In the earlier days, cash registers were a must-have in retail stores. They increased the speed of billing and prevented store cash from pilferage. While it assisted the transaction process in many ways, it grew old-fashioned over time.
Purchasing a cash register is no longer a good investment in modern times. Moreover, payments by cash are on a rapid decline. That said, there are many good reasons why you should upgrade from cash registers to a POS system. We’ll tell you why.
What cash registers can do?
It is not uncommon for retailers to confuse cash registers for a POS software application. They are not the same. A cash register is not a POS. The main difference is cash registers can only perform billing-related functions. Whereas POS software can manage various store operations, such as inventory, sales, customers, employees, and more.
The functions of cash registers are restricted to the following:
- Store product codes and retrieve them for billing
- Display total sum of purchase
- Print receipts
- Receive cash, credit/debit card payments, and cheque
These functions may be just enough for small retail stores with basic operations.
Advantages of upgrading to a POS system
By upgrading to a POS billing software application, you gain control over every single operation in your retail store. Let’s go over the advantages briefly:
Improve store operations
A POS system gives you the tools to surgically oversee and optimize store activities. An integral feature of the software is the dashboard. It gives you a 360-degree view of everything that is happening in your store. Add to that notifications, automation, and you have everything you need to take your operations to the next level.
Accept multiple modes of payments
The way consumers pay for products has changed drastically over the years. At present, mobile wallet payments are highly popular. Cash registers do not accept those types of payments, but POS software does. A POS solution can accept cash, debit/credit card, mobile wallet, and cheque payments.
Usable on multiple devices
Cash registers are on-premise equipment. They are not portable. This can be a major disadvantage today, especially now that the cloud is easily available. POS software systems take advantage of the cloud. And because of that, it is possible to use them on any device that supports a browser. You can access the software over a computer, mobile phone, and tablet.
Get store insights
In addition to all the controls a POS system gives you, it is also capable of generating comprehensive reports. The software consolidates KPIs and processes them into insightful analytics. They reveal what products are best selling in your store, which employees are top-performers, where you can tighten your store’s expenses, and more.
Integrating a payment processor with a POS system
You might be wondering how POS software solutions accept card payments. Or how to integrate a POS system with credit card payments. The answer is, you will need to purchase a card reader that is compatible with the retail management application. By integrating the reader with the software, you can process payments faster, more accurately and provide customers with an unparalleled shopping experience.
The POS system acts as the brain behind the transactions you want to perform. Every time you swipe a card, be it debit or credit, the POS interprets and accepts the inputs from the card reader. It is crucial to pick a payment processing unit that connects with your POS. At the same time, the opposite is also important. Ensure that the POS software you purchase has payment integration capabilities.
Without a POS application, your card reader and management software would work as two disparate components. In that case, you will need to manually input the amount customers have to pay on the card reader every time. Another shortcoming is that logging and preparing transactional reports becomes a manual and cumbersome task.
A POS software solution eliminates this problem and streamlines the checkout process. Once you ring up the products in a customer’s cart, the card reader automatically transacts the exact total amount. It does not require human intervention.
Integrating a payment processor with a POS system gives you several operational benefits. It results in faster checkout times. You can instantly bill and receive payments from customers. Then, the software logs every transaction. That translates to accurate and comprehensive record keeping. It helps not only stay compliant but also in optimizing your business based on patterns in the log.
Desktop-based POS billing software
The most promoted POS solutions are cloud-based. They allow retailers and employees to access retail data and manage operations from anywhere at any time. Synchronization of data is easy, and so is mobility. Despite these benefits, desktop-based POS systems are still widely popular. You may be wondering “why do people like desktop billing software?”
Desktop-based billing software solutions have a number of advantages over web and cloud-based applications.
Firstly, it provides a seamless user experience. Web-based applications depend on the internet to run. If the quality of the internet deteriorates, be it a drop in internet speed or a complete outage, web software solutions falter. It has the potential to bring businesses to a grinding halt. On the flip side, desktop-based billing software systems do not rely on external resources. It runs on internal resources. And thus provides a consistent user experience at all times.
Secondly, desktop-based applications are specially built to smoothly run on system configurations and operating systems. That is contrary to web-based applications which are designed to run on any system through a browser. As desktop software utilizes internal resources such as system Random Access Memory (RAM), storage, and operating system, it is much faster and functions as intended compared to web applications.
Thirdly, desktop software is easy to access. The only additional step it requires before running is installation. Web-based software does not need installation, they are ready-to-use over a browser. Although that seems more advantageous, desktop software is always available just a click away. You can create a shortcut of it on your desktop, taskbar, and more.
Conclusion
So there you have it. You are bound to scale up your store at one point or another. And during that time, you will need more software tools to efficiently manage your store activities. The best solution for that is a Point of Sale software solution. It can do what cash registers do, and a lot more. Contact us to book a demo session today.