This page is a POS system comparison that sets Now Book It and Allvio against the same 43 things a venue does in a week, from taking a card at the counter to a win back email in March. Of those 43, Now Book It is included on fourteen, does part of the job on one at no extra cost, sells one as a separately activated module you pay for, leaves one their published material does not settle, and sits outside twenty six. Read that last number carefully, because it is the point of the page and it is not a criticism. Now Book It is a booking diary. It is not trying to be a till, a roster or an ordering page, and nothing below asks it to be.
What Now Book It does, it does properly
Now Book It is Australian, built in Perth, and venue managers here genuinely like it. All eight reservation rows are included: the diary, the floor plan and table assignment, bookings from your own website, deposits and no show protection, the waitlist and walk ins, confirmations and reminders, ticketed events and set menus, and availability rules and trading hours. Their own help material has the waitlist sitting live in the diary and on the floorplan, with parties that cannot be seated added automatically and a walk in button for the ones who turn up.
Allvio's column is not full in the same place and we will not dress that up. We hold tables, sections, capacity and status and assign a booking to a table, without a visual floor plan designer, and we take a deposit at the moment of booking without charging a no show or late cancellation fee automatically. On the guest side Now Book It goes further than most diaries bother to: one customer record, visit and spend history, segments, SMS campaigns, automated birthday and win back messages and campaign results tied back to spend, with notes, preferences and allergies doing part of that job at no extra cost. Email campaigns are the exception, because their own launch material asks existing customers to talk to the team about switching the module on. On reporting on your phone their published material does not say, so check with them.
Capability | Now Book It | Allvio |
|---|---|---|
Selling and taking payment | ||
Touchscreen till for counter and table service | Not what it does | Yes |
Card, cash, split and part payments | Not what it does | Yes |
Table plan and open tabs | Not what it does | Yes, no floor plan designer |
Kitchen screens or dockets | Not what it does | Yes |
Stock counts and low stock alerts | Not what it does | Part of it, stock moves with sales |
Discounts, happy hour and price levels | Not what it does | Yes |
Gift cards | Not what it does | Yes |
Refunds, voids and exchanges | Not what it does | Yes |
Cash up and end of day | Not what it does | Yes |
Online ordering | ||
QR ordering at the table | Not what it does | Yes |
Pickup and takeaway from your own site | Not what it does | Yes, commission free |
Menu built and changed in one place | Not what it does | Yes |
Modifiers, sizes and dietary flags | Not what it does | Part of it, no nested modifiers |
Online payment and split bills | Not what it does | Part of it, no online bill split |
Upsells and promo codes | Not what it does | Part of it, no automatic upsells |
Orders land straight in the kitchen | Not what it does | Yes |
Bookings and reservations | ||
Booking diary | Yes | Yes |
Floor plan and table assignment | Yes | Part of it, no visual floor plan designer |
Bookings from your own website | Yes | Yes |
Deposits and no show protection | Yes | Part of it, deposits but no automatic fees |
Waitlist and walk ins | Yes | Yes |
Confirmations and reminders to guests | Yes | Yes |
Ticketed events and set menus | Yes | Part of it, no ticket pricing tiers |
Availability rules and trading hours | Yes | Yes |
Knowing your customers | ||
One customer record | Yes | Yes |
Visit and spend history | Yes | Yes |
Notes, preferences and allergies | Part of it, included | Yes |
Segments such as regulars and lapsed | Yes | Yes |
Loyalty and rewards | Not what it does | Yes |
Marketing | ||
Email campaigns | Costs extra, a separately activated module | Yes |
SMS campaigns | Yes | Yes |
Automated messages such as birthday and win back | Yes | Yes |
Campaign results tied back to spend | Yes | Yes |
Your team | ||
Rostering | Not what it does | Yes |
Clock in and out | Not what it does | Yes |
Timesheets ready for pay | Not what it does | Yes |
Leave and availability | Not what it does | Yes |
Staff app on their own phone | Not what it does | 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 |
Not what it does | Yes | |
Seeing how you are doing | ||
Sales and end of day reporting | Not what it does | Yes |
Reporting on your phone | Check with them | Part of it, phone browser, no native app |
The three rows that will change your week
Start with the menu row. Now Book It holds no menu, because a diary has no reason to, so the price of the steak lives in your till, on your ordering page, on your website and on the printed list. Thursday's increase is four jobs done after close, and the one you forget is the one a guest reads on Saturday. In Allvio the register and the commission free online ordering page read the same menu.
Then visit and spend history, included on both sides and not meaning the same thing on both sides. A diary knows what she spent on the bookings it took, not the two hundred dollars she and a friend spent at the bar on Friday when they walked in, because that sale happened inside another company's product. When the register and the diary are one subscription, Friday and the anniversary in June are the same person with one running total.
Email campaigns is the one row where money moves. Not a gap, a switch somebody else flicks: a module activated separately, so a conversation and a larger bill rather than a setting you find on a Tuesday night. Better to know before you plan the March campaign than during it.
After that, the twenty six. The till, kitchen dockets, cash up, your own ordering and pickup pages, loyalty, rostering, timesheets and your sales reporting all sit outside Now Book It, and each of them is a row a restaurant POS system already holds. Each is a product to choose, buy, set up and learn, each holds its own copy of your prices and your people, and each has its own number to ring at seven on a Friday. The same Allvio subscription also covers invoicing, payroll and the books, and that is the only line the back office gets here.
Where twenty six comes from, and what it does not mean
Twenty six is the count of rows a reservations product was never built for, and marking them as failures would be dishonest. A narrower product is very often a deeper one: their floorplan and their waitlist are more finished than ours today. So the question is not who has more ticks in a column. It is who buys, sets up, pays for and maintains the other twenty six, and whether the guest at table four stays the same person across all of them. In a group with an operations manager that work has an owner. In a venue where you are also plating desserts, it is you, at night.
Who should still choose Now Book It
Plenty of venues should. If bookings are the only thing you want software for, and your till and roster are settled, Now Book It is a strong Australian option with local support and a flat monthly fee rather than a charge on every cover. A busy suburban bistro that likes its register and only wants the phone to stop ringing should buy the diary and stop there.
What changes the sum is the second and third product. Allvio Complete, the all in one business software plan, is $399 per month ex GST for one location with every app switched on, plus $299 per month per extra location, with no per app or per user charge. Build your own starts at $20 per month per app, and the trial runs 30 days with no card.
Frequently asked questions
Is Now Book It a POS system?
No. It is a booking diary, and 26 of the 43 rows sit outside it for that reason: the till, kitchen dockets, cash up, your own ordering and pickup pages, loyalty, rostering, timesheets and sales reporting. That is a description of its scope, not a fault. A venue on Now Book It buys a till and usually a roster separately.
Does Now Book It charge per booking?
No. It uses a flat monthly fee rather than a charge on every cover, which is one of the reasons Australian venues like it. Email campaigns are the row where money does move, because that module is activated separately rather than included, so ask what it adds to your monthly bill before you plan a campaign around it.
What is the best Now Book It alternative for a venue that needs a till as well?
If you want the diary, the till, ordering, marketing, rostering and the books in one subscription, Allvio covers those rows together. Now Book It is ahead of Allvio on two booking rows today: it has a visual floor plan designer and automatic no show fees, and Allvio does not yet. Allvio Complete is $399 per month ex GST for one location, with a 30 day trial and no card.
Does a booking diary give you a full picture of a guest's spend?
Only for the bookings it took. A diary records what a guest spent on a reserved table, not what they spent walking in on a Friday night, because that sale happens inside the till. When the diary and the register are the same subscription, both visits sit on one customer record with one running total.
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.