Golf Course POS Systems
As you know, there’s a lot more to managing a golf course than just turf maintenance.
Will your pro shop be stocked with everything your guests need? Will your restaurants consistently provide a service worth staying for? What about schedules?
How will you keep track of which tee times your customers prefer? What about golf instruction? Customer service management? Employee management? Performance analysis? Accountancy?
To keep on top of all of this, you will need an excellent POS system.
Read on to see which one of our top 5 golf course POS systems is the best fit to help you manage your day-to-day operations.Phew! You've got your work cut out for you! If you want to keep up, at the very least, you'll need a good POS system.
POS System | Hardware Cost | Software Cost | Booking Management | Food and Beverage | Customer Management | Performance Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Included | Quote- based | 10/10 | 9/10 | 8/10 | 10/10 |
 | Quote- based | From $49 per month | 8/10 | 8/10 | 9/10 | 8/10 |
 | Quote- Based | From $200 per month | 9/10 | 9/10 | 10/10 | 8/10 |
 | Quote- Based | From $99 per module per month | 8/10 | 8/10 | 9/10 | 9/10 |
 | From $600 per POS bundle | From $995 (single- license) | 7/10 | 8/10 | 8/10 | 7/10 |
The 5 Best Golf Course POS Systems
Quick Answer:
Teesnap - Top pick overall
Korona - Best Value Management Software
Lightspeed - Best for Pro Shop Retail
ForeUP - Best for Membership Management
AIM - Transparent Pricing
The Teesnap golf course Point of Sale (POS) system is a complete golf club management solution.
Handling all aspects of your operations, and with tablet apps so most features can be accessed whether in the clubhouse or out on course.
Teesnap is, for me, the best available system overall, excelling in several key areas.
It's also surprisingly user-friendly for such a comprehensive package, the entire staff training process can be completed within a single day.
Their quotes tend to appear high compared to other software providers, but don't be put off at first glance as the price includes all the necessary hardware and servicing.
Bookings and Tee Sheets
According to their website, the need for a better tee sheet system than those previously available is the main reason Teesnap was developed.
When booking a tee time, there's a user-friendly system for golfers to invite friends to join their round. Making bookings for regular partners/groups is facilitated, with the system recognizing players who often book together and populating a suggestions list once a booking is made for one of those players. Alternatively, you can copy a whole group reservation and paste it into the slot for their next session.
The Teesnap system also allows you to allocate and monitor cart rentals, deal with no-shows or pro-rata rainchecks effortlessly. All of this is available from the mobile app, so booking management can be handled from anywhere.
Food and Beverage
The food and beverage capabilities of the Teesnap pos system are equally impressive. The digital process is based around ipads being used by the servers to take orders and have the relevant tickets automatically sent to the kitchen and/or bar. The easy-to-use interface allows for a whole host of service functions, such as: adding preset or custom modifiers to orders, bill splitting, promotional bundles, and tipping.
From the fulfillment perspective, you can go fully digital or have tickets automatically printed as orders are taken, depending on what best suits your kitchen workflow.
Reports and analysis
Teesnap generates customizable reports on everything from your best-selling menu items to which times of the week are golfers most likely to be late for their tee time. These can be grouped into dashboards for easy oversight and displayed using a wide range of graph and chart formats.
The system is also geared up for larger operators who run multiple golf courses, allowing analysis to be carried out both within and between the individual sites seamlessly.
#2 Best Value Management Software- Korona
Although the Korona cloud-based POS system is not specific to the golf industry, it contains all the features you need to successfully run a golf course (or several).
Korona provide tailored solutions for various sectors, from bike shops and wineries to restaurants, amusement parks, and museums, so whether on the retail side or online bookings and membership packages, they've got you covered.
Picking Modules
Korona has an incredibly low starting price at $49/month, which enables standard POS operations. This basic system will cover your pro shop retail needs, from sales to inventory management. It also allows the generation of reports based around customizable KPIs, specific products, or analysis between individual shifts.
Extra modules can be added from as little as $10 each. These provide a huge range of features: customer relationship management, an online booking system, food and beverage systems, etc. The benefit of this plug-in-based approach is in allowing you to only pay for the facilities you actually want to use.
eCommerce Integration
One of the biggest strengths of this system is the capacity for both seamless eCommerce integration with your website, and compatibility with a host of third-party eCommerce platforms and applications, so you're not limited to the (already impressive) functionality of the system itself.
This means you can give your members a one-stop-shop online service, allowing them to sign up for membership packages, purchase clubs, use online booking for tee times and participate in points-based customer loyalty schemes before even leaving their home to head down to the course.
In turn, members being able to engage online reduces the burden on your staff of processing transactions and doing data entry for new members. This frees them up to spend their time in the most productive manner, engaging with and supporting members.
ForeUP are another golf-specific outfit providing an impressively comprehensive golf course management system.
In addition to the retail, food and beverage, and tee sheet software you would expect from a golf course POS system, the company has a strong focus on marketing solutions and web design.
If you're either a relatively new club or in the process of re-branding, they provide everything you need to put your golf course on the map.
Tee Sheets
The cloud-based online booking and tee sheet software from ForeUP is squarely aimed at maximizing the occupancy of your facilities, and therefore your profit margins.
Members receive automated confirmation and reminder messages about their upcoming bookings to help make sure they arrive on time, along with "thank you" messages after their round which offer a quick re-booking option for their next session.
Automated checks and employee restrictions prevent errors such as double-bookings when a combination of online and in-person bookings is in use. Meanwhile, comprehensive golf course usage reporting including heat maps let you analyze your peak times, and underused sessions where you might want to incentivize club members to book in.
Websites and Marketing
ForeUP offer a complete design and support service for your golf course website. You have full control over the style and layout but their dedicated marketing experts will provide guidance to ensure seamless operation and maximum impact.
Other marketing features available include SMS (text) campaigns which can be customized for groups or individual members, based on the comprehensive user data retained in the member management database. There are also a wide selection of email marketing templates ready to be populated with your promotions and including a library of stock images to make sure your offers really stand out.
Food and Beverage
The F&B capabilities of the ForeUP POS system are as individually customizable as their club management features. Everything from table layout to the displays and item layouts seen by your staff can be set up to minimize the amount of time required to navigate menus and generate order tickets.
These operations aren't tied to specific hardware either. Like the Teesnap F&B module, everything is optimized for tablets so your servers can input orders directly for transmission to the kitchen, rather than taking paper orders and inputting separately at the till.
#4 Best for Pro Shop Retail - Lightspeed
Lightspeed are another general POS and business solutions company who offer golf course management software as a variation on their standard system.
This is based on the Chronogolf system which has been acquired by Lightspeed.
All of the most popular features have been preserved, with a few added tweaks based on the parent company's extensive experience in the point of sale industry.
Pro Shop POS Features
Lightspeed has one of the most powerful, feature-packed, retail platforms around, and their golf point of sale solution takes full advantage of this.
Transactions associated with bookings (green fees for guests, instruction fees, cart/club hire, etc) can be made directly from the tee sheet, rather than having to go into a separate payment module. Inventory management can be set up to automatically alert you when the stock of a particular product falls below your threshold for replenishment, complete with partially populated purchase orders to speed up the process and a procurement tracking feature.
On the reporting side, all your pro shop sales data can be viewed as a complete overview or broken down in any way you choose via an easy-to-use reporting interface.
If you operate more than one golf course location, Lightspeed is one of the best enterprise POS systems and can easily accommodate the needs of multi-location businesses.
Integration
Similarly to Korona, Lightspeed prides themselves on the increased functionality available through integration. With 20+ integration partners, including the business apps Mailchimp, Ikeono, Kangaroo Rewards, Oracle, and WorldPay, in addition to third-party golf course management software providers, there's really no end to the features you can plug into your Lightspeed system.
The downside is that features made available by integration will require purchasing access to the external applications.
Food and Beverage
In addition to all of the ordering and billing features you would expect from an F&B Point of Sale system, the Lightspeed version has a couple of really handy extra features. The best of these is the ability to generate tables and bar tabs directly from the tee sheet. This saves hassle every time a group of golfers makes the walk from the 18th green to the "19th hole."
The AIM management system from Tri-Technical Systems is another general-purpose POS platform offering a version with golf-specific features.
Covering all aspects of golf management very competently and, although lacking some of the unique features which make other systems stand out in specific areas, it's a competent golf course operations solution if you're either looking for a no-frills approach or happy to purchase add-ons for the extra features you want to use.
Tee Sheet
The base version of the AIM POS booking system handles scheduling and bookings via a simple interface. It allows you to generate booking confirmation emails, customize the scheduling intervals and collect user data easily.
However, integration with third-party apps is required to allow online booking functions and real-time monitoring, and many clubs find these to be vital features.
Reporting
The POS base system includes a catalog of preset report templates, allowing you to analyze key metrics without having to design custom reports first. You can filter transaction or membership types and adjust the layout of the generated reports to give you the best view of whatever you're focused on at the time.
Reports can be generated for membership, course/range usage, Food and Beverage sales, and employee information as well as retail sales.
Inventory and Pricing
One unusual feature in this golf management software is the option to set multiple prices for inventory items, depending on the station, customer category, or time of the sale. This means you can run specific promotions without having to make manual entry changes and helps avoid mistakes.
Factors To Consider When Buying
When looking for the best golf course Point of Sale system, you need to make sure it includes all the functionality required to handle your whole operation. If you end up with some activities being processed via the POS but others done separately, you're going to sacrifice the ability to easily maintain oversight and conduct proper analysis on your business.
This means you'll usually need to look at a system specifically tailored for golf clubs. Here are a few of the aspects which need to be considered, although the relative importance of each depends on the focus of your club.
Sales and rentals
This is actually one of the more straightforward aspects, as any retail Point of Sale system is designed to handle these functions, from generating receipts to processing credit card payments.
However, look out for aspects such as ease of eCommerce integration and inventory management if you want to get the best out of your golf course POS system.
Performance reporting and analytics are also vital to make sure you're selling the right products at the right prices and marketing to the right members.
Food and Beverage
Your restaurant and/or bar are going to get really busy, or at least they should. The best golf course POS for your F&B needs includes features that are going to save time for servers whilst minimizing errors. The biggest of these is choosing a system where orders taken at the table are directly transmitted to the kitchen and bar.
Tee sheets
If you've ever done these manually, you know how time-consuming it can be. Online booking for tee times removes all of that. The difference between the various POS systems on offer is the extent to which they support the reality of the process. Are there features that help avoid or track no-shows? Does the reporting give you data that supports more efficient scheduling? These are the key things to look for.
Member Management
This is the core of a club's business. Converting guests to members, rewarding and promoting customer loyalty, and promoting the right products and services to customers, all rely on knowing those customers. The best club management solutions not only allow you to collect and collate customer data via the management CRM system but also to take advantage of that data by generating meaningful insights.
Tyler Connaghan
Contributing Author