Floreant POS Review: Offline Processing for Mobile Food Businesses
With more than a decade of hospitality experience, Mary has worked in some of the most celebrated restaurants in the world. Her expertise is featured across Fit Small Business in restaurant, retail, and starting a business content.
Agatha Aviso is a writer of the Reviews Section at Fit Small Business, focusing on order fulfillment and eCommerce platforms. Agatha has a decade’s worth of experience writing online content for small businesses and marketing industries. She also served as a content strategist and digital marketing manager for many entrepreneurs.
This article is part of a larger series on POS Systems.
In our review of the best open source POS software for small businesses, Floreant POS earned a 2.73 out of 5, based on our evaluation of 23 data points such as pricing, checkout and management features, ease of use, and our test of the software. With its restaurant-specific basic features and offline capabilities, the POS is best for startup food businesses, mobile food trucks, pop-up food stalls, and traveling food carts.
Floreant POS
Overall Score:
2.73 / 5
What We Like
- Basic program is free
- Relatively quick installation
- Strong offline mode
What's Missing
- Lacks customer management tools
- Advanced features are paid add-ons
- No customer support
- Difficult to customize reports
- Very basic reporting and analytics
When to Use Floreant POS:
- Small and startup food businesses needing an open source system: Floreant POS provides basic features to manage dine-in, takeout, and bar tab operations.
- Mobile food trucks, pop-up food stalls, and traveling food carts: Floreant POS can run offline and operate on mobile devices with minimum system requirements.
When to Use an Alternative
- Large or upscale restaurants: Floreant POS lacks inventory management and customer relationship tools. See our recommended restaurant POS systems to find a more suitable one.
- Regulated industries: Floreant POS lacks features to manage unique industry regulations, such as those for liquor and tobacco. Check out our recommended vape shop, liquor store, and convenience store POS systems for a better fit.
Floreant POS was developed to update the POS software of a popular restaurant business in 2008; hence, it is designed primarily for food businesses. Like other open source POS systems, Floreant is locally installed and can run offline, and any user can adjust the code after downloading. This particular software has very light system requirements—allowing it to operate on tablets and mobile devices. It provides basic restaurant POS features such as kitchen display and table service.
The downside is that it can be more difficult and expensive to set up and maintain than a commercial product. In fact, we only list commercial products in our guide to the best restaurant POS systems for this reason.
Looking for something different?
See our guide to the best POS systems for small businesses to find a solution that matches your needs. If you are on a budget but do not want the complexities of an open source product, there are also several free commercial POS systems available.
Floreant POS Deciding Factors
Supported Business Types | Retail Small or startup food businesses, mobile food trucks, pop-up food stalls, and traveling food carts |
Standout Features |
|
Monthly Software Fees | Free to install on an unlimited number of devices |
Setup and Installation Fees | $0 |
Contract Length | No vendor lock-in |
Payment Processing Options | Exclusive to Authorize.net |
Payment Processing Fees | 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction |
Customer Support | None |
Floreant POS Alternatives
Best For | Monthly Fee From | Full Review | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Those requiring an all-purpose, free, and mobile POS | $0 with payment processing; some features add on | |
 | Brick-and-mortar retailers | $99 | |
 | Grocery stores and high-volume sales | $99 | |
 | Restaurants | $69 plus $500 installation fee | |
See how Floreant POS compares with our top POS systems.
Floreant POS is free. With the initial download, you get access to its basic features that include point of sale, table service, kitchen control, user-level permissions, and a mobile register.
Add-on modules for advanced features have a monthly fee.
- Floreant Cust (home delivery and pickup): $9.99/month per terminal
- Floreant Inventory: $9.99/month per terminal
- Floreant Floorplan (visual floor planning): $9.99/month per terminal
Floreant POS’ features are very basic, but if you’re just starting your restaurant business and budget is a top concern, it is worth trying before upgrading to paid platforms.
If you need more features, such as a customer-facing display or online ordering system integration, consider upgrading to ORO POS, Floreant’s paid version. It costs $34.99 per month, per terminal (paid annually), and includes tips payout, more flexible reporting features, and the ability to split tabs. A Floreant POS vs ORO POS comparison guide can be found on the provider’s website.
Floreant POS Payments & Hardware
It uses Authorize.net as its payment processor. You are not required to purchase hardware from Floreant POS, and it even provides a list of recommended hardware equipment and accessories.
Make sure that your hardware of choice meets these minimum operating requirements:
- Any OS that supports Java 8
- 1024×786 or higher resolution display
- At least dual-core Intel processor
- 4GB memory
- 64GB hard drive
Floreant POS delivers basic register and checkout functionalities, with emphasis on its strong offline mode. However, this strength is also its biggest downside as the POS system does not operate on a cloud, so contactless payments and online ordering are not possible. You also need to upgrade to its paid version to be able to implement a loyalty program for your customers.
Offline & Modular
Since Floreant POS is not a cloud-based platform, it runs without an internet connection. This can be useful for mobile food trucks where you are unsure of the connection in your location. Additionally, Floreant POS can run on tablets (like Microsoft Surface 4 and Dell Venue Pro) that support Java configuration. This allows you more mobility, as you can process and take orders away from your register.
Its templates and database are designed to handle different types of products and flexible to different food businesses—dine-in, fast food, bar, or any other type. You can modify the code if you are tech-savvy enough to make it exactly the way you want.
Floreant POS’ takeout view screen instantly takes the order and sends the items to the kitchen. (Source: Floreant.org)
Cash Tracking
Cash terminals linked to Floreant POS can receive magnetic cards and partial payments and even calculate discounts, allowing you to accept a wide range of payment types. It also directly connects the cash drawer in each terminal, and managers can assign a drawer to an employee and reconcile it when they leave the store.
An example view of payments. 1–4. Payment methods, 5. Payment received, 6. Number pad, 7. Tips, if any. 8. Print receipt. (Source: Floreant.org)
Overall, Floreant POS has basic management tools for employee management, payroll reporting, and financial reporting. It does not have customer management tools.
Since the system was developed primarily for restaurants, most of its features focus on restaurant needs. Its employee management tools are a perfect example. Floreant POS provides different dashboards based on set user-level permissions. For example, servers can access table and kitchen management options, while managers can assign cash drawers, payout employee tips, split tickets, and confirm voiding any ticket.
Restaurant Management Tools
Once an order is keyed in, managers can send specific cooking instructions to the kitchen and even include guest requests. Managers can also monitor kitchen wastage, allowing them to manage the food and plan to reduce or eliminate waste.
This is an example of food orders with customer ingredients and cooking instructions when seen in Floreant POS. (Source: Floreant.org)
Floreant POS offers both kitchen printers and kitchen display options with its system able to group printers and route requests accordingly.
With Floreant POS’ kitchen display views, restaurants can save on printing costs as you can use this view to see kitchen orders. (Source: Floreant.org)
Reporting
Floreant POS is equipped with standard management information system reports: daily sales reports, sales summaries, drawer pull reports, and more.
- Quick and easy installation
- Intuitive interface
- Self-service onboarding
- Live chat support
- Help desk
- Library of how-to guides
It takes only a few minutes to download Floreant POS. Since it is open source, it is released “as is” and does not offer much support for customization or dedicated support for onboarding.
It does provide detailed installation and how-to guides on its website that can help you with setup and use, along with live chat support and a 24/7 help desk. A toll-free number is indicated on its support page but doesn’t specify customer service hours.
Floreant POS Setup & Installation
While setting up an open source POS can be more complicated than downloading a cloud-based POS app, Floreant’s process is relatively easy. You just need to download the software’s zip file and the latest version of Java.
There are plenty of how-to videos to help you—there’s even an installation guide available—but here are the steps:
- Download the software on your computer
- Create a new database
- Configure initial POS setup
- Configure back office (printer, currency, users, customer display, products, and more)
Once you have configured your back office settings, you can start using Floreant POS in your restaurant.
Here, we considered any unique or standout features, as well as the overall value the POS provides, user reviews, and feedback based on our own experience testing the system.
Overall, Floreant POS is a bare-bones POS option. It can easily be adapted and changed to fit your business’s needs. However, we find some of its features lacking; tip management and customer management are essential to a restaurant business, especially if you want to scale.
That being said, if you feel confident that you can use software with no customer support, Floreant POS might be the perfect fit. Most user reviews are satisfied with how the software runs.
Floreant POS User Reviews
As expected, most users love that Floreant POS is free. A majority mentioned that it is also easy to install and has a simple and straightforward interface. There were not a lot of complaints, but most of the negative feedback centered around the lack of advanced features and available integrations.
At the time of publication, Floreant POS reviews earned the following scores on popular user review sites:
- Capterra: 4.8 out of 5 based on about 5 reviews
- G2: 4.3 out of 5 based on 2 reviews
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Quick and easy to install | Sometimes lags and crashes |
| User-friendly | Limited integrations |
| Free | Difficult to customize reports |
Methodology: How We Evaluated Floreant POS
We evaluated Floreant POS by testing the system ourselves and grading it against the criteria we use to evaluate the best open source POS software. We considered features that business owners expect from any POS software and considered the advantages of open source platforms—adaptability, community support, and compatibility with different operating systems. We also looked for a modern interface, active updates, and depth of features.
Click through the tabs below for a more detailed breakdown of evaluation criteria:
30%
Management Features
20%
Checkout Features
20%
Ease of Use
20%
Expert Score
10%
Pricing
30% of Overall Score
We looked for essential POS features such as inventory, customer relations, and employee management (including logins and clock in/out), as well as the number and value of reports—whether they were customizable or offer template versions. Bonus points were given to those that provide email marketing as well. Floreant POS got docked points for lacking a CRM tool and email marketing feature, and for having basic inventory and employee management features.
20% of Overall Score
We evaluated features such as tipping management—an essential feature for retail and restaurant businesses—giving priority to cash tracking and the ability to reconcile registers at the day’s end. Loyalty programs, gift cards, contactless payments, and online ordering were also features we looked into. Floreant POS would have earned a perfect score if it had features for online ordering, contactless payments, and customer management.
20% of Overall Score
We looked at the platform interface but also looked for user comments and complaints about features and backend issues. Since point-of-sale systems are used round-the-clock in business operations, they must be intuitive and easy to troubleshoot. We also paid attention to the software’s customer service hours and whether the program can run offline or is cloud-based. Since Floreant POS doesn’t operate on a cloud and releases the software “as is” with no warranty or support, it earned low scores. However, its strongest feature is its offline mode function.
20% of Overall Score
This category is a holistic evaluation of features vs cost, customer support, and popularity in terms of the number of users. We also considered online user reviews, including those of our competitors—with the standard of having an average of 4+ rating considered ideal. Floreant POS had above-average scores in all of these criteria.
10% of Overall Score
Nearly all open source software is free, but the ones that ranked well charged a small fee or offered paid add-ons or upgrades. Aside from the free versions, we also considered the maximum number of users, devices, inventory, and transactions a platform can support. Integrated payment processing options were considered as well. Based on these criteria, Floreant POS got a perfect score.
*Percentages of overall score
Floreant POS Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Who should use Floreant POS?
Floreant POS is ideal for startup food businesses that need a free POS system. Since it can run offline and has light system requirements, Floreant POS is also ideal for mobile food trucks, pop-up food stalls, and traveling food carts.
When should I use a Floreant POS alternative?
Floreant POS lacks advanced restaurant POS features such as inventory management and customer relationship tools, making it a less-than-ideal choice. We recommend some of our top picks for restaurant POS systems for a more suitable one.
Bottom Line
If you need more advanced features, consider getting ORO POS. However, its free version, Floreant POS, is a good option if you are just starting your food business and would like to keep operating costs down. It is quick and easy to install, comes ready for several databases, and can run in offline mode. Download it to get started.
