Lavu POS Reviews

Pros

Ability to have multiple locations. Ability to make inventory items easily. Ability to use an iPad for inventory counts.

Cons

Have to manually bath credit cards at end of day.

Pros

I liked using Lavu because it was the first POS for the restaurant where I worked. While I was employed there I used the system for 2 years. The set up was easy as the dealer came to the restaurant and set it up and did a one day training for the staff.

Cons

They system seems to have alot of glitches. Recently, the restaurant reported to me that they had a glitch and lost printers. Tech support finally helped and got the printers up but somehow lost half the menu. Also, I have witnessed personally that the sales tax is charging out properly.

Alternatives Considered

Toast POS

Reasons for Choosing Lavu POS

We needed better reporting and labor tracking.

Reasons for Switching to Lavu POS

The fees and support were better by Lavu at the time.

Pros

Not much to like here. It is overpriced, underdeveloped, and largely unsupported.

Cons

1. The online platform (Menu Drive) and the POS are totally unintegrated. They were built by different companies and don't communicate.
2. Effectively (in our experience) there is no customer support. There is a call center in India but you may have to wait hours on hold and the limit of their technical expertise seems to be, "try turning it off and then on again."
3. Our salesperson quit responding to calls and email right after the sale was made and only resurfaced when there was yet another new LAVU product to try to sell to us.

Pros

The ease of navigating through all the different functions available.

Cons

I really haven’t found anything that I have felt is worth complaining about or suggesting changes.

Pros

Is an easy to use, easy to program POS system. We use it from the beginning of our opening. Easy to use for employees and low cost for owners.

Cons

Probably make improvement on the schedule part to be more robust.

Alternatives Considered

Avaya UCaaS, Clover and Toast POS

Reasons for Switching to Lavu POS

Prices, and easy use and opportunity to grow

Pros

Ease of use is important to a beginner in the field.

Cons

Backend layout is a bit clunky, too many drop down and making groups and stuff is a bit of a pain. Also when saving sometimes it seems to not save.

Alternatives Considered

Linga rOS System

Reasons for Switching to Lavu POS

Easier platform that Linga and pricing was better. also online ordering w/doordash integration with lavu was a must and they offered it but with much higher fees.

Pros

Pretty easy to use, stable for the most part. We've been using the software for 7+ years I believe. Over time we've integrated and started using more and more of their products such as KDS and card processing. Recently restructured their pricing and we now get the same service for less!

Cons

At times, certain things could be easier. I don't think the pizza building is perfect and could still use work. This goes for both Lavu and MenuDrive. We make it work and they've made lots of improvements over the years with help from our input.

Pros

Used Lavu as our Point of Sale for years, I really like how easy it was to use and how portable the iPads are. Simple setup, we got it done ourselves in a few hours. Support team always there if we need it.

Cons

If wifi is flaky, system slows done, especially in busy times

Pros

Menudrive is easy to program; took some time but our menu is large and we being a breakfast diner we had many options for customers ie: how do they want their eggs cooked, meat type, bread type, etc. Menudrive allows an unlimited amount of items & required info

Cons

when entering items it was redundant having to enter the time available (if it wasn't an all day availability). Lots of key strokes but once it's done, it's done.

Pros

The iPhone app. Really nothing else, really.

Cons

WOW! Where do I begin? Should I start with how they outright lied to me to make the sale? How about sending a completely incompetent tech support personnel company to help me with my network? Maybe I should start with the fact that they billed me today for Quickbooks integration that I DON'T EVEN HAVE!
Let's start with the outright misrepresentation of their product. I specifically asked if they had online ordering and I was told yes we do. After I had purchased the system and went to set it up I asked "Well how do I set up the credit card integration for the online ordering?" Then I was told "Oh we have online ordering but we don't have online payment" WHAT!!? This is 2017 not 1999 what do you mean you don't have online payment? "We had a problem with it and had to take it off line, we should have it back up by Nov."
Well today is 08-21-2018 and guess what I still don't have? You got it - online payment.

Pros

I love the ease of use and customization

Cons

Just common glitches that happen from time to time

Pros

iPad capability, informative and [SENSITIVE CONTENT] is deeply appreciated

Cons

One location at a time we have to input only one location at a time this is frustrating

Alternatives Considered

Revel Systems

Reasons for Switching to Lavu POS

Ipad

Pros

It´s an easy sytem to learn and to teach to third parties, alot of filters to get the detail information needed.

Cons

One thing that i notice is that i can not move the category windows as i desire, to have a better organization in the POS. And another thing is that from time to time the POS in the tablets won´t let us login until some billling issues are resolved, not sure what is that about.

Pros

I guess it's easy to use, but it's kinda clunky. Programming is inconsistent across different devices. The speed is ok. It does what I need it to do, which the #1 reason I went with Lavu over Square was that you could start a bar tab with a preauthorization.

Cons

LAVU complaints

Should get Free set up support 1 month a year; if there is an update we should get free support
Quick serve shouldn't disappear
Can't Add a cc to an existing tab - currently deletes the new order
Needs Select and Repeat button
Needs Fewer approval buttons
Should Show change on screen
Should add auto grat to total tips
Can't Change auto grat, % or amount
On tip page, be able to enter tip or total, and show total.
Entered tips should disappear from screen - be able to filter list
On End of Day reports page, discounts and auto grat need to be included. Auto grats dont go to the business. Service charges do.
Auto grats need to show on payments page
Chip cards cant start tabs. Cant have 2 processors in lavu - chip card and swipe card types
Tip screen times out , and deletes entered tips

Pros

About the only thing that is positive about this system is that it is internet based and we can move freely about the restaurant to serve our guests.

Cons

Billing is constantly inaccurate and the system shuts down during service because of this.
If you're ok with the system going offline with no warning due to inaccurate automated billing issues and 3 hours on the phone with inept customer service reps while having zero access to input orders, print tickets to your kitchen, bills for the customers and not being able to process credit cards than this IS the system for you!
Our sales and install guy was a joke. Over promising on system answers he didn't even know but said yeah it does that. When it came to menu input it took him 2 weeks from start to finish and we had to just take over and redo everything ourselves.
Reporting functions that should be available that weren't we were told would be "coming soon" in the next version have not materialized.
Customer service is absolutely horrendous. If you like long hold times over an hour most times or a we will call you back message many hours most times then again this is the system for you!

Pros

At our restaurant, we pool tips each night, and Lavu makes it really easy to print out our tip report and figure out how much each server should be bringing home. Saves us a lot of time and effort.

Cons

The inventory feature could be better, but we don't use it that much, to begin with.

Pros

How easy it is to use and the actions on the back office for tracking pretty much anything you want to see on a business aspect side.

Cons

Bad times on systems down. Either glitches or updates during the peak times. However, it’s not that frequent that it happens. Usually, they fix it fairly quick.

Pros

System is fairly easy to use and navigate. Easy to setup menus and configure accordingly. Customer support is pretty responsive and quick although sometimes questionable knowledge to help with all situations. Cost for system is excellent.

Cons

Fonts can be a bit small on pos interface and thus hard to read. No big cons to comment on other than have had some big hassles configuring system to work with different credit card merchants and being bounced back and forth with customer support to resolve.

Pros

Ease of use and the reliability. Hasn't crashed on me in the three years I've had it.

Cons

Lags every once in a while.

Pros

INTEGRATION with 3rd party delivery sites via Chowly (so no more manually inputting orders from seamless/ delivery.com/ eat24/ etc. into the POS system), easy to use, good quality hardware, fantastic customer service (anytime I call, the question gets solved the first time; customer service is friendly & very effective; always easily accessible), lots of amazing features (reports, inventory management, employee management)

When I first contacted Lavu, we were only interested in switching POS systems for 1 reason: integration with 3rd party delivery sites. Lavu didn't have the Chowly integration at the time I first contacted them, but 2 weeks later, I got a call from my sales rep saying they were in the process of speaking/ partnering with Chowly. Lavu is a small company (compared to other POS system companies) and all employees work out of 1 building in Arizona. This is a major advantage to me. There is not a lot of red tape, they work closely together (if I have a question for someone in another department, my sales rep would literally walk over to them and ask) and things get done... FAST!

Cons

Nothing to do with Lavu - it's just that apple software (i.e. iPad) is more costly than using Android-based systems (i.e. tablets) but the iPad is MUCH more user friendly

Pros

Ease of use and kost important the customer service especially the tech support. His was [SENSITIVE CONTENT] but in the past I had great experience with [SENSITIVE CONTENT] and many others

Cons

None the software is really good and I recommend it

Pros

Customer Service is outstanding. They are available 24 hrs a day.

Cons

P-MIX REPORTS and it is sometimes hard to hear and understand the agents.

Pros

Customer service is fantastic! The best support out there, we really feel like they listen to us and are responsive when we need something.

Cons

Initial set up of the hardware was a little clunkier than I hoped. Software was way easier and then we were up and running.

Pros

User friendly and customizable for our business.

Cons

Not enough 3rd party integrations. Inventory has its bugs as well

Pros

I like i can make my own buttons and prices

Cons

none that i can think of right as of this moment