For Cafes, Bakeries & Coffee Shops
Cafe Software That Knows Your Regulars
Counter POS, digital stamp cards, 90-second end-of-day cash count, supplier invoices, GST-ready BAS. One platform built for Australian cafes that don't need OpenTable or per-terminal POS contracts.
Free Tools & Resources
Reference material for owners and operators
Start a Cafe or Restaurant
8-step founder guide — ABN, GST, food licence, fit-out, liquor, insurance, suppliers, opening week.
Open →InteractiveMenu Item Pricing Calculator
Interactive estimator — food cost %, labour, overhead, GP target, and final menu price.
Open →ReferenceFood Safety Supervisor by State
FSS certificate requirements per state, refresher cycles, and when an Allergen Aware course is mandatory.
Open →Operator GuideRestaurant Industry Award (MA000119)
Plain-English MA000119 — Level 1–6 classifications, Saturday/Sunday penalties, casual loading, junior rates.
Open →ReferenceHospitality Insurance Guide
Public liability, food/product liability, liquor liability, business interruption, glass — coverage and premium ranges.
Open →Key takeaways
5- Australian cafes must charge 10% GST on most prepared food and beverage sales — coffee, brunch, pastries, takeaway lunch. Grocery staples (raw fruit, milk, bread sold as-is) are GST-free at the supermarket level but become taxable once prepared (a sandwich is taxable, a loaf of bread isn't). Quote your ABN on every receipt over $82.50 inclusive.
- Common AU cafe POS pricing: Square ($60+/mo plus 1.6%–2.2% per tap), Lightspeed Kounta ($60+/mo per location), Stampme or similar loyalty (~$20-30/mo), Xero or MYOB ($35-120/mo). Stack totals $130-200/mo without including rostering or payroll.
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- OneBookPlus replaces the typical cafe stack — POS + Xero + stamp-card app + email marketing — with one platform from $0/month (Free) to $69/month (Growth). Bundled: counter POS, daily sales, end-of-day cash reconciliation, digital loyalty stamps, supplier invoicing, BAS-ready reporting, email/SMS marketing, Google review automation.
- Compliance: FSANZ Food Standards Code (Chapter 3 — food safety practices, premises, equipment) is enforced via your state Food Act and local council Food Business Notification; Standard 3.2.2A mandates a Food Safety Supervisor (FSS) for most food-service businesses; if you serve alcohol you need a state liquor licence and RSA-certified staff.
- Free plan covers a small cafe's full needs forever — 10 invoices/month, 250 contacts, online booking page, and Stripe payments. Annual billing saves 2 months on paid tiers ($24/mo Starter or $58/mo Growth equivalent). Australian-built and supported, in Melbourne.
Complete cafe toolkit
Built for the counter, not the dining room
Restaurants need table management. Cafes need a fast POS, a stamp card their regulars actually use, and a 90-second close-out. We focused on the cafe loop — and skipped what cafes don't use.
Counter POS in seconds per order
Tap the menu, take cash or tap-and-go, print or email a receipt. Works on any phone, tablet or laptop. No per-terminal contract or hardware lock-in.
Digital stamp cards built in
Regulars join by phone number at the counter. Every sale stamps the card automatically. Free coffee redeems as a cart discount — full audit trail, no paper.
End-of-day cash reconciliation
The lockup ritual that ate 15 minutes a night, now 90 seconds. We compute expected cash from POS sales, you enter the till count, variance is colour-coded and the deposit-to-bank figure is right there.
Supplier invoices & GST built in
Snap a coffee-roaster invoice on your phone, it's logged and the GST credit lands in your BAS summary. Bank feed reconciles the card terminal deposits automatically each morning.
Auto Google reviews 2 hours after pickup
Customer pays, finishes their coffee, gets a friendly SMS asking for a 5-star review. Single biggest lever on local search visibility — and you set it once.
Rostering & payroll under one roof
Build the weekly roster, staff clock in from their phones, payroll runs PAYG + super (12% from 1 July 2025) automatically. STP-ready. Replaces Deputy + Xero Payroll for most cafes.
A morning-to-lockup routine
How a cafe day looks on OneBookPlus
Menu once. POS forever. End of day in 90 seconds. BAS at the end of the quarter in one click.
Build your counter menu
Categories (Coffee, Brunch, Pastries), items with GST-inclusive prices, optional photo. Toggle availability when you run out of avocados.
Take orders on the POS
Phone, iPad, laptop — same POS. Cash or card, split if they're sharing. Receipts print or email. Loyalty stamps fire automatically when the regular joins.
Close out at 4pm
End-of-day card: expected cash from POS, your physical count, variance and the figure to drop in the safe — all on one screen.
Send your accountant the BAS quarter
GST collected, GST credits on coffee + supplies + utilities, net amount owing — one click. Bank-feed reconciliation matched the card deposits automatically every morning.
Trusted by Australian cafe operators
$0
Free plan — no per-terminal POS contract
90 sec
Average lockup-to-close end-of-day
100%
GST-ready receipts and BAS summary
Real-time
Loyalty stamps fire on every paid sale
Cafe savings calculator
What does your cafe tech stack really cost?
Cafes don't need OpenTable. They do need a POS, a stamp card, and reconciliation. Plug in your numbers — we'll show what you'd save and the loyalty revenue you'd recover.
POS subscription (Square, Lightspeed Kounta)
Monthly per-terminal fee
Stamp-card / loyalty app (Stampme, Sumup Loyalty)
Monthly platform fee
Accounting (Xero, MYOB)
Monthly subscription
Email marketing (Mailchimp)
Newsletters + campaigns
Loyalty members on your stamp card
Active regulars who'd join a digital card
Average ticket value
Coffee + pastry, breakfast, lunch
Your current tool stack
$133/mo
= $1,596/year
With OneBookPlus Starter
$29/mo
Replaces everything in the list. One bill.
~1 extra visit/mo per active loyalty member at $12 AOV. Digital stamp cards lift visit frequency 15–20% among regulars.
Free plan available · No card required · Cancel anytime
Australian Owned
Built in Melbourne, AU
GST Compliant
ATO-ready from day one
Bank-Grade Security
256-bit encryption
Free Plan Available
No credit card needed
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about cafe and coffee shop management software in Australia.
Is OneBookPlus a full POS for a counter-service cafe?
Yes. The POS lives at /dashboard/retail-pos — open it on a phone, iPad or laptop, take orders, cash or card or split, receipt prints or emails. Every closed sale posts to your books and (if loyalty is enabled) stamps the customer's card. No separate POS subscription, no per-terminal fee, no hardware lock-in.
How does the digital stamp card work?
Set the rule once in the Loyalty wizard ('buy 10 coffees, get 1 free' or 'spend $50, get $5 off'). Regulars join at the counter by phone number — takes 5 seconds. Every paid sale fires the stamp automatically. When the card fills, the next order shows the reward as a cart discount the operator confirms. No paper card to lose, full audit trail of every stamp and redemption.
What's the end-of-day cash count actually doing?
It compares your physical till count against the expected cash from today's closed POS orders, factoring in your opening float. Variance is colour-coded (balanced under $1, amber under $5, red above). The 'cash to bank' figure shows exactly what to deposit — float stays in the till for tomorrow. The snapshot saves against the daily_sales table so your accountant has the trail at BAS time.
Does it handle supplier invoices for coffee roasters, bakeries, milk?
Yes. Record supplier invoices with categories (food, beverage, packaging, utilities) — snap a photo on your phone or upload a PDF. GST credits flow into your BAS summary automatically. Cost-of-goods percentage shows on your dashboard so you can see when the roaster's price rise eats your margin.
How does it compare to Square + Xero + a stamp-card app?
Square POS ($60+/mo per location plus 1.6%-2.2% per tap), Xero ($35+/mo), Stampme or similar loyalty (~$20-30/mo), and Mailchimp ($13+/mo) total around $130/mo — and they don't talk to each other. OneBookPlus replaces the whole stack from $29/mo Starter or $69/mo Growth. The ROI calculator below shows the side-by-side with your real numbers.
Do I need a barcode scanner for a cafe?
Not usually. Cafes typically run a category-driven menu grid (Coffee → Flat White Reg/Lg, Brunch → Smashed Avo) rather than barcoded SKUs. The POS works perfectly without a scanner. If you sell packaged retail goods (coffee beans, merch), variants can carry SKUs and the optional barcode field works the same as the retail vertical.
Can it handle multiple staff rostering and payroll?
Yes. Build the weekly roster with drag-and-drop, staff clock in from their phones, timesheets auto-generate. Payroll runs PAYG tax withholding, 12% super (legislated rate from 1 July 2025), penalty rates, leave accruals — STP-ready. Replaces Deputy + Xero Payroll for most cafes from $10/mo.
About the author
Bishal Shrestha
Founder & CEO, OneBookPlus
Bishal has over a decade of experience in digital marketing, web development, and small business consulting across Australia. OneBookPlus cafe features are informed by direct work with independent cafes, bakeries and specialty coffee bars across Melbourne — operators who needed POS + loyalty + accounting in one platform instead of stitching together Square + Stampme + Xero with daily CSV exports.
How OneBookPlus works for cafes
Most Australian cafes run three or four disconnected systems — Square or Lightspeed for the till, Stampme or a paper card for loyalty, Xero or MYOB for the books, and maybe Deputy for rostering. Each one asks for the same menu items, the same staff names, and the same customer info, and none of them talk cleanly. The result is duplicate entry, a loyalty program nobody enrols in (because the kiosk is on a separate tablet), and Saturday-night cash counts that drift by ten dollars and nobody knows why. OneBookPlus brings the POS, loyalty stamps, daily sales, end-of- day cash count, supplier expenses, payroll and BAS-ready bookkeeping into one platform built for Australian counter-service cafes.
The POS runs in any browser. Open it on the iPad behind the bar in the morning, tap through the menu as orders come in, take cash or tap-and-go, receipts print or email. Every sale automatically posts to your books with the GST line split out correctly, and if loyalty is enabled, fires a stamp against the customer's card. Customers join by phone number in five seconds — no app to download. The stamp card lives entirely in OneBookPlus, so when the regular hits stamp #10 the next order shows the free-coffee reward as a cart discount the barista just confirms.
End-of-day in 90 seconds
The single most-repeated daily ritual in any cafe with cash payments is the lockup count, and the single most common reason that count drifts is variance hiding in a paper notebook nobody opens. OneBookPlus computes the expected cash from today's closed POS sales (cash subset only, factoring opening float entered at open). You count the till physically and enter the figure. Variance shows live — colour-coded balanced under $1, amber under $5, red above — and the "cash to bank" figure is exactly what you drop in the safe. The snapshot persists to the daily_sales table so your accountant has the trail. Back-dating for "I forgot to do Friday" works via a date picker; the previous snapshot prefills the opening float (most operators leave the same one overnight).
Loyalty that runs itself
Pick a rule once: stamps ("buy 10, get 1 free"), points ("1 point per dollar, $1 reward per 100 points"), or tiers ("Bronze, Silver, Gold" thresholds). Regulars join at the counter by phone number. Every closed sale earns automatically. The birthdays board shows whose birthday falls this week so you can send a one-tap "free coffee on us today" SMS — the highest-ROI marketing touch in retail and hospitality. The dashboard surfaces lapsed regulars (no visit in 60+ days) so you can win them back with a targeted message before they disappear entirely.
Bank feeds & BAS
Connect your business bank account via Consumer Data Right Open Banking and the card terminal's daily settlement matches against the day's POS card total each morning — green tick, no action. Supplier invoices (coffee roaster, bakery, milk, packaging, utilities) get recorded against the right category; snap a phone photo of the invoice and OneBookPlus reads the date and amount. At BAS quarter, the summary builds itself — GST collected on POS sales and invoices, GST credits on supplier expenses, net amount owing — and exports cleanly for your accountant.
Getting started
Sign up free — no credit card, no per-terminal contract. Add a category (Coffee), add the items (Flat White Reg/Lg, Long Black, Cappuccino…), set GST-inclusive prices. Open the POS and take a test sale. Most cafes are taking real orders in under twenty minutes. The Free plan covers a small cafe forever; Starter ($29/mo) and Growth ($69/mo) unlock unlimited invoicing, marketing, loyalty, and multi-user access.
Open the cafe. We'll run the back office.
POS, loyalty stamps, end-of-day, BAS. One platform. From $0/mo, no contract, no per-terminal fee.
Get Started FreeLast reviewed and updated: by Bishal Shrestha
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