Glossary
Full Glossary
All You Need To Know About POS's (Point of Sales Systems)

What Are Point Of Sales Systems?

You have been out shopping many times and must have noticed the POS systems or point of sales systems. What is a POS System? Let us find out more about this and how it benefits the business and customers.

Point of sale (POS) systems is a point where you collect money from your customers for goods and services.

Point of sales systems enables business transactions between your company and your customers. POS system may be a standalone system or it can be part of a network. Bigger shops may have multiple check-out counters. All the terminals get connected to the network to provide a unified experience. POS systems integrate with other hardware like card payments and bar code scanners. These provide for easily scanning items for billing and accepting payment.

Point of sale (POS) systems are also customized according to the nature of businesses. The goods sold will vary according to businesses. A restaurant or a retail furniture store or a grocery store deals in different goods. Point of sale (POS) systems should be able to handle all types of goods.

Today, there are a lot of digital marketing and discount campaigns happening. Point of sales systems should be able to enable discounts in the system. It is usually the retail goods and restaurant businesses that mostly use POS systems.

The Reasons You Need a POS Solution

What Benefits Does a POS System Offer?

Better Operational Control

You have better control with detailed inventory information. You can get inventory details of stock at your warehouse and your store. This helps to better plan out your operations and re-order levels for stocks on time. You can know how many goods get sold daily or monthly.

Improved Sales Analysis

You can get sales reports with different criteria. You can see the trend of sales and plan for ordering inventory optimally. You keep a better track of goods and this improves financial planning. Sales reports are available in soft copies from multiple POS terminals. They can be extracted in a consolidated manner.

Increased Productivity

It is easier to manage your billing, sales, and inventory with minimized use of paper reports. It reduces manual effort in billing. Bar code scanners read details of goods and help in quick and efficient billing. Integrated card payment enables quicker billing and servicing more customers.

Better Marketing Opportunities

A POS system will have contact details of customers doing more business with you. You can use the contact details and craft cross-promotional discounts and campaigns. You can engage in personalized communication and marketing approach. You get more customer insights and develop better marketing strategies with data. This helps in making sound business decisions.

Analyzing Each Component that Makes up a Point of Sales Solution

What Comprises a Point of Sales System?

Point of sales systems has many components involved to make them fully functional. Primarily, there are hardware and software systems. Point of sales software systems usually have modules like Sales, Inventory, Customer, and Employee management. These help to have sales reports, inventory stock and re-order levels, customer contact and engagement, and staff records.

Let's look at POS software systems first. Point of sales systems can have software as an On-Premise POS or a Cloud-based POS.

In the case of an On-premise point of sales system, the software gets installed on your computers. You will have to maintain the software updates as well. In a cloud-based POS system, you can access it from the cloud. Cloud-based systems offer more flexibility in that you can access them from your mobile or tablet too. The POS system software provider does software updates from the cloud. Cloud POS uses a shared infrastructure and is more cost-effective.

POS systems also need hardware to operate. Typical hardware for POS includes the following:

  • Computer: It is here that the POS software gets installed in case of an on-premise POS. In the case of a cloud application, browser access will work. The POS software vendor may provide a computer. Or else you can get a compatible one as per specifications.
  • Computer Monitor: This is the display unit that will show you details of the POS application. You can have a configured tablet as well in some cases. Here you can see the whole application along with product details and billing. You can access sales and inventory reports as well. This is the visual unit used to do point of sale transactions. Reports are also accessible depending on user rights
  • Receipt printer: You can print paper receipts and give your customers.
  • Cash drawer: You can have a linked cash drawer for securely storing cash.
  • Bar-code scanners: These gadgets automatically extract product information through a scan. They add it to the billing check out totals. They integrate with inventory management and update stock levels during checkout.
Making Your Final Decision on Which POS System to Purchase

How to Choose your POS Systems

You can research POS systems with available information. You can also get information from the sales representatives of various POS systems. We would suggest you should do all the required research on popular POS systems. You must review all information available from other business owners. They have real practical experience with a particular POS system.

We would recommend you seek a free trial of the POS system. You can try configuring your products. See how you can do full cycle activities. You can load your product information, check out, and inventory management. You can also check out Sales reports. After a full practical assessment, you can make a decision.