Managing a restaurant's front of house is a tough job.

You have to guess how many customers will show up and when, and sometimes… they don't show up at all. 😐

An empty table means lost money and a wasted chance to make a customer happy. But that's where table management software comes in.

With the right restaurant software, you get this smart helper that keeps track of everything so you can focus on streamlining your service with great food and professional serving.

Let's dive into the different ways a table management system can help you keep those tables full and your restaurant employees and customers content.

What is table management software?

Table management software is a tool used mostly in the restaurant industry to organize and manage floor plans. It typically comes integrated with a broader restaurant reservation system, and you can think of it as a digital map and planner for all the tables in a restaurant, a planner that helps you:

• ️Manage tables and easily see which ones are occupied and who’s in charge of them.
• ️Register and manage reservations so your staff knows where to seat walk-in customers and what tables are already booked.
• ️Manage your waitlist to track waiting customers and seat them when a table becomes available.
• ️See useful reports like how many people visited, how long they waited, and other details to help you run the restaurant better.

Different software solutions have different functions, visuals, and table-tracking systems.

How does a table management system work?

A table management system works by matching up tables to groups of customers in the most efficient way possible. A good system should consider group size, arrival time, waiting period, and table turnover times.

Table management software typically has a bunch of useful features built in to help staff seat people quickly and without error. Check out the features below.

Real-time table status updates

This simple restaurant operation functionality allows you to select a table in the software and see its current status — e.g., occupied, needs cleaning, reserved, etc.

Thanks to its ease of use and showing data in real-time, the software helps your staff quickly respond to changes. It really takes off the pressure of restaurant waitlist management.

Digital floor plans

Floor plans show a digital layout of the restaurant, like a map where you see all the tables from above.

Having a floor plan that they can quickly glance at helps your staff spot which tables are free, which are taken, and sometimes even how many people sit at each table.

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Color-coded tables for tracking serving

Color coding offers a simplified way to look at your tables and reservation system and assess statuses quickly.

This feature is actually an alternative to a restaurant floor plan system and works like this:

• The tables within the restaurant are set up as 'Resources' in the software's settings, so the system recognizes each table as an individual entity that can be tracked.
• When staff marks a guest as served,  they can assign them a specific Resource (table) and type of service.  
• The assignments create a real-time information overview of the restaurant's operations, showing the occupied and available tables and the progress of each table's service.  
• Tables can be displayed in green for served, yellow for checked-in, blue for booked, and red for overdue.

What benefits can you get from using table management software?

Restaurant table management software helps you:

• Handle new reservations professionally
• Seat customers efficiently
• Move through your waitlist faster
• Reduce the number of front-of-house staff you need

Practically, all those benefits equate to making restaurant customers feel like they’re being treated fairly — and yes, fairness is proven to be important —  because nobody likes that feeling of “Hey, we got here first. Why did you seat that couple before us!”

Luckily, you can avoid all the awkwardness by using a restaurant app that does table management. Beyond increasing customer satisfaction, these mobile apps can increase your table turnover and revenue without increasing your labor costs.

4 Ways restaurant seating software works to increase revenue

A large-scale study on restaurant customers showed that simply reducing wait times can bring restaurant owners a 15% monthly revenue increase. That’s huge if you compound it over a year of operation.

Here’s how a restaurant table management system is a smart business choice that also helps your front-of-house teams give better service.

1. It streamlines customer flow

Research shows people are highly sensitive to being treated fairly while waiting for a table. One particular study revealed that the longer your customers wait, the less time they’ll spend at the table and the longer it’ll take them to return.

So, making fewer errors, which table management software helps with, will make your customers feel better treated and more likely to return, spending more money at your place.

2. It helps you prioritize big group reservations

It’s a well-known fact that big groups tend to order more menu items and, therefore, they often contribute to higher bills. Still, the challenge isn’t just in attracting these groups but also in making them feel welcome, which is where efficient table management software plays its part.

Once you get the hang of your table management software, you can accommodate larger parties swifter and give them a better customer experience, noticing increased revenues. Use:

• Floor plan updates to quickly identify which tables you can combine to accommodate a large party.  
• Data on peak times for large groups, average spending, and customer feedback, so you can tailor your marketing with special promotions and menu adjustments during those large groups' peak hours.

3. It makes managing no-shows easy

Imagine you’re a 60-seat restaurant with reservations accounting for 30% of your traffic and a $30 average spend per person. If your no-show rate for reservations is 10%, you’d be losing $420 per week.

No-shows are costly unless you can quickly confirm them and seat the next person in line. And if you pick a table management system for restaurants with waitlist management and text messaging, it really is easy to invite someone from the waitlist when a reservation is canceled.

Manage your no-shows with maximum efficiency, and you’ll get faster table turnover, fewer time slots that go unused, and, again, more money from your daily operations.

4. It gathers useful data and insights over time

As a busy restaurant owner or manager, looking into data and insights might feel like yet another heavy task on your plate.

But here’s how the data you could get from your table management software would really lift some of the everyday weight:

• Know your busy and slow times: The software helps you figure out when your restaurant is super busy and when it's kind of slow. This way, you can plan to have more staff during rush hours and fewer when it's quiet, so you're not wasting money on extra help you don't need.  
• Speed up table turnover: Look at how long people usually hang out at their tables. With this info, you can find ways to serve them faster and free up tables quicker, letting more customers dine in.  
  • For instance, if customers spend a bit too much time waiting for the menu, placing the order, or processing the payment at the end of the meal, you can look into digital menus and ordering options and facilitate prompter payment processing like mobile payments.

Introducing TablesReady: The ultimate tool for waitlist & table management

TablesReady is a simple waitlist management system with intuitive features built-in:

• Waitlist, appointments, and reservations functions
• Guest SMS messaging and automation features
• Floor plans and analytics
• Integrations with Square POS and Reserve with Google

In short, it offers you everything you need to text your waiting customers instead of shouting their names or actually going looking for them. And it shows you a customizable floor plan at a glance.

Here’s a walkthrough of TablesReady’s main functionalities and powerful tools.

The app has a user-friendly interface, works on any device with internet, sends text messages with one button tap, and has flexible pricing. For example, you could only use it during your peak season, turn off the monthly subscription during downtime.

Get started with a digital floor plan in 4 simple steps

The beauty of TablesReady is that it’s so intuitive, it doesn’t even feel like new tech. Especially for your younger staff members.

Realistically, you only have to sit down for 30 minutes to get your floor plan set up and working. Here’s how one active user summed up getting started with TablesReady at their restaurant:

“Really is that easy. I didn't even train anybody on how to use it. I literally just said, 'It's self-explanatory’ to my staff, and they were good to go."

We also have a video walk-through that covers both setting up online bookings and your floor plan here:

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Step #1. Log in and customize your settings

TablesReady works in a web browser, so you can basically access it from any device with internet access.

Sign up or log in to your account, ideally from a tablet or PC.

From here, to hit the ground running, focus on its two most used features, the Floor Plan and the Waitlist sections.

Before you can move tables around and update their statuses, you first create and customize the tables you have in your restaurant.

You can customize each table by adding its name and the capacity. But you also have display options, like how you want it to show up in your floor plan —  size, shape, angle — so you can make the floor plan on your tablet look as close to your actual setting as possible.

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You can review our full article on creating your floorplan.

Next, set up your waitlist system:

1. Go to Settings, at Notifications, and enable, disable, or customize specific notifications. If you need more information, check out this support page.
2. From the same Settings menu, under the Waitlist Options, choose your default wait time, displayed fields, and all the other available settings.
3. Furthermore, you can access the Public Pages section and tweak it based on this detailed guide on how Public Pages work.
4. Finally, set up your self-service check-in. You can create a QR code, embed your Waitlist into your website, or enable SMS Sign-Up if you want to facilitate contactless self-check-in for your waiting customers.

Step #2. Add customers to the waitlist

Adding customers to the waitlist is easy.

When you have new customers walk in

When a new customer enters your restaurant, the host can greet them, ask for their name and phone number, and add them to the waitlist app.

Alternatively, they can join your waitlist by themselves using the QR code you set up at step 1.

As soon as they are added to the list, a confirmation message — along with the option to opt out of your waitlist management system — will pop on their phone:

Step #3. Notify the customer

When you’re ready to seat a waiting guest, suffices to tap the Text icon under the Notify field in the app.

The client will get another message on their phone, to which they can reply if they want or need.

Step #4. Update the table’s status in the floor plan

With all your tables laid out in the Floor Plan section of the app, you can see an overall image of all the tables:

• Checked in — Orange
• Booked — Blue
• Served — Green
• Waiting — Grey
• Overdue — Red

For each table status, you also have a list of all associated customers.

You can manually edit the status of the table or the status of a customer. For instance, when a guest checks in with the host, the table will also update its color.

As the serving progresses, they’ll update the status to Served.

When a party leaves, you access the Served list and hit the Completed button under the name of the party that just left. That table will automatically turn from green to white, showing it’s available again.

And that’s it.

The host will check the waitlist and message the next person in line that they can be seated shortly.

Everything runs smoothly, with tables turning almost like clockwork.

Try top-rated table management software for free

Restaurateur Erik Joyal says the most expensive thing in a restaurant is an empty seat.

That's where table management systems step in, working to:

• Make those empty seats a rarity rather than the norm.
• Give your customers the best possible guest experience without costing you money.

Create a free account with TablesReady today and enjoy the benefits of this waitlist, table reservations, and table management software in minutes.

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