A golf POS that knows who the member is, and where the money goes
Pro shop, bar, halfway house, and restaurant on one till, with one product catalogue and one member record behind it. Charge to account, gift cards, loyalty balances, and rain checks work identically at every register. Card payments run on Stripe, including chip-and-pin and contactless through Stripe Terminal. And every line settles to a named ledger account as it is taken, so the day closes itself.
Most clubs run a retail till that was designed for a shop, with a second one behind the bar, and neither of them knows what a member is. So the pro shop has its own stock file, the bar has its own, gift cards are a manual line in a notebook, and charging to a member account means writing it down and hoping it reaches the office. At the end of the month someone reconciles three systems against a spreadsheet, and the reason the numbers never quite meet is that they were never the same numbers.
Links Meridian runs the pro shop and food and beverage on one till, because in a club they are one business. A green fee, a sleeve of balls off the rack, two pints at the turn, and a table for four on Sunday are the same kind of record. They hit the same product catalogue, the same member account, and the same ledger. A member can settle a dinner bill with a gift card bought in the pro shop, and nobody has to key anything twice.
What that buys you is a day that closes itself. Cash goes to the cash drawer account, a charge to account raises member receivables, a gift card sale creates a liability instead of pretending to be revenue, and card takings reconcile against Stripe. The daily close is a report you read, not an evening you spend. When the connection to the counter drops mid-service, orders queue on the device with an idempotency key and drain when it returns, so a flaky line in the halfway house does not cost you the round of drinks or double-charge anyone.
The rest is the part a generic till cannot reach, because it needs to know things about golf. Prices that differ for a visitor, a member, a junior and a senior, applied without the assistant thinking about it. Rain checks that carry their value when the weather turns. Kitchen orders routed by station with the modifiers the chef expects, over the same live socket layer the tee sheet uses. And one member record, so the person who bought the hat, booked the tee time, and ran a tab on Saturday is one person in your reporting.
One till, seen from both sides
Your staff get something an experienced assistant can pick up in an hour. Your members get an account that behaves.
For your staff
The counter and the pass
Pro shop, bar, restaurant, and halfway house on one till, on whatever hardware you already own.
- Barcode or SKU lookup, categories, and combos for the things that always sell together
- Tabs, split checks, split payments, tips, and table service off a floor plan you lay out
- Kitchen display with routing by station, modifiers, and course timing
- Charge to account, gift card, cash, or card, with Stripe Terminal for chip-and-pin and contactless
- Visitor, member, junior, and senior pricing resolved from the member record
- Inventory that moves as the line posts, with low-stock alerts and cost tracking
- Voids, refunds, exchanges, discounts, and promo codes, each recorded
- Orders queue on the device when the connection drops, and drain when it returns
For your members
The Digital Clubhouse
The account behind the till, in the same app they book tee times and enter competitions in.
- Charge to account at any register, in the pro shop or at the turn
- See the statement, the running balance, and every line that made it up
- Pay online by card, or be billed automatically from a stored card
- Buy, send, and redeem gift cards that work at every till
- Order food from the halfway house or the clubhouse in the app
- Family and dependent charges rolling up to the responsible member
- Loyalty points and playing credits earned across the club
- Rain checks that keep their value when the weather turns
The outcome for your club
The day closes itself
Cash, card, account charges, and gift cards each settle to their own ledger account as they are taken. The daily close becomes a report you read instead of an evening you lose.
One member, one bill
The hat from the pro shop, Saturday's bar tab, and the green fee for a guest all land on the same statement, with family charges rolling up to the responsible member.
Gift card money stays honest
A gift card sale creates a liability, not revenue, and draws down as it is spent. That is the difference between a balance sheet that survives an audit and one that flatters you.
The right price without thinking about it
Visitor, member, junior, and senior pricing applies at the register from the member record. New staff cannot undercharge a visitor because they were not sure.
A dropped connection costs you nothing
Orders queue on the device with an idempotency key and drain when the line comes back. Nobody gets double-charged, and the round of drinks still gets rung up.
The kitchen and the bar stay in step
Orders route by station with the modifiers the chef expects, over the same live socket layer the tee sheet runs on. The pass sees a table the moment the server sends it.
Five ways to settle a sale, five places it lands
This is the part a generic retail till cannot do, and the reason a club's books stop arguing with themselves.
Every one of these goes through the same payment ledger and posts a balanced, idempotent journal. Tax, deposits, gift cards, and anything unearned are held as liabilities rather than counted as revenue, which is what makes the daily close a report instead of an investigation.
How a sale moves through the club
Set the catalogue
Products, categories, modifiers, combos, and suppliers, with prices per player category. Set it once and every register in the club is working from it.
Ring it up
Barcode or SKU in the pro shop, a tab and a floor plan in the restaurant, a quick round at the turn. The member record resolves the price without anyone deciding.
Send it to the kitchen
Food routes to the right station with its modifiers, over the same live socket layer the tee sheet uses, so the pass sees it as the server sends it. Coursing today is the server firing part of the order and holding the rest; an automatic course timer is on the roadmap.
Settle it
Cash, card, account, gift card, or a mix across a split. Cards go through Stripe. If the connection drops, the order queues with an idempotency key and drains later.
Stock and books move together
Inventory decrements as the line posts, and the sale writes its journal at the same time. Low stock raises an alert instead of being discovered on a shelf.
Close the day
Reconcile takings against Stripe, read the sales and revenue-by-category numbers, and let statements and dues run on their schedule.
Generic retail POS vs a golf-specific POS
What's included
Common questions
How much does a golf POS system cost?
The Links Meridian POS is included in every tier from Standard ($299/mo) and up. There are no per-register fees, no per-module add-ons, and no separate licence for F&B. Card processing runs through Stripe at standard interchange-plus rates. See the pricing page for a full breakdown.
What happens if the internet drops mid-service?
The order queues on the device and drains when the connection returns. Each queued order carries an idempotency key generated before the first attempt, so a replay cannot double-charge anyone even if the original request did reach the server. A status bar shows staff what is still waiting to send. This is built for the halfway house on a bad line, which is where it usually matters.
How do gift cards and rain checks appear in the accounts?
As liabilities, which is the part most retail tills get wrong. Selling a gift card is not revenue, it is a promise, so it credits the gift-card liability account (2210) and draws down as the balance is spent. A rain check is held as an obligation until it is redeemed. Deposits and tax work the same way. It matters because a balance sheet that books unearned money as revenue looks healthier than the club actually is.
Does it integrate with QuickBooks or Xero?
Links Meridian has full GL, AP, and AR built in, but daily journals also export to QuickBooks Online and Xero if you want to keep your existing accounting system. Every POS line item flows into the ledger automatically.
What hardware do we need?
iPads, Windows tablets, and dedicated POS terminals all work. We also support standard receipt printers, kitchen printers, cash drawers, and barcode scanners. There is nothing proprietary you have to buy from us. If you already own hardware, it almost certainly works.
Can we accept Apple Pay, Google Pay, and chip-and-pin?
Yes. Payment processing runs through Stripe, which supports Apple Pay, Google Pay, chip-and-pin (EMV), contactless, and saved cards on file. PCI compliance is handled at the Stripe layer, so no card data ever touches your hardware or servers.
How does charge-to-account work for members?
When a member pays at the POS, the cashier picks 'charge to account' instead of card or cash. The charge posts to the member's statement immediately. Each club sets how far an account may go negative and the till enforces that limit atomically as the tender is taken, with zero meaning prepaid only. Statements run on a schedule you configure (monthly is most common) and can be auto-billed via stored card, ACH/direct debit, or emailed for manual payment. Family and dependent charges roll up to the responsible member: link a partner or child to the member who pays, and a charge they sign for is taken against the family account, with the credit limit checked against that account rather than the signer's. The line on the statement names who signed for it, and the dependent sees their own activity in the portal without a balance of their own. Dependent PINs and per-dependent spending limits are separate items still on the roadmap, so confirm those before you promise them.
How do coursing and splitting the bill work in the restaurant?
A server fires part of an order and holds the rest, choosing which items go, to which station, and at what priority, so starters go and mains follow when the table is ready. Items track individually through queued, cooking, ready, and served. A named course field with an automatic fire timer is on the roadmap rather than in the product. On the bill: one sale can be split across several tenders, so a table can settle part on a card, part on a member account, and part on a gift card, and each tender posts its own ledger leg. Dividing one table into separate cheques, by seat or by item, is a different feature and is also on the roadmap. Ask where both sit before a dining-room demo.
Can we migrate from our current retail or restaurant POS?
Yes. We import your product catalogue, modifier groups, vendor list, inventory counts, gift card balances, and member account balances. The migration runs in parallel with your existing system so you can validate every total before switching over. The cutover usually happens in a single off-peak weekend.
Does the POS integrate with handicap systems and tournament software?
Tournament entries paid at the pro shop POS automatically register the player in the tournament module, with the handicap pulled from the member record and the playing handicap computed for the format. Official sync with the national handicap systems (USGA GHIN, England Golf, Golf Ireland and the rest) is not live yet, so indexes are held in-platform. Skins, sweeps, and prize-fund payouts post back to member accounts or gift cards.
How long does staff training take?
The pro shop POS is typically learned in under an hour. F&B and KDS take a single shadowed shift. We provide a sandbox environment for training, and the on-screen help surfaces the relevant shortcut for whatever the cashier is doing.
What reports does the POS produce?
The daily close and reconciliation against Stripe, sales, revenue by category, and payment-method breakdown, plus the full financial set alongside them: AR aging, trial balance, income statement, balance sheet, VAT return, and deferred revenue. Everything exports to CSV, Excel, PDF, or IIF. Retail-operations reporting sits on top of that: sales by clerk and by hour, top-selling lines, stock valuation, supplier performance, gift-card liability, F&B labour percentage, and tip allocation.
Is the POS suitable for multi-course portfolios or resorts?
Yes. Courses sit under a Portfolio and Property hierarchy with their own pricing rules, staff, tee sheets, and reconciliation, and the portfolio rolls up sales and member accounts across every site. A member who buys a hat at one property and has dinner at another sees both on one statement. Billing for multi-course operations is per course rather than per member.
Does it handle the halfway house and mobile ordering?
Yes. The halfway house runs as another register on the same till, and members can order from their phone in the app and charge it to their account. Public F&B reservations with deposits are supported too, so non-members can book a table and the deposit is held as a liability until they arrive.
Related pages
Member app & Digital Clubhouse
Where members see the statement, the balance, and every line behind it.
Pro shop & retail
Stock, suppliers, cost tracking, and the retail side in depth.
Clubhouse restaurant & bar
Tabs, floor plans, kitchen routing, and F&B reservations.
Accounting & ledger
Where every line from the till lands, and how the day closes.
Tee sheet & booking
Green fees, rentals, and guest fees taken at the counter.
Membership & billing
The categories that decide the price at the register.
See the till running on your own product list
Ask for a demo with your catalogue, your member categories, and your pricing. Free 30-day trial when you are ready.