This page puts SwiftPOS and Allvio side by side across 43 jobs a hospitality venue actually has to do. On SwiftPOS the count lands at 19 capabilities included, one that does part of the job at no extra cost, and 23 that sit outside what the product is built for. Read that last figure as a description rather than a criticism. SwiftPOS is a till and an ordering product and says so plainly, so a row about rostering or email campaigns is not a fault in it. It is a job someone else has to do, and the question worth asking is who.
The bar work SwiftPOS does properly
All nine rows under selling and taking payment are a yes, and the detail behind them is why SwiftPOS owns the club and events end of this market. Stocktakes are done at the register as well as in Back Office, counted by scanning barcodes, with a stock hold snapshot so you can take a reading during service and finish the count when the room is empty. Voids and returns sit behind manager control, with reasons enforced on cancels, credits, refunds and no sales. Shift levels let one product sell as a single, a six pack and a carton.
The ordering side holds up too. Their own ordering product takes card payments, Google Pay, Apple Pay and member points as a tender, and incoming web orders are collected and printed at the till, checked every thirty seconds, with delayed orders handled rather than landing on the pass all at once. Member purchase history is there by transaction or as summary data, loyalty and memberships are there, and so is sales and end of day reporting, including on a phone.
Four rows in the table are places where SwiftPOS is a yes and Allvio is only part of the job. A full stocktake at the register is not in Allvio yet. Nested modifiers are not in yet. Automatic upsell prompts on the ordering page are not in yet. Phone reporting in Allvio is the browser rather than a purpose built manager app. We are not going to argue those away.
All 43 capabilities, grouped the way a week runs
Cells say Yes when a capability is included, Part of it when the product does some of the job at no extra cost, and Not what it does when it sits outside the product's purpose. Nothing in our SwiftPOS data is a paid add on or a higher tier, so that column hides no money.
Capability | SwiftPOS | 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 register stocktake yet |
Discounts, happy hour and price levels | Yes | Yes |
Gift cards | Yes | Yes |
Refunds, voids and exchanges | Yes | Yes |
Cash up and end of day | Yes | Yes |
Online ordering | ||
QR ordering at the table | Yes | Yes |
Pickup and takeaway from your own site | Yes | Yes, commission free |
Menu built and changed in one place | Yes | Yes |
Modifiers, sizes and dietary flags | Yes | Part of it, no nested modifiers yet |
Online payment and split bills | Part of it, online payment, no split | Part of it, no online bill split yet |
Upsells and promo codes | Yes | Part of it, no automatic upsells yet |
Orders land straight in the kitchen | Yes | Yes |
Bookings and reservations | ||
Booking diary | Not what it does | Yes |
Floor plan and table assignment | Not what it does | Part of it, no visual 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 but no auto 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, no ticket price tiers yet |
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 | Yes |
Notes, preferences and allergies | Not what it does | Yes |
Segments such as regulars and lapsed | Not what it does | Yes |
Loyalty and rewards | Yes | Yes |
Marketing | ||
Email campaigns | Not what it does | Yes |
SMS campaigns | Not what it does | Yes |
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 | 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, browser not a 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 not a native app |
The rows that will change your week
The booking diary is the first one. SwiftPOS does not do bookings, so a venue that takes them buys a diary separately, learns it, pays for it, and keeps its trading hours, table capacities and closed days matching the till by hand. Public holiday hours are the test. Change them on the tills and the diary will still happily take a table for a day you are shut.
The second is one customer record. SwiftPOS keeps member purchase history and keeps it well, but notes, preferences and allergies against a guest, and segments such as regulars and lapsed, are outside what it does. So the only person who knows the couple in the corner are on their anniversary is the person who wrote it on a piece of paper. In Allvio that note sits on the same record the till, the diary and the ordering page all use.
The third is everything after service. Email campaigns, birthday and win back messages and campaign results tied back to spend are outside SwiftPOS, and so are rostering, clock in and out, timesheets and leave. In practice that is a mailing tool with a list that goes stale the week after you export it, plus a roster product where a new casual is entered a second time before she pours a beer.
Where 19, one and 23 come from
They add up to 43 because every capability had to land somewhere. A product with a lot of not what it does rows is not a worse product, it is a narrower one, and narrow is often exactly right. The total does not tell you whether SwiftPOS is good. It tells you how much of your venue it covers, and that decides how many other products you end up running.
Who should still choose SwiftPOS
A licensed club with three bars, a function room and member pricing. A stadium or an events business where forty registers open together and close together. A multi site franchise group with an office that already owns the marketing and the roster. In those venues the depth SwiftPOS has built is real, other people are paid to do the 23 rows, and trading it for something broader would be a downgrade.
If you are one venue and one owner
Then the comparison stops being about the till. Allvio Complete is $399 per month ex GST for one location and $299 per month for each extra one, with every app switched on and no per user charge, and the same subscription also covers your invoicing, payroll and the books. Build your own starts at $20 per month per app. Hardware is sold outright at $1,499 ex GST for the single station, $1,869 retail and $2,499 restaurant, and the trial runs 30 days with no card.
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.