Few industries feel the turn of the seasons as directly as South African hospitality, and that turn is happening right now. As winter loosens its grip, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, delis and takeaway counters that ticked over quietly through the cold months are staring down a short window before longer evenings, school holidays and the coastal season send customer numbers climbing again. Towa, a South African supplier of point of sale software and hardware with twenty five years behind it, is using September to put one message to operators nationwide: the till that held up mid winter may struggle in December, and the smart moment to fix that is ahead of the rush, not inside it.
Towa’s focus is point of sale system software and hardware for retail and hospitality businesses, run from a head office in Durban, a Cape Town branch and an international office in Eswatini. The software is cloud based, so an owner can review inventory and sales from anywhere instead of being chained to a back room terminal. In hospitality that flexibility matters most during the season now getting under way, when one operator might be juggling a floor, a kitchen, a bar and a delivery channel at once and simply cannot stand at the counter watching every part of it.
Why September Is the Month to Look at the Till
South African hospitality demand rises and falls by season in a way that is easy to discount right up until the first packed Saturday arrives. Trade climbs steadily from spring, stays strong across December and only eases again deep into the new year. Venues that hold off reviewing their systems until the line is already stretching out the door end up overhauling things during their top earning weeks, which is precisely the wrong time to be teaching staff a new screen or waiting on a hardware delivery.
Towa frames the September review as plain common sense. A slower month leaves an operator space to run a demo, pin down which modules genuinely suit how the venue trades, fit the hardware and let staff get comfortable on the system before it has to carry a full service. It also allows time to load the menu, the modifiers, the stock items and the staff logins correctly, the unglamorous groundwork that determines whether a busy night flows or collapses into a string of manual overrides.
Software Designed Around How Venues Actually Trade
Towa splits its offering into three parts: retail software, hospitality software and cloud back office software. The hospitality side is shaped around the everyday truths of a service business, where transactions have to move fast, orders have to reach the right station and the person at the front of the queue should never be left waiting on the system. The company builds the software to streamline processes so transactions stay swift and the experience at the counter or table holds firm under pressure.
The retail side does the same job for shops and counters, and much of South African hospitality lives somewhere between the two. A deli selling prepared meals next to packaged goods, a coffee shop with a retail shelf, or a bar moving branded stock all need a pos point of sale system that copes with both patterns without splitting the business into two separate setups. Since Towa covers retail and hospitality within one product family, an operator running a mixed model is never forced to pick one and improvise around the other.
The Back Office Is Where the Season Is Won
Of everything Towa offers, the cloud back office speaks most directly to what keeps a hospitality owner up at night during a busy season. It manages employee scheduling, which counts when a venue is adding seasonal shifts and needs to know who is on when without rebuilding a spreadsheet every week. It also carries in depth sales analytics, letting an operator see what is genuinely selling rather than trusting a gut feeling.
That kind of reporting separates reacting from planning. A venue that can see which dishes, drinks and day parts are driving the takings can buy stock, roster staff and set prices to suit. A venue that cannot is guessing its way into its most expensive weeks. And because the back office runs in the cloud, an owner with several sites, or simply an owner who is off the premises, can check any of it from anywhere with a connection.
Hardware Built for a Counter That Never Stops
A working till is only half software. Towa has worked with Senor Tech since 2009 on an all in one touch pos system made for exactly this setting. It is designed so peripherals connect without fuss and so the unit can be looked after without calling in a specialist for every minor hiccup, with after sales support standing behind it.
The range handles the connections a hospitality floor genuinely relies on, among them printers, scanners, scales, video and menu boards. For a takeaway counter that translates to kitchen printing and a menu board run off the same system. For a deli or bakery it means scales that speak directly to the till instead of a separate weighing point and someone keying numbers across. For a restaurant it means dockets landing exactly where they should when the floor is heaving. On their own these are small details, but together they decide whether a service glides or grinds to a halt.
Rental Packages for Operators Watching Cash Flow
The usual hesitation about upgrading before a busy season is the expense of doing it just as the business is also stocking up. Towa answers that by offering all of its packages on a fixed cost rental basis from R999 per month, aimed at operators who would sooner not tie up capital in equipment right before their heaviest trading stretch. The company pitches the rental option particularly at businesses short on start up funds, new venues opening into the season included.
A set monthly figure is also far easier to plan against. An owner mapping out spring and summer knows the system’s monthly cost rather than bracing for one lump payment, and the rental bundles software and hardware together instead of leaving the two to be sourced and matched on their own.
Support, Demos and Where to Find Towa
Towa maintains a support portal for existing customers and keeps a team of retail and hospitality specialists on hand for demonstrations and for questions about how the system might suit a given business. Offices open Monday to Thursday from 8am to 5pm and on Friday from 8am to 4pm.
The KZN head office sits at 9 Fairways Avenue, Mount Edgecombe, Durban. The Cape Town office is at Black River Park, 2 Fir Street, Observatory, where the company welcomes walk in demonstrations. Towa also operates through an international office, Swazi Cash Register in Eswatini. Operators anywhere in South Africa can contact the team on +27 87 474 8692 or at [email protected].
Venues weighing their choices for the season ahead will find full details of the software, the hardware range and the rental packages on the Towa website at https://www.towa.co.za/.
About Towa
Towa Data Systems is a South African provider of point of sale software and hardware for retail and hospitality businesses, marking twenty five years in the trade. The company supplies retail software, hospitality software and cloud based back office software covering employee scheduling and sales analytics, alongside all in one touch POS hardware developed with Senor Tech, a partnership in place since 2009. Packages are available on a fixed cost rental basis from R999 per month. Towa works out of a head office in Mount Edgecombe, Durban, a branch at Black River Park in Observatory, Cape Town, and an international office through Swazi Cash Register in Eswatini.
Media Contact
Towa
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +27 87 474 8692
Website: https://www.towa.co.za/
