Card payments and EPOS for multi-site hospitality groups

Which card payment setup should a multi-site hospitality group choose?

Perhaps your bar team enters each amount twice. Perhaps finance spends Monday chasing differences between venues. Or your current setup works, but the group is about to open another restaurant and you want to know whether it can keep up.

Those are different starting points, and a good comparison begins with yours. You need payments to work for the person serving a table and for the person closing the group accounts. If either has to work around the setup, a different terminal alone may leave the real problem untouched.

We start with what you want to fix. We can map that work with you, compare the options and agree what a replacement must prove before you commit.

In short

• Start with the problem across your venues.
• Compare quotes against the same activity and complete costs.
• Follow the EPOS connection through payments, refunds and reporting.
• Prove a pilot before moving further sites.

How do you compare providers for a multi-site estate?

Your venues may share a name without sharing the same service needs. Comparing a headline rate before mapping those differences leaves you without a clear basis for deciding. We suggest this order:

1. Map what you have. We list venues, legal entities, EPOS versions, terminals and contract dates with you. We include where guests actually pay.
2. Choose EPOS around your work. We turn menu updates, local prices, permissions and reporting into demonstration tasks, then check the proposed payment connection.
3. Name the problem and its effect. Together, we identify what causes corrections after closing and what work they interrupt. That becomes a pilot acceptance check.
4. Give every bidder matching information. We use the same periods, card takings, transaction counts and card mix, broken down by venue, including quieter trading.
5. Agree what success means. We bring finance and operations into the assessment and record the tasks, support arrangements and evidence each proposal must address.

For venue-level starting points, see our payments guidance for pubs and bars and restaurants. Here we connect those needs with how head office works.

Who takes a share of a card payment?

You may have a terminal agreement, processing charges and another company handling part of the service. Without identifying each role, you cannot tell what a comparison includes.

The issuer makes cards available to customers. The acquirer contracts with merchants to accept and process card payments. Card schemes connect these participants, as the PSR's explanation of card payment roles explains.

The merchant service charge is the total you pay your acquirer. It comprises interchange paid to the issuer, scheme fees paid to the scheme operator, such as Mastercard or Visa, and acquirer net revenue covering other costs and margin. Independent sales organisations and gateway providers can help merchants accept payments without themselves providing acquiring services. These distinctions appear in the PSR's card-acquiring final report.

We can identify the contracting parties and trace charges across your accounts without counting a component twice. Our card processing fees guide covers the basics.

How do UK providers differ on EPOS integration?

A partner logo does not answer whether the proposed connection handles your service. If you choose without checking the exact EPOS version and tasks, the important questions remain unresolved until installation.

We put the same requirements to each shortlisted provider and sit in demonstrations with you. Our comparison records availability, equipment, exclusions and support ownership. In the demonstration we would run a normal service: open a tab, split a bill where you need to, add a tip and process a refund. Then we would follow each one into the reports finance will use, treating every task as something to prove rather than assume.

Which setup stops staff entering amounts twice?

If duplicate entry is your problem, the useful test is whether the sale amount passes from your till to the terminal. Paragraph 4.47 of the PSR report describes integration that automatically displays the purchase amount on the terminal.

We would also test an uncertain result: the customer has tapped, but the till has not confirmed payment. Your pilot should establish how staff check what happened before trying again, so uncertainty does not become an improvised procedure during service.

How long will integration take, and what will it cost?

You need a trading plan, not simply a terminal delivery date. Without a defined scope, you cannot judge which work the price covers or what must happen before a venue changes over.

We can build a written scope around your named systems, separating an existing connection from any proposed development. Configuration, testing, training and installation each need an owner and agreed dependencies.

We also reconcile the payment, EPOS and third-party quotes. That means checking whether licences, visits and ongoing support are included, excluded or unnecessary, and whether charges apply per group, site, till or terminal. No general price or completion time replaces that work. A description such as “free integration” needs a written boundary.

If competing scopes are hard to make sense of, we can go through them with you.

Can DOJO support a large multi-site UK business?

You may be considering DOJO alongside other options, or checking whether your existing arrangement suits the next venue. The question is whether the proposed service meets your group's requirements, rather than whether a brand sounds suitable.

Reeve Consult is an authorised DOJO partner, so we can help you understand how DOJO would fit your group. We would put your legal entities, EPOS versions, activity and reporting needs into the same assessment we use for every shortlisted provider. We would also seek written responsibilities for roll-out and support, and work through what happens when a venue loses connectivity or a terminal needs replacing during service.

And if your current setup already meets those checks, keeping it is a perfectly good answer. We would tell you so.

Which providers separate terminal leases from processing?

Your equipment and acquiring paperwork need to be read together. Otherwise, deciding to replace processing leaves the separate equipment obligations unanswered. We can map each agreement, supplier and cancellation requirement with you.

The PSR reviewed card-acquiring services because their supply might not work well for businesses and, ultimately, consumers. Its final report was published on 3 November 2021; the review overview gives the background.

PS22/2, dated 6 October 2022, sets out personalised summary boxes containing key price and non-price information, sent individually and shown online; online quotation tools; shopping-around or switching prompts; and terminal contract limits. The PSR's final remedies decision applies through directions to named providers, not universally.

Specific Direction 16 covers qualifying terminal contracts with at least two scheduled payments, for merchants with annual card turnover up to £10 million using a directed provider's acquiring services. The terminal supplier can be that provider or a third party, including an independent sales organisation or a leasing company.

For qualifying new contracts, an initial minimum term cannot exceed 18 months. Afterwards, the maximum recurring term is one month, with one month's notice. Without an initial term, that monthly arrangement starts after 18 months. Existing qualifying contracts have a maximum monthly recurring term after any initial term. Exit fees must be cost based, transparent and fully explained before signing.

This is not a universal processing-contract cap. If you are unsure whether it applies to your agreements, we can check them with you.

Can you keep existing merchant IDs when switching?

You may want continuity across venue reports, but we would not build your migration around an unconfirmed promise about merchant IDs. We can coordinate written confirmation of retained or changed IDs and map them to venues and legal entities. Historical transaction access, refunds and reporting belong in that same handover plan.

Checklist

Before signing, we would work through written answers with you:

• Contracts: legal suppliers, separate obligations, minimum terms, notice, renewals and whether the terminal rule applies.
• Extra charges: whether authorisations, refunds, chargebacks, retrievals, minimum charges, compliance services, connectivity or statements attract charges, and on what basis.
• Integration: exact EPOS version, demonstrated tasks, exclusions and setup and recurring costs.
• Merchant IDs: agreed mapping and historical transaction arrangements.
• Roll-out: site owners, pilot checks, fallback and stop decisions.
• Support: hours, escalation, replacements and ownership of incidents involving both systems.
• Exit: remaining payments, termination charges, returns, exports and unresolved refunds or disputes.

The PSR's implementation advice explains retrieval fees: an issuer requests transaction information from the acquirer, and the processor charges a fee to resolve it. We can check how your proposed agreement treats that charge, so finance knows what it is comparing.

How can a migration across many sites run?

When several venues need to change, unresolved decisions can spread from one installation to the next. We suggest a pilot followed by controlled waves. This is our proposed method, not a promise of uninterrupted trading.

Prepare the estate

We would agree the inventory, contract obligations and payment-to-reporting map with you. Venue managers need a clear plan, supplier responsibilities and an authorised fallback. We would also agree when an installation must stop if a check fails.

Prove the pilot

Together, we would choose a venue that represents the difficult work, rather than only the easiest counter. We would check payments, failures and refunds through settlement and reconciliation, with the people who will use the setup judging the results.

Move in waves

We would use the findings to agree which sites follow and what the support teams can cover. Each installation needs a named person to accept it. Unresolved records or staff procedures are reasons to pause the next wave.

Close the old arrangements

We would confirm closure dates, retain required reports and record equipment returns. Responsibility for earlier transactions must remain clear. Our provider-switching guide covers the basic handover; the group task is controlling it across venues.

Worked example

Example only: invented numbers, not a real quote.

Imagine six sites, each taking £50,000 through 2,000 card transactions monthly, with two terminals each. These invented charges show how we would lay out a group comparison:

The invented percentage includes the underlying acquiring components. Adding interchange or scheme fees again would double-count them. This total excludes one-off setup, exit costs and any applicable VAT; we would confirm each charge's tax treatment in writing.

For your comparison, we replace every assumption with your activity and written quotes. We show one-off charges separately, include them over the same comparison period and repeat the calculation for quieter trading. Our hospitality payments guide covers the wider venue questions.

What would make a change worthwhile for your group?

Bring the payment problem you most want to solve, along with a recent merchant statement and your agreements. Our payments service starts there: we compare what you pay now with a written proposal, so you can see what would change and what would stay the same.

If you would like to speak with Ibby and Grant, talk to us at Reeve Consult. We will help you work out what needs attention and what can stay as it is.

Disclosure: Reeve Consult is an authorised DOJO partner.