Selecting the right Point of Sale (POS) system for your business is key to the smooth running of your business and increasing your sales. There was once a time where POS systems simply handled payments without errors, which these days is absolutely the baseline for any POS system. To save you time and energy, you need a POS system that manages much of the thinking for you. Here are our thoughts on what a great POS system should offer your business.
Guided functions for staff to minimize order error, and payment error
When your business gets busy, and orders are backing up out the door, it’s natural for staff to make mistakes when placing orders and taking payment. But a great POS system can help you avoid these mistakes. Many POS systems will allow you to set prompts and limit options for order taking, to assist your staff in getting it right every time. By building an order flow into your POS system, you can even help your staff upsell products at the point of order and increase your revenue.
Payment errors can also occur if your POS system doesn’t integrate EFTPOS, and so you want a system that automatically sets the right sales price for the customer each time, rather than a system that requires your staff to punch in the sales value onto the POS system at the point of sale. When your business is busy, a wrongly placed digit on a POS machine can hurt your revenue for the day.
Integrated stock control and stock ordering
We previously covered the benefits of stock and inventory control to increase your businesses revenue here. Using a POS system that integrates the management of inventory, noting stock and ingredients that you have available at that exact point in time, and stock that you’ve sold, allows you to effectively control orders that are placed, and understand what items are your best sellers.
A great POS system will integrate with your service providers and allow you to automatically create a purchase order for items as and when they’re needed. Not only does this take the hassle out of the stocktake process, but it also controls the amount of stock you’re ordering, making sure you never over or under order, and cutting waste within your business; we all know how much revenue is lost to waste in the hospitality industry.
Integrated delivery orders and pre-orders for collection
We’ve come a long way in the past year, and the hospitality industry has had to adapt to lockdowns and limitations on the number of customers served on-premises. Naturally, take away (and now pre-orders) have increased in popularity not just for restaurants, but for cafes as well. Your POS system should have the ability to integrate with services such as Uber Eats and MenuLog, allowing you to process and deliver orders alongside, expanding your customer base, business model and revenue.
Integrated accounting and revenue analytics
Finally, and importantly, a great POS will allow for the integration of third-party accounting software, such as Xero, allowing you to effortlessly provide the right information and reconciling your transactions on the go. This is a major plus for any hospitality business. It’ll save a huge amount of time that was previously spent on inputting numbers and allows you to take back your time. If there’s one reason to use a great POS system, it’s this.
Select a POS that helps your business scale and grow, not one that holds you back and causes unnecessary work.