Tabbedout announced the availability of its Software Development Kit (SDK) to make it easy for multiunit restaurant chains and the third-party app developers and agencies they work with to incorporate mobile payment functionality into their own mobile apps.
Tabbedout is the free mobile payment app for iPhone and Android that allows consumers to open, view, and pay tabs with their phones at bars and restaurants,
The Tabbedout SDK supports iOS and Android platforms and includes proprietary Model and Web Services classes for performing secure payment transactions with Tabbedout’s infrastructure.
Because of Tabbedout’s secure integrations with major hospitality POS vendors, like MICROS, the SDK provides the ability to integrate mobile payment functionality into restaurant-branded apps without the need to purchase new or additional hardware.
Additionally, the Tabbedout SDK is the only one of its kind that caters to the hospitality industry, since it provides the ability to maintain an open tab, view, and track tab details, split payment with others, and pay from a smartphone without the hassle of a scanner or reader.
In addition to the SDK, Tabbedout provides supporting professional services to guide the integration process and make implementation even easier.
“We have been providing mobile payments to bars and restaurants since 2010, so it was a natural progression that we would offer an SDK to give restaurant chains a quick and easy—yet secure and robust—way to integrate mobile payment into their own branded apps,” says Kevin McKeand, vice president of major accounts for Tabbedout.
“As more consumers use smartphones, they are demanding mobile payment and quick time to market is essential,” he says. “Our SDK makes that time to market almost immediate.”
With Tabbedout’s SDK, restaurants can offer a custom-branded mobile payment app or add mobile payment functionality into their own app that securely stores credit or debit card information directly on the consumer’s phone, encrypted and under passphrase protection, instead of on host servers or in “the cloud.”
Consumers are safe from the threat of stolen payment information due to lost or forgotten credit cards, since they now can open and pay their tab directly from their phone without handing over their credit or debit information to a server.
Patrons can also view their itemized tab in real-time, removing any surprises at the end of the night. Wait staff can also spend more time serving food and drink instead of running credit cards.
“We wanted to develop an SDK that makes it easy for third parties that work with restaurant chains to add our core mobile payment features,” says Kelly Harper, vice president of product development for Tabbedout. “With our POS integrations, restaurants can quickly incorporate the SDK into their apps and be up and running in no time, without the need for expensive hardware.”
Tabbedout’s SDK includes a sample application which consists of screen view controllers that interact with the SDK’s model and service objects. Integrating parties simply modify the branding elements of the sample application, allowing them to easily and quickly integrate the mobile payment functionality.
