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Today’s point of sale (POS) systems can do a lot more than just accept payments. Now, a POS can help in just about every aspect of a business.
Today’s best POS systems can simplify a wide variety of tasks in an operation by creating more efficiency and allowing employees and owners to focus their energies on the more creative aspects of their business. And yet, many merchants still think of a POS as enabling little beyond payment acceptance.
Here are five ways a point of sale system can help businesses.
1. Employee management
Employee management tasks like scheduling can be necessary but sometimes irritating time drains for managers. But today’s point-of-sale systems can handle an array of employee management tasks quickly and easily.
A modern POS system is able to act as a time clock, and employees shouldn’t need access to the actual POS back office. It allows a business to view and manage reported shifts and print out timecards and time sheets. From there, managers can use the POS to easily create schedules, as well as manage overtime and calculate wages. A modern POS system should also provide a simple and intuitive user experience to allow employees to learn the system quickly. That means less time is spent on training, and new employees will be ready to work as soon as possible.
2. Simpler pricing and discounts
On a modern point of sale, items can be grouped in clear and intuitive ways, and that makes pricing and discounts easy. Instead of having to track down, for instance, every single permutation of a certain t-shirt by size and color, consolidated configuration of items makes pricing and discounts simple.
Not only has that, at stores that have multiple separate locations, a modern POS dashboard allowed for pricing by location. That way, if demand for a particular item is high in one location and low in another, a merchant can price items to sell in one location and keep prices the same in another.
In fact, modern POS systems should be able to handle almost any type of pricing or discounts. From “buy one get one” options to more complicated scenarios like “get three items for $10, or one for $5,” and onwards, nearly every scenario can be handled by a POS.
3. Analytics and reporting
Back-office abilities of modern POS systems are in many ways the crucial selling points, on nearly the same level as payment acceptance. Modern POS analytics and reporting can break out important metrics and allow them to be viewed in a variety of ways – including PDF or Excel sheet.
These analytics allow merchants to gain greater insight into their stores, their sales, their employees and their customers. They can evaluate employee performance, determine how pricing can be more efficient, work to cater more closely to customer needs, and more. All through the power of a POS.
4. Peripherals that cater to any industry
Modern POS systems not only come in a variety of form factors, but they also often integrate very easily with peripheral hardware to meet industry-specific needs.
For the restaurant industry, for example, POS systems can pair with kitchen printers to make the ordering process simple. In retail, mobile POS can be used to walk the aisles and make in-aisle sales, enabling counter-free (and line-free) boutique settings.
5. Inventory management
Optimizing inventory levels and management is a process that nearly every business is always trying to improve, and a modern POS can help. Not only do analytics and reporting help track how fast an item is selling, but alerts can also be set up on a POS system to notify a business when they’re running low.
These alerts can serve other purposes, too—if an item is scanned that has an age minimum like cigarettes or alcohol, a POS can alert the clerk to ask for identification.
Today’s POS systems can do much more for businesses than just payment acceptance. Find out how a POS can transform your business.
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