Is your Point of Sale a POS?
Sorry for the crude joke in the title…but It’s 4:00 on a Saturday in February. I’m at the office, working on a weekend to get my clients ready for tax time. There’s a lot to do. And a lot to clean-up. And do you know what is causing me the most headache? POS. No, not that POS (although the abbreviation is fitting.) I’m talking about POINT OF SALE.
There are a lot of POS systems out there. But it can be difficult to find which system will work best for your business. Does it integrate with your financial software easily? Does it easily track sales tax and/or tips? And what if you have more than one location? So much to think about.
As a retail establishment or restaurant, it's one of the most important decisions you can make. You want to make sure that your POS isn’t a “p.o.s”.
Things to think about
Now most POS companies have fancy impressive hardware: cool tablets to enter your tip and phone number for your receipt to be texted to you. But let’s talk about the things that will have you pulling out your hair if they go wrong. Things like……
Inventory & Order Management
Good inventory management software is like the holy grail of retail software. And putting together a winning system in the inventory department is a completely separate difficulty on its own.
If you use QuickBooks or QuickBooks Online You’ll want a POS system that can integrate inventory because QB lacks the flexibility for businesses with a lot of different items or for restaurants.
Payment Processing
No one carries cash anymore. We pay with our debit or credit cards…or even our phones. So, payment processing is going to be essential.
Before making the ultimate decision in your POS system, make sure that the cards you're able to accept through your payment processor are payment methods allowable from the POS system. And watch those fees….they add up.
Software Integration
This is the issue that will have your accountant or bookkeeper working on Saturday. A common issue in both the retail and restaurant industry are systems that are built well, but don't communicate to accounting software in a way that makes sense. The inventory items are off, or the daily sales summary isn't recorded properly to match the merchant service deposits made into your bank account. Or the sales are booked at gross of tax and tips, but net of credit card fees? Who does that? It’s an accounting nightmare!
You want solid information at your fingertips so you can make good financial decisions…and that starts with a good integration between your POS system and your accounting software.
So,what are my favorite POS Systems?
Well, I only have two I actually like. They are ShopKeep and Square.
Shopkeep by Lightspeed
I like Shopkeep because it works for so many types of businesses. They do a really great job of making sure that small businesses can get a great system that doesn’t cost a fortune
The inventory management process works for small businesses. Simplicity was a big part of the build of this software, and it's very intuitive. Employees will be trained quickly and easily because it’s not all that complicated.
And the best part is this software integrates really well with QuickBooks.
Of course, there are some downsides. For one, their pricing isn’t straightforward and isn’t available online. In order to get a quote, you have to call the company. Secondly, it’s really built for retail more than restaurants or coffee houses. It does work in those environments, it’s just not as flexible. Another downside is that software was made to be utilized in only one location. Syncing locations up is possible, but since it wasn't meant to it's clumsy.
Square
Square is extremely popular. I’m sure you’ve seen it everywhere…from stores to farmers markets and booths at the local fair. Probably one of the biggest reasons it’s so popular is that the software is actually free. You can download an app and request a free card reader and you are good to go. You are charged 2.6% + .10 per card swipe, dip, or tap. But there's also no contract. This is great for high dollar, low volume sales. But it can get pricey if you have a lot of small transactions.
Even with the free software, Square is a savvy solution without additional fees. It integrates with the two most popular small business accounting systems, QuickBooks & Xero. The applications that run within the software continue to grow, as well, meaning you can continue to add value to your payment system to understand your business better. The ecosystem is one of the most valuable points of this particular POS system.
Square's offline mode offers a lot of flexibility as to where you can take your register. For mobile retailers or restaurants, this is a great solution if you're traveling somewhere without WiFi service.
The free version also offers a pretty great inventory management system. It might be worth testing out and taking advantage of before moving into a more complicated, and expensive, software service.
Square also has a separate version for restaurants. This generally helps with the “one size fits all” model of Square, but there are some additional features that should be seen that really aren't that strong.
There are a lot of apps that can integrate into Square, and you can build a system that makes the most sense for you. However, that doesn't' mean that all the apps will communicate together very effectively.
There's no 24/7 live chat or phone support. For a business that's in the middle of their busiest part of the day, having a system lock up or freeze or not communicate correctly could mean a huge portion of your revenue disappears. This is one of the largest issues with Square.
But even with my favorites, remember that set-up matters. Any POS system can be a disaster if it isn’t set up correctly. Especially with QuickBooks Online. I’ve seen instances where every $0.25 add on is brought over separately and booked to the hated “undeposited funds” account. What a nightmare. 650,000 lines of clean-up. So make sure you work closely with your representative to insure that your set-up is done correctly regardless of the system you choose.