Restaurant POS software NF525: comparison and compliance 2026

The till is the operational heart of any restaurant: it takes payment, splits VAT, tracks sales and, in the near future, will transmit transaction data directly to the tax authority. Badly chosen or non-compliant, it exposes you to a €7,500 fine and corrupts all the accounts downstream. This is the 2026 comparison of restaurant POS software, examined through the lens of compliance and financial steering.

Since 1 January 2018, article 286-I-3° bis of the Code général des impôts (CGI) requires every VAT-registered business that records customer payments via a software or POS system to use a system meeting four conditions: integrity, security, retention and archiving of the data.

Compliance is proved in two ways, both of equivalent legal standing:

• an NF525 certification issued by an accredited body (AFNOR or LNE); or
• an individual publisher attestation from the software vendor.

The absence of either exposes you to a €7,500 fine per software (article 1770 duodecies of the CGI), which can be levied even where no fraud has been found, on top of the risk of having your revenue reconstructed by the tax authority. One critical point: the attestation must cover the exact version of the software in use — a major update requires a new attestation.

Systematic check at onboarding. When we take on a new restaurant client, we request and archive the NF525 attestation. It is straightforward to obtain from the publisher, but many venues have never asked for it — and it is precisely the document that is missing on the day of a tax inspection.

NF525 compliance is a prerequisite, not a differentiator: every serious system on the market offers it. The real sorting happens on:

• the venue format (traditional restaurant, quick-service, café-bar, food truck, chain);
• native multi-rate VAT splitting (10% / 5.5% / 20%) and handling of decomposed menus;
• delivery-platform connection (Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat) to eliminate double-entry;
• connection to accounting and payroll software (export or native integration);
• management reporting: food cost, sales by product family, by service period, by sales channel;
• readiness for the 2026-2027 e-invoicing reform (data transmission to the PPF or a PDP).

Indicative comparison. NF525 compliance (certification or publisher attestation) must be verified for the version actually in use. The right choice depends on your format, volume and ecosystem.

This table is not a ranking: a café does not have the same needs as a chain. The right software is the one that fits your specific format, connects to your accounting and delivery platforms, and gives you useful management data — not the most feature-rich one in the abstract.

The e-invoicing reform changes the way you should approach POS selection. From 1 September 2026, all businesses must be able to receive electronic invoices; the timeline for issuing electronic invoices and for e-reporting B2C transaction data to the tax authority runs through to 1 September 2027 for SMEs and micro-businesses (see our article on VAT and invoicing in restaurants).

In concrete terms, a modern POS system must be able to transmit transaction data to the Portail Public de Facturation (PPF) — the public e-invoicing portal — or to a plateforme de dématérialisation partenaire (PDP), a certified partner dematerialisation platform. Choosing a till today that is not preparing for this transition is programming a costly migration in the short term. It has become a stand-alone selection criterion in its own right.

A good till does not only record payments: it produces the restaurant's management data. Properly configured, it splits revenue by product family (food, drinks, desserts), by service period (lunch, dinner), by sales channel (in-house, takeaway, delivery) and by VAT rate. These are precisely the figures needed to calculate food cost, margin by channel and overall profitability.

A poorly configured till — catch-all product families, approximate VAT rates — produces data that is impossible to use. The initial configuration, often overlooked, is just as important as the choice of software.

A restaurant had been using a well-regarded, nominally compliant POS system for three years, but had never retrieved the publisher's attestation — and the software had been updated in the interim. During a tax inspection, the attestation covering the version actually in service could not be found. The restaurant faced a €7,500 fine. An urgent approach to the publisher (to obtain an attestation covering the correct version) made it possible to present the document in time. Since then, the attestation is archived and updated with every version upgrade — a two-minute formality that avoids €7,500.

Choosing the software is a one-off decision; the configuration is the structural work that governs the quality of every piece of data produced thereafter. In our client files, poorly configured tills are the leading source of accounting anomalies in the restaurant sector — and they go unnoticed precisely because the till appears to be functioning normally.

The critical points to verify or build at opening:

1. VAT-rate allocation. In French catering, three rates coexist: 10% on food and non-alcoholic drinks served in-house or as takeaway, 5.5% on certain products (water, some fruit juices depending on classification), and 20% on alcoholic drinks and certain other products. Each product family must be assigned to the correct rate from the moment it is created — a dish placed in the wrong family generates incorrect VAT collected across every subsequent accounting period. A tax audit reconstructing revenue by rate from the till journals reveals this discrepancy immediately.

2. Menu decomposition. A set menu comprising a starter, main and dessert should ideally be split by component (each dish at 10%, any included alcoholic drink at 20%) or handled under the single-service rule when conditions are met (see our article on VAT in restaurants). A till that rings through the entire menu at a single blended rate is almost always a source of error.

3. Product families. Families such as "miscellaneous" or "kitchen" without sub-categories make it impossible to calculate food cost by category. Families must align with the menu and the management dashboard you want: starters, meat, fish, desserts, hot drinks, cold drinks, alcoholic drinks.

4. Sales channels. In-house dining, takeaway, delivery via platform, and click and collect — each channel must be traceable separately. This is the prerequisite for reading margin by channel and detecting that a delivery platform, with its commission of 25% to 30%, destroys the margin on certain dishes (see our article on accounting for Uber Eats and Deliveroo).

5. Complimentary items and discounts. A complimentary item that is not traced is an unexplained till discrepancy. Every discount (for staff, press, loyalty programme, goodwill gesture) must have a dedicated key so that it appears in the journal and allows monitoring of deliberate losses.

This configuration is done once, but must be reviewed with every menu change or pricing structure update. We carry it out or validate it at the point of onboarding for every new restaurant client.

The till produces, each day, the sales journal: a summary of revenue by VAT rate, by sales channel and by payment method. This journal is the primary document for revenue accounting — it must reconcile exactly with the receipts shown on the bank statement.

Two architectures are possible:

Manual export (common in small venues). The manager exports a daily or weekly summary — usually as a CSV or PDF — and sends it to the firm. The risk: omissions, inconsistent formats, reconciliation errors against the bank statement. The advantage: zero cost.

Direct connection or automatic integration. Some POS systems interface with accounting software (Pennylane, Sage, Cegid, QuadraCompta) via native connectors or third-party tools (Spendesk, Dext). The till journal is transmitted automatically, reconciled against receipts, and anomalies surface without waiting for the year-end close. This is the architecture we recommend for any restaurant with revenue above a few hundred thousand euros: the gain in reliability clearly outweighs the cost of the integration.

Watch-point: when a restaurant uses multiple delivery platforms, the till typically records the net amount remitted by the platform, not the gross amount billed to the customer. Gross revenue must be reconstructed from the platform statements to avoid understating revenue and to correctly reconcile VAT collected. This is a recurring discrepancy we identify systematically during till reviews.

A multi-channel restaurant (in-house dining, Uber Eats delivery, takeaway) had configured all its sales at 10%, including alcoholic drinks sold in-house. Two years after opening, a review of the configuration revealed a shortfall in VAT collected on alcohol sales. The potential reassessment covered all non-statute-barred periods. The correction was made by voluntary disclosure, accompanied by amended returns — a complex process, but far preferable to a full tax audit. The lesson: a till configuration audit at the point of onboarding costs a few hours; it can prevent several years of back-tax adjustments.

NF525 compliance (certification or publisher attestation, covering the version in use) is a legal prerequisite, sanctioned by a €7,500 fine. Beyond that, choose your till on the basis of venue format, VAT splitting capability, connections (delivery platforms, accounting software, payroll), 2026-2027 e-invoicing readiness and management data quality. And give the configuration the attention it deserves: it is what turns a till into a margin management tool.

To validate your till's compliance and prepare for 2026, see our restaurant accounting support service, our 2026 e-invoicing support service and our complete 2026 restaurant accounting guide.

Updated 3 June 2026. This comparison is indicative and does not constitute a commercial recommendation; NF525 compliance must be verified for the exact version of the software in use. Sources: impots.gouv.fr, Code général des impôts (CGI).