Key takeaways
- 1In Saudi Arabia the first test of restaurant software is tax: it must issue Arabic or bilingual simplified tax invoices with a QR code, and from your ZATCA wave it must also report each one to ZATCA’s Fatoora platform.
- 2ZATCA’s Wave 25 brings businesses above SAR 187,500 in taxable revenue into Phase 2 from 1 February 2027, which includes many small restaurants and cafés.
- 3A POS that only prints a QR code meets Phase 1. Phase 2 needs a system that is integrated with Fatoora, so ask any vendor to show the connection, not just say it exists.
- 4After tax, the useful features are the ones that run the business: recipes and food cost, stock and purchasing, branch reports, kitchen display and delivery orders.
- 5Ask who hosts the data, whether the restaurant owns the database, and who supports you in your time zone.
Restaurant management software for Saudi Arabia has to do two jobs. It has to issue tax invoices the way ZATCA, the Saudi tax authority, requires, and it has to run the kitchen, stock and branches without extra spreadsheets. If a system does only the first, you pass an audit and still lose money on food cost. If it does only the second, your POS may stop being legal when your ZATCA wave arrives. This guide lists what to check, in the order we would check it.
Start with ZATCA e-invoicing
Saudi e-invoicing runs in two phases, and the official ZATCA e-invoicing page gives their start dates: Phase 1 on 4 December 2021 and Phase 2 on 1 January 2023.
- Phase 1 (generation): invoices are issued electronically, with the required fields and a QR code. There is nothing to send to ZATCA.
- Phase 2 (integration): the system creates invoices in a set XML format, signs them and connects to ZATCA's Fatoora platform. Business-to-business invoices are cleared by ZATCA, and business-to-consumer invoices, which means nearly every restaurant receipt, are reported within 24 hours.
Phase 2 is rolled out in waves by revenue. The latest we have covered is Wave 25: businesses with VAT-taxable revenue above SAR 187,500 in 2022, 2023, 2024 or 2025 must be connected from 1 February 2027. That is half of the earlier SAR 375,000 line, so a single-branch restaurant that was out of scope last year may be in scope now. ZATCA notifies the businesses it selects, and your accountant can confirm your wave.
When you talk to a vendor, ask three things:
- Is your system integrated with Fatoora today, or is it only planned?
- Who maintains the integration when ZATCA changes its technical rules?
- Can I see a test invoice get reported?
Arabic receipts and 15% VAT
Standard VAT in Saudi Arabia is 15 percent. A restaurant's receipt is a simplified tax invoice. It must be in Arabic, and it may be bilingual with English. The QR code is not decoration: it carries the seller's name, VAT number, date and time, total and VAT amount.
Your software should apply VAT and any service charge from settings you control, per restaurant, not from a fixed rule. We set tax and service charges per restaurant when we deploy our restaurant management system, so each branch runs on its own rules. Whatever you choose, test one real receipt with a discount, a service charge and a split bill before you buy.
Run the money side: recipes, stock and food cost
Tax is the entry ticket. Margin is why you buy the software.
- Recipes on every menu item. A recipe gives the ingredients and yield of each dish, so a sale turns into ingredient use and a cost per portion, and a price change shows its effect on margin straight away.
- Stock and purchasing. Purchase orders, goods received, opening and closing counts, and wastage in one place.
- Food cost variance. Purchased quantities set against what the recipes say you should have used. Treat the gap as a flag to investigate, since it is not a precise measure of waste.
- One set of records. Sales, stock and the profit and loss should read the same data, so the sales figure and the purchase figure never need to be reconciled by hand.
If you want to see what these screens look like in practice, our post on restaurant POS features walks through 12 of them with real screens.
Branches, kitchen and delivery
Check how the system behaves with more than one branch. Menus, prices, tax and stock should be set per branch, with a head office view across all of them. A kitchen display system, in place of printed tickets, reduces lost orders at rush hour.
Many Saudi restaurants also take orders over WhatsApp and delivery apps. Ask whether those orders reach the POS or are typed in again. A WhatsApp ordering system can send confirmed orders straight to the POS, and our guide to WhatsApp ordering for restaurants covers what Meta charges for it.
Questions about data and support
- Who owns the database? It should be yours, whether the software runs on your server or the vendor's.
- What happens if the internet drops? A POS that stops selling during an outage costs real money. Ask how it works offline and how it syncs afterwards.
- Who supports you, and when? Check hours, language and response time for Riyadh, Jeddah or wherever you operate.
- How are users and roles handled? Cashiers, managers and owners should see different things, and changes should be logged.
What it costs
Restaurant management software is not priced from a standard list. The cost moves with the number of branches, the modules (POS, kitchen display, stock, recipes, delivery and WhatsApp integrations), ZATCA integration and whether you pay monthly or own the system. Ask for a written quote that names each module, so you can compare two vendors line by line.
We deploy and support our restaurant management system remotely for restaurants in Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh, as well as the UAE and Pakistan. If your invoicing needs to change before your ZATCA wave, our custom ERP software team can review how your invoices are produced today and what has to change. Tell us how many branches you run and which POS you use and we will tell you what we would do.
*Screens are from our restaurant POS, shown with a demonstration menu and sales. Tax and service charges are configured per restaurant.*
Frequently asked questions
It is one system that runs the restaurant: the POS takes the order, the kitchen display shows it, recipes turn each sale into ingredient use, and sales, stock, food cost and profit reports read the same records instead of separate tools.
If your business is in a Phase 2 wave, yes. Your invoicing or POS system must be integrated with ZATCA’s Fatoora platform and report each simplified invoice within 24 hours. Phase 1, in force since December 2021, only requires electronic invoices with a QR code. ZATCA tells selected businesses which wave they are in.
Tax invoices and simplified tax invoices must be in Arabic. They can be bilingual, so a receipt with Arabic and English together is allowed. Check the exact field requirements with ZATCA or your accountant for your business.
It can if tax, currency, service charge and payment modes are set per restaurant and not fixed in the code. Ask the vendor to show two branches with different tax settings side by side before you sign.
There is no single price. The cost depends on the number of branches, the modules you need (POS, kitchen display, stock, recipes, delivery integrations), whether ZATCA integration is included and whether you rent it monthly or own it. Get a written quote that names each item.
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