The point of sale system (POS) is one of the touchpoints where customers pay money to sellers, in return for goods/services. This transaction is recorded in the form of an Invoice. Some retail shops rely on cashier machines to record money earned and goods sold. However, if you want to scale your business, you’ll need more than a cashier machine.
In today’s competitive industry, solely knowing how much you earned and how many goods you’ve sold is no longer enough. Retailers are moving on to explore new technologies that could help them uncover hidden data so that they can run their businesses more efficiently. In the modern-day environment, a POS System is nothing but an electronic device facilitating the recording of a sales transaction and collection of money from a customer as a result of such a sale transaction. It involves hardware and software working in tandem to complete the transaction.
An On-premise POS System is one that needs to be installed on a local system and server. On-premise systems can only be accessed locally and many organizations go for on-premise systems for their want of security and control. The benefit of having an on-premise system is, it provides much better integration with hardware peripherals (scanners, camera, poll-display, etc.,) as compared to a cloud-based point-of-sale system.
Further, on-premise systems do not require internet connectivity and hence they continuously function even if the internet connection is down. On-premise systems are generally sold on a perpetual license and hence they involve a huge initial cash outlay as compared to the cloud-based point of sale systems. Further, they involve one-time training and implementation costs and recurring maintenance charges. On-premise POS Systems are static in nature. They don’t offer mobility in today’s fast-paced work environment, but they are generally found to be more user-friendly with their touch-screen functionality.
A Cloud-based Point of Sale System is one that is hosted on a cloud platform to provide its services to the user as and when he connects to the system. A Cloud-based Point of Sale System requires an internet connection to provide its functionality. Cloud-based systems have certain limitations when it comes to connecting with the external hardware peripherals, but they are most useful when one is operating in a multi-store environment.
With cloud-based POS Systems, one can maintain all the master data and transaction data at one central location and that makes real-time actionable information available to retailers. One can access the system from anywhere, anytime. The stock availability at any warehouse or store, sales made at a particular store, etc., can be known in no time. Cloud-based systems usually follow flexible monthly or yearly subscription-based pricing and hence, they do not involve a huge initial investment. Cloud-based systems are scalable. One can upgrade or downgrade their subscription based on their need. They also offer a high level of security and ensure that the business-critical data is always available and backed up.
A mobile POS System is a variant of a Cloud-based POS System where the underlying software runs on a mobile device. It offers all the benefits of a cloud-based POS System and offers greater mobility to retailers. Billing can happen anywhere in the store as the mobile device can be easily carried.
Self-service Kiosks are customized to serve a particular purpose. Vending Machines found at airports and public places offer self-checkout facilities to the end customer. Self-service Kiosks can run 24×7 without human intervention and eliminate the need for a cashier. They also provide a great customer experience since customers can select items they want to buy and pay for them without having to wait for anyone.
A hybrid Point of Sale System is the one that tries to provide the best of both worlds i.e. a combination of on-premise software and cloud-based software. A hybrid POS works even if there’s no internet connection. It syncs all the data back to the server as and when the internet connectivity gets restored. Normally billing functionality in a hybrid POS system works on-premise and the rest of the retail functionality like master data creation, retail discounts, and promotions, price lists, reporting, etc., is made available in the cloud-based system. Hybrid POS Systems are sold on a subscription basis and hence they involve lesser initial cash outlay. Ari POS and Retail Management Software support this hybrid way of working.
There are a variety of Point-of-Sale systems in the market, which usually include: Retail POS system, Restaurant POS system, and Salon POS system.
Each POS system contains a few different functions in order to cater to the needs of the industry. For example, Restaurant POS will contain the function to enter customized food orders and provide kitchen displays; Salon POS helps staff to manage appointment bookings, etc. Although the main functions are more or less the same, there are still some differences to cater to specific industries.
Know the importance of a retail POS System here:
Below let’s look at each POS respectively.
A Retail POS Software usually consists of these modules: inventory, sales, purchase, promotions and discounts, customer management, employee management, and sometimes finance management.
A cashier machine will only record the sales and inventory portion. The difference between a POS software and a cashier machine is that POS is more than a cashier machine. Cash collection is only part of the POS system.
We usually call the cashier machine in the POS system a POS terminal. It is to indicate that this is the point where payment is to be collected. A POS terminal does more than just collect money:
There are a lot more functions in the POS terminal than a cashier machine. The reason why this is possible is that a POS system consists of both software and hardware to work together to achieve an integrated platform.
We offer our POS services in different countries like the USA, UK, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, and many more. If you are from Malaysia, then click on POS System in Malaysia.
When considering which retail system to purchase, retailers like you will forecast into the future and look at how your business was to expand. The worst-case scenario is when your POS system i.e. individual machines are lying at various shops and do not communicate with each other.
Hence another beneficial point to take note of is that a good POS system will have a multi-store management module for retailers to control multiple shops linking to each other and the headquarter. This enables your retail staff to check for stock information not just within their own retail shop, but also in other retail stores.
Let’s look at the individual components of a good Retail POS system.
To put it shortly below is a short summary for each section.
A POS system oversees the entire inventory operation process from the moment you have to procure an item from your suppliers to managing shipment, payment, goods receipt, stocks take, inventory management, and final sales in the store – you need a comprehensive POS system to take care of all of that.
Item tracking is also available in a good POS system where you are able to see how stocks are moved around, where the stocks are located, the speed of movement of stocks, etc. The advantage of having such a management process in the POS system is to allow you to know what sells and what doesn’t. It’s for you to collect valid information to make strategic decisions such as running a warehouse sale to clear off slow-moving stocks or pre-ordering more of your hot-selling items to make sure that you’re not out-of-stock.
With a good POS system, you no longer focus on collecting money and selling goods, you start making crucial decisions that gave you a competitive advantage as compared to your competitors.
When talking about running a retail shop, how can we miss out on discussing promotions and discounts? Discounts are usually given whenever there is a festive season e.g. Christmas sale, Black Friday sale, etc. The advantage of having discounts in the shop is to entice customers to try out your products or at least walk into your store to take a look to see if there’s anything they need.
With POS software, you can set what kind of discounts you allow the shop to run from the back-end. Just enter the rules, such as allowing retail staff to provide a 5% discount, or if customers are asking for more than 5%, store managers have the right to override the rule and provide a maximum 10% discount.
This helps to efficiently control what are the discounts you allow the front-end shop to run, and what are the rules you want to set in the system. This method of giving out discounts usually occurs in retail shops that have a commission structure where part of the retail staff’s pay comes from their sales commission – which you can define this commission structure in Ari Retail Management System as well!
Coming to promotions, modern retailers like you are always thinking about new, attractive, and exciting ways of running a promotion. It will be too standardized if each promotion you run is just “20% off all items”. It’s definitely more fun to introduce new concepts such as different items will have different discounts, bundle different items together to sell as a bundle deal, or go for Buy X Get Y Free to entice customers to try out your new product.
By providing a mix-and-match, you are coming up with innovative and interesting ways to attract customers to visit and are more willing to purchase from your store. However, it is not easy to execute that promotional strategy if you are not utilizing the right tool. Hence Ari Retail Management System allows you to make use of such new technology to play around with what kind of promotions you would like to run. Moreover, Ari offers templates that allow you to make changes and customize the most suitable promotion that you want to run.
Customer Rewards Program is also known as Customer Loyalty Program. The benefit of having a POS system is that you can now collect customer information and understand your customers in order to come up with future strategies that can continuously attract and retain customers.
Usually, customers fill up their particulars right at the cashier using the POS terminal, which information will be linked back-end. It’s no longer the case where customers have to fill up a form and you have to get one employee to input such customer details into the system. With direct input from customers at the storefront, you saved manpower, time, and reduced human error.
By having your own Customer Rewards Program, and promotions management, you are able to collect customer information for re-targeting. They will be the first group of customers who know about new products introduced, deals and promotions in the shop, or even hosting of events, etc. to thank VIP members.
However, it can be confusing for some retailers to set up their own Loyalty Program. Part of the reason is that some POS systems out there are inflexible, which only allow a few options to run a loyalty program, and yet, retailers want to be creative. Creative in terms of coming up with tiered membership to differentiate and classify the members, and customers enjoy different benefits. Ari Retail Management System is one such flexible POS system that allows retailers like you to implement a Customer Rewards Program that suits your business the most. We know one size doesn’t fit all.
On the other hand, with customers’ information and purchase history being stored in the POS system, you get to know your customers’ demographics better and make more impactful decisions on how to run your retail shop. Without such crucial data at hand, retailers will be operating in the dark and could not understand their customers, causing them to lose out to competitors.
Other than Customers Management, a good POS system also has the function to manage retail employees – especially if you take security as a serious issue. It is important to track how each cashier operates the system and find out if there are any discrepancies in the money collected.
On top of enhancing security with user rights, a POS system allows retailers to keep track of sales commissions for retail staff. Accurate data allows you to reward outstanding retail staff, identify top sellers and organize an attractive commission structure. Ari Retail Management helps you manage your retail employees and limit their user rights – so that each user can perform functions that they are expected to.
For example, someone in the procurement department will have no access to information in the finance department; yet the finance department can have access to both sales and procurement departments. In this way, you can control what is being seen by employees within your retail brand to tighten user security.
A retailer can never be satisfied with just operating one shop alone. Hence when investing in a POS system, smart retailers will assess if this system allows them to scale up in the long run. It is a huge hassle to migrate to another POS system after using it for a few years when all data are stored inside.
One such consideration is to assess if the POS software allows multi-store management. With multi-store pos Management, retailers can link up to information at various stores for easier control. You can set rules for each retail shop from the back-end office, and retail staff can access information in other retail shops remotely e.g. to check for stocks in other stores.
Having the ability to manage multiple stores at one go makes life much easier for retailers – especially if you have a bigger vision to open stores in multiple geographical locations. You can have central control of how your shops will operate and share data among stores. The biggest advantage is that with the Ari Retail Management system, you can set different shop rules for different locations, such as differential pricing for different countries due to conversion rate and the standard of living.
A good POS system can provide such flexibility to help you scale your retail business and save the trouble of changing or migrating to another system in the long run.
One of the most essential modules a good POS system has is finance and accounting management. Every business will need to take care of its finances in order to assess if its business is healthy or not. Standard accounting functions such as Account Payroll, Account Receivable, General Ledger, etc. can be managed in the POS system.
Ari Retail Management does not come with its own financial module; however, it is integrated with well-known and easy-to-use accounting systems like Xero, Tally, and Retail Insight.
See also: Integrations with Ari Retail Management System
Moreover, Ari Retail Management software contains dashboards and reports. Thus it helps retailers gather data, understand how their business is doing, and make strategic decisions. The reason why retailers want to invest in a good POS system is to enhance their day-to-day operation process so that each stage is managed smoothly.
When it comes to operating a restaurant, it is important to invest in a system that can help you run the restaurant smoothly. The most basic investment is to purchase a good restaurant POS system. Now the question is, what is a restaurant POS system? How do we define if a restaurant POS system is suitable for you or not? What’s the difference between a restaurant POS and other POS systems?
A restaurant POS is a Point-of-Sale system similar to a retail POS as introduced above. Operating a restaurant is more complicated than operating a retail shop. A restaurant owner has to look after, kitchen management, inventory, staff, and daily operations. When it comes to inventory, it is a tricky task to manage as food and beverages have expiry dates. You need a system in place to keep track of those expiry dates, use up those that are closer to expiry and discard items that are already expired.
Ari POS software allows restaurant owners like you to easily keep track of food items and organize their inventory well. It provides details of quantity, locations, and expiry dates for you to better manage your food items. It is extremely important for restaurant owners to manage their inventories well as you want to make sure the food is safe to consume, or else bigger PR issues might occur which might damage the restaurant’s reputation.
Dealing with food, it also means that you will want to look into the flexibility of the restaurant POS software such as allowing customizations of orders to be made. For example, some customers may be allergic to certain food like milk or they dislike chili, and onions and would like those ingredients to be removed from the food order. A typical café will also have to deal with customized orders such as whether to add whipped cream, less ice/no ice, or special-order decaffeinated drinks.
Based on some of the examples given above, we can see the importance of investing in the right POS system. Instead of looking at other types of systems, a restaurant owner should preferably only consider POS software that is catered to the F&B industry.
The first reason to invest in a restaurant POS is to easily and accurately keep track of food expiry dates, to serve fresh food so that consumers’ health and well-being are taken care of. Food safety is of utmost importance in the F&B industry. To manually manage everything will incur a huge cost in terms of time and manpower and is also prone to human errors. Therefore, relying on technology to help you manage the inventory portion is a wise choice.
Secondly, customers are more willing to visit cafes and restaurants that are flexible enough to cater to their dietary needs. If you can’t serve what customers are looking for, it’s unlikely they will come back again. However, restaurant staff who are taking the orders are not kitchen staff who will make the food. Hence restaurants need to have a good restaurant POS to manage special orders to serve what the customers want.
A good restaurant POS allows accurate information to be shared within the restaurant. The POS system needs to be flexible enough for restaurant staff to enter customized orders. Moreover, it should transmit the information to kitchen staff. Another function that is important to restaurants is allowing the addition of ingredients, such as adding more rice, cream, vegetables, etc. at an extra cost. This is not just for restaurants to provide customized orders, but also to keep track of the number of ingredients used and charge accordingly so as to ensure profit-making.
Due to the various complications, cafes and restaurants will have to purchase restaurant POS system in order to operate them smoothly.
In short, a good restaurant POS that you need to consider should have the following functions:
We have covered the first 5 points previously. Moving on to Staff Management, a good POS system should ensure high security. Wherein the POS software is used based on user log-in. This is to control who has the access to the POS system and their respective user rights. Therefore information and data can only be accessed by the ones who need to.
However, ensuring high security is a must-have for all good POS systems. Hence it allows usage based on user rights is not a unique requirement for restaurant POS. What’s unique to restaurant POS is the ability to keep track of food items’ expiry date, and manage stocks level. Therefore it avoids out-of-stock situations, customized orders, staff POS display, and kitchen display.
Restaurants/cafe owners are constantly thinking of new marketing ways to attract customers. Getting the right kind of restaurant POS system can help to achieve better business. Therefore you can execute your marketing strategies and also collect customers’ information to find out more about them.
One of the basics is the ability of POS systems to run discounts and promotions. A restaurant POS should be flexible enough for you to select what kind of promotions you want to run. For cafes, it is quite common to have offers and promotions like one-on-one coffee, breakfast set meal, etc. For restaurants, some will offer free desserts if customers ordered up to a certain amount. Without technology’s help to manage, it will be difficult to execute these marketing strategies to attract customers.
It is also a trend for restaurants and cafes to come up with their own loyalty program. Hence restaurant POS system allows business owners to have the flexibility to select what kind of loyalty program do they want to run. One type of customer loyalty program may not be suitable for all shops or all countries.
Sometimes large-chain cafes/restaurants may face issues such as when operating in different countries, due to the difference in currencies and pricing, the number of points earned and can be redeemed might be different too. For such challenges, one needs to invest in a good restaurant POS system to control the differences from the back-end/headquarters. The ability to have central control for your F&B business is one consideration when it comes to choosing a good POS system.
For salons, the main difference is that the salon provides services and hence, does not need to maintain so many inventory items. Inventory management is easier to handle in salons as compared to retail shops and restaurants due to the lower number of SKUs. But it doesn’t mean that it is not important. Salons will still need to keep track of their inventories such as expiry dates, cost price, sale price, quantity, suppliers, etc. Salons will still need to keep track of their inventories such as expiry dates, cost price, sale price, quantity, suppliers, etc.
However, salons have their unique operations to handle which require the help of technology. The most basic functions will be scheduling appointments, setting reminders, and maintaining packages. Usually, POS System for Hair Salon contains the below modules:
Salon sales usually involve issuing invoices, multiple payment types, voucher management, sale item combos, and salon packages. Invoices need to be maintained and tracked properly. Therefore you know the products and packages sold, and track the payment accurately.
With an integrated salon POS system, you are able to look at sales invoices made from all salons. You can also compare sales. You will also want to manage vouchers and free trials. It helps you make sure the same customer does not redeem the offer more than once.
Moreover, if customers sign on a package with you, you need to keep track of what package it is. How many sessions are available and how much payment is made. Any kind of special promotions. For example, buy 10 sessions get 2 sessions free, will have to be accurately recorded in the system as well.
Precisely because prices might change, if you apply for discounts and promotions. Moreover, the packages offered may be different, you need an advanced salon POS system to help you manage all of these. You also need to manage multiple payment modes and payment types. Such as 50% up-front payment or monthly installment. It offers a variety of payment types is quite common in salons that sell packages. Hence it lowers the barrier of payment for customers.
Some salons will offer sales commissions as incentives for staff to sell more packages. To keep track of staff sales, you will need to rely on the salon POS system to reward sales commission.
Salons usually sell products that go well with their services. For example, hair salons sell shampoos, serums, and other hair care products. Therefore, salons need to maintain their inventories to understand how much product is sold. It helps them figure out which are the fast-moving and slow-moving items, replenish low-stock products, classify products for sale and products for usage, and manage expiry dates.
With a salon POS system, salon owners can devise useful strategies to sell products and also control costs. Products closer to an expiry date or that are slow-moving, salons can run a sale to clear stocks. Without a POS system, it is not easy to keep track of expiry dates, stock count, and slow-selling items. On the other hand, part of the inventories was also used to serve clients. Such as shampoo used to help wash customers’ hair etc. Salon POS is supposed to help owners and managers manage all such inventories clearly. Therefore you know what is being used, which are sold, and which are approaching expiry.
Salon POS inventory module also helps simplify the process of procurement and stock ordering. One of the reasons why a POS system is more convenient is that you can directly import stocks into the system. You can do it without much manual input.
Some Point of Sale systems even allows the creation of alerts when stocks for a particular product are running low. Hence salons will know when to re-order so that they won’t be out-of-stock which affects their business.
This is one of the most important modules in-salon POS. Operating a salon would mean that you want to keep your customers and get them coming back. However, the offer that salons provide is different from restaurants and retail shops.
Salons usually offer customer loyalty programs as a form of the service package. For example, salons might request customers to purchase a $500 package. Afterward, whichever services customers go for, the payment will be deducted from the $500 package. Sometimes salon has more attractive offers like purchasing $800 worth of packages at a $500 price. Or buy 5 sessions to get 1 session free. Hence salons need to keep track of which packages have customers purchased and go accordingly.
Customer Loyalty Program for salons is a bit more complicated as seen above. Salons can provide free products that come together with packages. They can also offer bundle packages for customers to try a variety of services. Even for the most standard kind of packages, salons will also need to keep track of the progress of customers.
Hence a good salon POS system is able to track each customer and the package that they purchase. Having a good POS system also helps reduce the workload of your staff, reduce manual paperwork and increase customer-tracking accuracy. In a sense, investing in a good POS system not only helps employees to be more efficient. However, it should be able to serve customers better when you have the right information at hand.
Almost every kind of shop will run discounts and promotions, some even offer vouchers; but for salons, they also offer free trials or special prices for first-time customers. A good salon POS is one that can help handle all these discounts, promotions, vouchers, and free trials.
Usually, free trials and special prices for first-timers are considered as a kind of promotion. Such promotions are beneficial to salons. It helps you attract customers with a low price barrier and could capture their information details as well for future marketing. Moreover, for salons, what’s important is for customers to experience your service. Therefore it differentiates you from competitors and is what makes customers come back to sign packages with you.
A salon POS can help you keep track of free trials and special prices for first-timers. They are your target marketing group. Salon POS can also help you set discounts and promotion periods. Therefore prices will be back to normal automatically after the date of the promotion is over. Yet, you can offer manual overwrite of prices for your staff to have the freedom to offer discounts. However, it is capped at a certain amount or will require the authorization of managers.
Another unique feature about salon POS is the ability to maintain appointments. Different from retail shops and restaurants that may require reservations, salons rely hugely on appointment management to maintain their business.
Customers either book appointments based on their own free time. They can also look at a particular employee. For example, a hairstylist is on shift and wants to book an appointment based on that. Employees can also have a clear idea about their own working shifts, such as the working hours and venues. It is because salon employees sometimes work on a rotational basis.
Hence, a good salon POS is one that can keep track of both employees’ shifts and customers’ appointments. Internally and externally, salon owners/managers can maintain the operations of the store smoothly. On top of that, some salons will call up or send an SMS to customers. It reminds them of their appointments. An advanced salon POS could send automated reminder SMS to customers as well.
Different from retail shops and restaurants whereby multiple payment modes is enough (e.g. cash, card, Alipay). Salons sometimes offer monthly installments and different payment terms. Salon packages are usually expensive, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars. Some customers may not be able to afford to pay a few thousand dollars at one go. It will incline to opt for monthly installments.
Therefore, salon POS is able to handle such unique requests when it comes to payments. You can allow customers to pay a certain percentage first. After that, they pay the rest the next time they come in for an appointment. You can keep track of all these payments using the POS system. Instead of recording manually which might have human error.
The same concept as multi-store management for retail shops. Salon POS should be able to link up the back-end instead of operating as an individual store. This is for the back-end system to record all information and store it in one integrated platform. Hence, information remains uniform and you can access it anytime.
For example, if a customer redeems a free trial in shop A, he/she should not be able to redeem it in shop B. The POS system should record such information and reflect to the salon staff. Or, customer visits shop X once and visits shop Y twice, the POS system should record everything. How many times this customer has come for services? This is more important if packages were signed. Hence it keeps track of how many sessions were used even when the customers visit different stores.
Another crucial aspect is the management of inventories as well. Sometimes, one shop may have a surplus of stocks while the other is running out of stock. Instead of ordering new ones, you can relocate stocks to another shop. An advanced salon POS system should allow all this information to be shared and controlled by the back-end office.
There is no fixed pricing for a POS system, it varies. Some companies offer free POS for a lifetime, yet usually, such POS system has their own constraints. For example, very limited functions (suitable for entrepreneurs operating 1 shop with a low number of stocks). Additionally, they cap at a limit such as only 50 sales invoices can be made per day.
Usually, the case is that the higher the price of POS, the more advanced functions it has. Therefore, large retail companies like IKEA will go for such an advanced POS system. Which POS system to go for, will largely depend on your budget and also the functions required.
Read this blog – Choosing the right POS Software for your Retail Store. If you are planning to buy a Point of Sale System, here are the 7 things to consider. It helps you decide better before buying a Retail Management System
A restaurant POS might have different pricing than salon POS due to the differences in functionalities. Hence when assessing a POS system, one should go for the most suitable system. It should basically cater to your industry needs.
Ari POS and Retail Management System are right now available at a special price of USD 49 per User per Month.
You may test drive Ari POS and Retail Management Software at no obligation whatsoever here: Ari Free Trial
We have built Ari Retail Management System with the latest technology that covers multiple functions. Ari knows how competitive it is for retailers to differentiate themselves and also have to run their operations smoothly.
With the implementation of technology, advanced POS software helps retailers significantly. It reduces costs, time, manpower, and human errors, so that information runs through the system on the same platform accurately. Read this blog to know the advantages of implementing a Retail Management System. As the retail industry is getting competitive, retailers are looking for more ways. They are looking for more advanced technology to execute their retail strategies. If you are keen to win the competition, find out more about Ari Retail Management software. You can simply contact us for a free demo/consultation about your business.
