H&L is a long standing Australian and New Zealand system for hotels, pubs, clubs and licensed venues, positioned elsewhere as Australia's leading POS and back of house solution provider, and this page compares it with Allvio across 43 capabilities an owner needs covered. H&L includes 15 of them outright, does part of the job on 4, delivers 5 through another product bought and set up separately, cannot be pinned down on 1 from what it publishes, and 18 are not what the product is for. Worth saying once and not repeating: a not what it does row describes scope, not quality.
The workforce and back office side is genuinely strong
This is where H&L earns its place in licensed venues, and it deserves a proper sentence rather than a grudging one. Its Workforce Management module covers roster scheduling with templates and shift tools, labour forecasting including labour against sales, and targeted wage costs by roster, cost centre and site. Time and attendance runs off a smart kiosk instead of paper timecards, award interpretation is automated so the hours reaching payroll are already interpreted, and there are individual employee calendars for leave alongside an availability grid. Four of the five team rows are a full yes, and for a venue running three departments and forty casuals that is a serious piece of machinery.
The back of house reporting matches it, running on the same Exceed and Sysnet architecture H&L's own partner listings describe. The Dashboard reports sales by revenue group, location, item, hour and POS user with revenue, cost, profit, margin and refunds, and a tender dashboard for reconciliation, and it runs on any device. Till balancing reconciles register totals against physical cash and card daily. On the floor, the till itself is a full yes on eight rows, the same ground a proper pub pos system needs to cover: counter and table service with a layout that recreates your venue, cash, card, account sales and part payments, split bills at the push of a button, its own kitchen order display and docket layouts, stock, price levels and time scheduled promotional pricing, refunds and voids, and end of day. Member spend and visit history is captured in Sysnet Members.
Capability | H&L POS | Allvio |
|---|---|---|
Selling and taking payment | ||
Touchscreen till for counter and table service | Yes | Yes |
Card, cash, split and part payments | Yes | Yes |
Table plan and open tabs | Yes | Yes |
Kitchen screens or dockets | Yes | Yes |
Stock counts and low stock alerts | Yes | Part of it, no stocktake at the register yet |
Discounts, happy hour and price levels | Yes | Yes |
Gift cards | Another product, through Now Book It | Yes |
Refunds, voids and exchanges | Yes | Yes |
Cash up and end of day | Yes | Yes |
Online ordering | ||
QR ordering at the table | Another product, HungryHungry or me&u | Yes |
Pickup and takeaway from your own site | Another product, an ordering partner | Yes |
Menu built and changed in one place | Part of it, online menu built in the partner | Yes |
Modifiers, sizes and dietary flags | Part of it, allergy and prompt tools at the till | Part of it, no nested modifiers yet |
Online payment and split bills | Part of it, split bills at the till | Part of it, no online bill splitting yet |
Upsells and promo codes | Part of it, upsell prompts at the till | Part of it, no automatic upsell prompts yet |
Orders land straight in the kitchen | Another product, needs an ordering partner | Yes |
Bookings and reservations | ||
Booking diary | Not what it does | Yes |
Floor plan and table assignment | Not what it does | Part of it, no floor plan designer yet |
Bookings from your own website | Not what it does | Yes |
Deposits and no show protection | Not what it does | Part of it, deposits yes, no automatic fees |
Waitlist and walk ins | Not what it does | Yes |
Confirmations and reminders to guests | Not what it does | Yes |
Ticketed events and set menus | Not what it does | Part of it, set menus yes, no ticket tiers |
Availability rules and trading hours | Not what it does | Yes |
Knowing your customers | ||
One customer record | Not what it does | Yes |
Visit and spend history | Yes, in Sysnet Members | Yes |
Notes, preferences and allergies | Not what it does | Yes |
Segments such as regulars and lapsed | Not what it does | Yes |
Loyalty and rewards | Another product, bought separately | Yes |
Marketing | ||
Email campaigns | Not what it does | Yes |
SMS campaigns | Not what it does | Not yet live |
Automated messages such as birthday and win back | Not what it does | Yes |
Campaign results tied back to spend | Not what it does | Yes |
Your team | ||
Rostering | Yes, with labour versus sales | Yes |
Clock in and out | Yes, time and attendance kiosk | Yes |
Timesheets ready for pay | Yes, award interpretation built in | Yes |
Leave and availability | Yes, leave calendars and availability grid | Yes |
Staff app on their own phone | Check with them | Part of it, phone browser, no native app |
Back office | ||
Invoices and quotes | Not what it does | Yes |
Payroll and payslips | Not what it does | Yes |
GST and BAS figures | Not what it does | Yes |
Seeing how you are doing | ||
Sales and end of day reporting | Yes | Yes |
Reporting on your phone | Yes | Part of it, browser on a phone, no native app |
The four rows that decide it
Online ordering is somebody else's product. QR ordering at the table, pickup and takeaway, and orders reaching the kitchen all run through named partners such as HungryHungry, me&u, Chewzie and Qlub. It works, and H&L documents it working. It is still a second contract, a second setup and a second party to ring at seven on a Friday. Two related rows are only part of the job as a result: the till menu is maintained centrally in the back office, but the online menu is built in the partner platform, so a price change is two jobs. Online promo codes and upsells sit on the partner side too, while the till has its own prompts.
Gift cards. H&L documents gift cards only through the Now Book It integration, with the card number entered at the till and redemption recorded in the partner admin. A gift card is not an exotic request in a pub in December, and this one is a separate product.
Bookings. All eight booking rows are outside what H&L does. For a bistro that takes reservations, or a club running functions and Christmas sittings, that is the single largest thing you will buy elsewhere, and the two systems will not agree about your trading hours unless somebody enters them twice.
The guest, as opposed to the member. One customer record, notes and preferences and allergies, and segments such as regulars and lapsed are all outside H&L's scope, and so are all four marketing rows. Member spend history exists, but the coeliac who books the bistro fortnightly has nowhere in the system to be remembered. Whether staff can see their own roster on their own phone is the one row we could not establish: their published material does not say, so check with them.
What the totals mean
One row per capability, drawn from what H&L publishes. Eighteen rows of not what it does make it a narrower product than an all in one, not a worse one, and for a large licensed venue narrow and deep is often exactly right. The real question is who buys and runs the rest. Keep the three kinds of gap apart as you read. Part of it means H&L does some of the job and it is inside what you already pay. Costs extra would mean an add-on, and H&L has none of those on this list. Another product means a separate signup, and there are 5 of them.
Allvio Complete is $399 per month ex GST for one location plus $299 per month per extra location, with every app on and no per user charge, and invoicing, pay runs and BAS figures included in the same subscription. Build your own starts at $20 per month per app. The trial is 30 days without a card. Hardware is bought outright at $1,499 ex GST for the single station, $1,869 retail, $2,499 restaurant.
The venue that should choose H&L
A hotel, large pub or club with a gaming floor, several cost centres, award complexity and a payroll officer should take H&L seriously. Its rostering, award interpretation and back of house reporting are built for exactly that venue and are stronger than most tills attempt. If you are an owner operator whose week is bookings, guest notes, campaigns and one ordering page, count the five separate products and the eighteen rows first.
Every cell above comes from each vendor's own published material, checked in August 2026. Products change constantly: always confirm current capability directly with each vendor before deciding.
FAQs
Does H&L handle staff rostering, award interpretation and payroll compliance?
Yes. Rostering with labour against sales, a smart kiosk for clock in and out, automated award interpretation, and leave calendars with an availability grid are all built in. This is the strongest part of the H&L offer.
Does H&L include online ordering and QR ordering at the table?
Not directly. Ordering runs through named partners such as HungryHungry, me&u, Chewzie and Qlub, which means a separate contract, setup and support line on top of the core till.
Can H&L track guest preferences, allergies or a booking diary?
No. One customer record, notes and preferences and allergies, and a booking diary are all outside what H&L does. Member spend history is tracked in Sysnet Members, but that only covers members, not every guest.
Who is H&L POS actually built for?
A hotel, large pub or club with a gaming floor, several cost centres, award complexity and a dedicated payroll officer. Its workforce and back office tools are built for that scale rather than for a single owner operated venue.