo or use our contact page.

About the author

Ashish Sharma founded Codingclave in 2017 and has led 200+ projects since, with a 4.9 Google rating from 76 reviews and a 100% Upwork Job Success Score. His team builds restaurant POS, kitchen displays, commission-free ordering websites and food-ordering apps, and serves clients in India, the UK, Canada, the UAE and the US.

Sources

• HMRC: Catering, takeaway food and VAT (VAT Notice 709/1), updated 8 June 2026
• HMRC: Food products and VAT (VAT Notice 701/14), section 3.7.2 on beverages, updated 8 June 2026
• GOV.UK: When to register for VAT
• FSA: Allergen information for non-prepacked foods, best practice
• FSA: Introduction to allergen labelling for PPDS food
• Square for Restaurants UK pricing
• SumUp Point of Sale UK pricing
• Third-party estimates (Lightspeed, Toast, Clover, SumUp card rate and hardware): ExpertMarket UK takeaway EPOS review, updated 29 August 2025