The best time to prepare your EPOS for Christmas is October. Every change made in December is made in a hurry, on a live till, by people who are already stretched.
Last year showed how much rides on those few weeks. Managed pub groups grew like-for-like sales by 5.1% in December 2025, one of their strongest months of the year, according to the NIQ RSM Hospitality Business Tracker reported by The Morning Advertiser. Restaurants managed 0.8% and bars fell 1.7%.
Then January arrived. Across pubs, restaurants and bars, like-for-like sales slipped 0.1% in January 2026, with bars down 4.9% on the year before, according to RSM.
December’s takings have to see most venues through the quietest stretch of the year. That is why a till that freezes on a Friday in December costs far more than the same fault in March. Here is what we suggest working through before the first Christmas party walks in.
Because almost everything else depends on it. Festive menus, party pre-orders, kitchen tickets, card payments and the stock count on 2 January all pass through your EPOS system. When the till is wrong, the mistake spreads into every one of them.
Christmas 2026 also has an awkward calendar. Christmas Day falls on a Friday and Boxing Day on a Saturday, so the substitute bank holiday is Monday 28 December. If you change prices, opening hours or staff rates for bank holidays, put those dates into the system now rather than remembering them on the night.
Add festive dishes, set menus and seasonal drinks in October, then set them to appear when you need them. Most modern EPOS software, including ICRTouch TouchPoint, lets you hold alternative price levels and menu layouts ready to switch on.
Festive specials are the dishes most likely to change late, often because a supplier substitutes an ingredient. Make sure the menu, the kitchen and the till all say the same thing. We covered what the Food Standards Agency now expects in our guide to allergen information and your EPOS.
Every temporary worker should have their own login. Shared logins make voids, refunds and no-sales impossible to trace, and December is when those numbers tend to climb.
If you have ever wondered where margin goes during a busy month, our post on EPOS stock control and shrinkage explains how miskeys and free pours show up in the figures.
Run practice orders on a quiet afternoon, with the festive menu live, so new staff have pressed every button before it matters. Ask your EPOS provider how to keep training sales out of your reports.
December brings more transactions, bigger bills and more people wanting to split them. Before the rush:
Set menus fire in courses, and a table of 30 can bury a kitchen if every ticket lands at once. Put a full party order through from start to finish and watch what prints, or appears on screen, at each section. Our comparison of a kitchen display system and paper tickets covers how course timing works on screen.
Running out of paper on a Saturday in December is avoidable. Look at how many rolls you got through last December and order with room to spare.
A full room of customers on guest Wi-Fi can slow everything that shares the same connection. Tills, handhelds and card machines should sit on their own network, separate from customers. Our guide to business Wi-Fi for hospitality venues explains how to split them.
If you use digital menu screens, set the festive content to start and finish on fixed dates so nobody has to remember on 2 January. Liverpool’s Lobster Pot uses cloud-managed screens to switch late-night pricing and promotions, and the same approach works for a Christmas menu.
Save your support number in every manager’s phone and pin it by the till. CCR Systems customers can reach us on 0151 644 8296, and we often diagnose and fix problems remotely within two hours. Our customer support page has the details.
As early as you can. Menu and price changes for tills, self-service kiosks and digital screens tend to arrive in the same fortnight in December. Sending yours in October or November means they are built, checked and scheduled before the queue forms.
Email contact@ccrsystems.co.uk with:
The festive weeks are your best data of the year. In TouchOffice Web, or whichever back office you use, look at:
Pulled together in the first week of January, those figures shape your January menu, your rota and next year’s festive plan.
Nothing on this list is complicated. It just takes time that you will not have in December. Finish it in October and your team walks into the busiest weeks of the year with a menu that is built, staff who know the till and a system that has already been tested under pressure.
Want a second pair of eyes on it?
Get in touch with CCR Systems for a pre-Christmas review of your tills, menus and card machines, or call us on 0151 644 8296.
