Restaurant Payment Processing: A Complete Guide for UK and Ireland
What does restaurant payment processing mean?
It's everything that happens when a customer pays by card or phone - at the counter, at the table, online, at a kiosk or over the phone. That covers the card terminals and POS hardware, the software that authorises each transaction, the money landing in your bank account, the fee you pay on every sale, and how all of it connects to your ordering and POS system.
Every order you take goes through it. When it's set up badly, you feel it every day.
Card payment fees: what UK restaurants actually pay
The bill has three parts.
Interchange fees are set by the card networks, Visa and Mastercard. They're a percentage of the transaction and depend on the card. Consumer cards cost less. Commercial cards cost more.
Processing fees come from your payment processor, and this is the part you can actually negotiate. Processors usually quote a percentage plus a small fixed charge per transaction.
Then there's terminal rental - a monthly charge for the card machines, if you rent them instead of buying.
Put together, UK restaurants pay somewhere between 0.5% and 2.5%, depending on the card, the processor and how much you put through. Busy restaurants get lower rates because they have volume to bargain with.
Online orders through a direct ordering platform cost about the same to process as in-person payments. Sometimes a bit more.
The hidden cost of disconnected payments
A lot of restaurants take in-person payments on one system and online orders on another. So someone reconciles several systems at the end of every day, pulls separate revenue reports for in-person and online, enters refunds and voids twice, and keeps track of different settlement dates depending on where the order came from.
If your POS, online ordering and payment processing sit on the same platform, none of that happens. You get one set of numbers.
Payment hardware for restaurants
Countertop terminals sit at the till, wired or on wifi. They're the obvious choice for counter service.
Handheld terminals go to the table. In a full-service restaurant that saves staff walking back and forth with the bill, and fewer trips usually means fewer mistakes.
Self-service kiosks take the order and the card payment in one go, so queues are shorter and nobody has to be stuck at the till.
Online, payment is built into your restaurant ordering website or branded app.
What to look for in a restaurant payment provider
Integration with your POS
This matters more than anything else here. When payments go straight into your restaurant POS system, nobody reconciles by hand and there are fewer errors. Payments, orders and customer data should all live in one system.
Settlement speed
How fast does the money reach your account? If cash flow is tight, next-day settlement beats waiting a week or two.
Transparent fees
Some processors advertise a low headline rate, then charge more for certain cards. Before you sign, ask for the full fee breakdown for consumer debit, consumer credit and commercial cards.
Support
A card machine that dies on a Friday night is a real problem. You want a phone number that gets answered by someone who can fix it, not a ticket queue.
Chargebacks
Restaurants do get chargebacks, mostly on delivery and phone orders. Find out how your provider handles them and what evidence you're allowed to submit.
Contactless and digital wallets
Most in-person card payments in the UK and Ireland are now contactless, and plenty of customers pay with a phone or watch instead of a card. Your terminals need to take Visa and Mastercard contactless, Apple Pay and Google Pay.
That won't set a provider apart. It's the minimum.
Online payments on restaurant websites and apps
A few things work differently online.
3D Secure is required for online card payments under PSD2. Your processor handles it, but check it's there.
Returning customers order more easily when they can save their card. Storing cards safely needs PCI-compliant tokenisation.
Once the payment goes through, the customer should get an order confirmation straight away.
Payments across multiple locations
With more than one site, a patchwork of payment setups hurts more. Every site has its own reports and its own reconciliation. Customers pay differently depending on which location they walk into. And your volume is split, so you have less leverage with processors.
Put every site on one payment platform and that goes away: one consolidated report, the same checkout everywhere, and your combined volume to negotiate with.
How Flipdish handles restaurant payments
Flipdish processes payments for every ordering channel - in-person, online, kiosk and phone - on one platform.
Orders and payments both land in the Flipdish POS system. One report, one reconciliation, one team to call when something breaks. Flipdish takes contactless, Apple Pay, Google Pay and all major card types in the UK and Ireland.
Restaurant groups get payment reporting for all their sites in one place, so nobody has to reconcile each location separately.
Have a look at the Flipdish POS hardware range for terminal options, or talk to the Flipdish team about which payment setup suits your restaurant.