The Benefits of a POS System for Your Business

There was a time when a point of sale consisted of nothing more than a cash register. Now, it is an increasingly complex and integrated ecosystem of hardware and software designed to facilitate digital payments, manage inventory and help a business monitor its finances. Payment software features now provide a wide range of functions and benefits for every business, whether you run a small clothing boutique, a major chain store or a thriving auto repair business. Let’s take a look at the most important benefits of a POS system.

These benefits include:

Do you think your POS could and should help you manage your purchasing process? Some people may think that a POS is there for sales, but the benefits of a POS system can also be seen on the other end of the value chain, at the point where you order and purchase your stock.

Obviously, purchasing your stock and equipment is an essential part of your business. A good POS system should optimize this process for you, helping you manage purchases from your suppliers. Advanced POS software has open application programming interfaces (APIs), which allow you to connect directly to your suppliers. Instead of merely managing your stock levels and setting reminders for new stock, your POS can actually place orders directly. This gives you control over purchasing and allows you to keep track of items you have ordered. You can also use such a system to plan your future purchases and set minimum amounts for specific products. This helps you to have better control of your purchases and keep an optimal amount of stock so as to minimize losses and retain customers.

This kind of optimized inventory and purchase management system leaves less chance than old ordering methods, which relied on old-fashioned manual counts and perhaps a touch of intuition. The inventory management systems integrated in advanced POS solutions keep precise track of each item and can be set to sound the alarm when stock levels drop. You will never accidentally run out of stock on a popular item because you weren’t watching the numbers during a busy week. The system can either alert you when stocks are low or automatically email a replacement order to the supplier – or both. You can minimize errors in your purchasing strategies, and always ensure that you have neither too much nor too little of anything.

Your POS can even help you manage your costs by comparing new stock requirements against budget constraints, and prioritizing purchases accordingly. The reporting functionality can place these comparisons, backed by accurate numbers, right in front of you, giving the figures you need to inform, support and implement cost-saving strategies.

Overall, the multiple benefits of a POS system add up to simpler business processes and greater control, making every management step both easier and more accurate. It centralizes all your business functions into one, easy-to-access interface, placing your entire business literally at your fingertips. It also offers the ability to automate key functions and improve payment organization across channels.

Modern POS systems bring related, but previously separated factors together into a single, integrated ecosystem: sales, inventory management, customer management, and staff management – all accessed on a single screen. With cloud-based systems, you can even manage your business remotely, getting real-time control over all your sales locations in real-time. The results: increased efficiency and more control.

One of the beauties of technology is that it enables us to delegate routine and tedious (but nonetheless essential) tasks to our tools and systems so we can focus on more important things. For example, you can set up your POS to perform a number of tasks automatically, such as placing replenishment orders for fast-moving stock items.

Your POS system can manage payments across multiple locations and channels. Whether you make sales online, in-store, or both, your POS system expedites payments and makes them easier. You can accept multiple payment methods, and integrate the system with the payment gateway and processor of your choice, making it possible to accept payments online, and make provision for other digital payment methods aside from cards. Fast, secure, fuss-free payments are easily achieved with a modern POS system.

What really sets you apart as a merchant is not so much your products, no matter how good they are. The real differentiating factor is the experience you create for your customers. What makes a good customer experience? Great service, of course, but there are also a variety of other touches, some of which can be achieved with the help of your POS.

Convenience is a central keyword in customer service. If you want to give your customers a good experience, start by making their shopping experience easy and convenient. One of the ways your POS can help you do that is by making payment flexible and hassle-free. Your POS can be set up, depending on the processor and payment gateway you choose, to accept as many payment options as possible. Your customers should be able to complete their transactions with a single tap of a card or touch of a button. This is something that is very easily done with a good POS system.

There is no need for your customer’s experience to end when they leave your store. By integrating a customer management system into your POS, you can turn a transaction into an ongoing relationship. You can record your customers’ details and keep track of their purchases and preferences. Then, you can start marketing directly to them with special recommendations, invitations and incentives.

Next to sales and purchasing, inventory management is probably the most important part of your business. You need to keep a close watch on every item in your store and manage your inventory levels in real time. You and your staff could never do that alone, but your inventory management system can. Consider the following benefits:

Your inventory system is constantly updated in real time, with every sale and purchase you make. Whenever you access the system to check on stock numbers or pull a report, the information you find there will be the most current.

As already mentioned, you can also set up your system to place automatic replenishment orders when stock numbers on certain items drop below a certain minimum. You can ensure that you never miss a sale because of stockouts.

If you have multiple sales locations, your POS system will extend its powerful inventory management functions across all of them. You can keep track of your inventory, in real time, in every location you have, all from a single interface.

Whenever customers enter their payment or personal details, they naturally wonder whether that data will be safe. Advanced POS systems and payment processors provide peace of mind by encrypting all data from end to end, keeping it safe from cybercriminals.

Transactions are the domain of payment gateways and payment processors, which means that the transaction data leaves your control for that instant when a sale is being authorized. However, if you have integrated your POS system with a reputable gateway and processor, you have nothing to worry about. They are encrypted from end to end and also use tokenization to make transactions safe.

Your payment system must be PCI DSS-compliant, meaning it protects cardholder data, prevents credit card fraud and data breaches, and ensures a secure environment for the storage and transfer of payment data. Luckily for you, that is not really something you will have to worry about on a daily basis. As long as you have implemented a good POS solution and contracted good merchant services, your entire payment ecosystem should be compliant.

Your POS system can even help you manage your staff, which is perhaps just as important as all other points we have already mentioned – probably more so.

Every manager or business owner needs to know how well their staff members are doing. Your system can help you do that by tracking their performance through measurable data. You can decide which metrics are most important to you. Maybe you need to monitor sales figures, or working hours, for example.

You can even use your POS system to make work schedules for your team, as well as monitor attendance. In addition, staff members can clock in and out on the system, which will then compare their hours to the preset schedules. You can keep a precise watch on absenteeism and late-coming.

POS systems also enable you to set permissions so that staff members are only given access to certain, preapproved features. Senior management may have access to all functions, for example, while salespeople have much more limited permission and accounting staff are excluded from sales but can access all financial data. You can customize permissions according to your preferences and your business’s needs.

Access2Pay is a cloud-based, feature-rich POS solution that provides all of these benefits. It is an advanced, flexible, customizable solution that can integrate with a variety of other software packages, such as accounting or tax management programs, as well as payment processors and gateways. If you would like to find out how you can enjoy all the benefits of a POS system, contact us today.