How to choose a POS system for your business?

Every brick and mortar business requires a POS system in one form or another. Whether it is a POS system to handle transactions between your business and your customer. We understand that with the wide range of POS systems available in the Singapore market, it may be tough shopping for the perfect POS system for your business. 

Hence, we have come up with a guide on what to look out for when buying a POS system in Singapore.

The value of a POS system

Apart from its basic function of handling transactions between your business and your customers, a good POS system will be able to value add your business. Here’s how:

• Increases productivity of your business by streamlining your multiple operations using a central system (POS system)
• Provides valuable insights to your business through reports and data analytics
• Increase staff productivity while reducing administrative cost
• Reduces human error through automated functions (i.e. automatic promotion triggering, low stock alerts, etc.)

Complete POS Buyer’s Guide

Here are some things you should look out for when buying a POS system:

• Understand the needs of your business.
• List out POS system’s shortcomings.
• Understand the different types of POS systems in the market and which best suits your business needs.
• Match each feature of the POS system you are looking at with your business needs.

Understanding your business needs

This is the most important part of the POS buying process. Without defining your business needs, you could be easily confused into buying a POS system that does not suit your business operations. Similar to shopping at the supermarket, if you do not make a list of what you need, you might end up buying unnecessary items and not getting what you actually need.

Understand your business needs listed to be clear on what features and functions to look out for when buying a POS system.

List out existing POS system’s shortcomings

If you have an existing POS system at your shop but are still looking for a new system, it is important to know why so that you will not commit to a POS system that features similar shortcomings. 

Organise a meeting with your staff to find out which areas of the existing POS system they would like to have improved. You might be surprised that the feedback from your staff may differ from yours as they frequently operate the POS system.

Understand the different types of POS systems in the market

Here is a simple summary of the types of POS systems in the market

Traditional POS terminal

The traditional POS system is commonly seen in shops. They feature a POS terminal, cash box and a keyboard. These POS systems usually occupy a bigger space on your counter and its data is stored locally, in the POS terminal’s hard drive, enabling it to be able to function even if it’s offline. 

Tablet POS systems

These small, space-saving POS systems are rising in popularity these days, especially among takeaway food kiosk and shops with a smaller shopfront, making effective use of space important. 

Hence, tablet POS systems, which are smaller in size is a popular choice for such shop owners. Tablet POS systems have their backend on the cloud which makes changes to POS settings easier as it can be done remotely. However, most tablet POS systems are not able to run offline and require a strong and stable wifi connection.

Cloud-Based POS system

Judging from the header, it is easy to misunderstand that a cloud based POS system is a tablet POS but that is not the case. A cloud based POS is a POS system with your business data and POS settings stored and managed in the cloud server, providing you with the convenience of performing data analytics and backend POS settings without being physically present at your shop.

A cloud based POS helps you to scale your business easily by interlinking all your outlets through the cloud and provides you with better business insights by allowing you to view and analyse data across your outlets in real-time, helping you to make accurate and timely business decisions.

To conclude, a cloud POS can come in different shapes and sizes. A terminal POS system or a tablet POS can also be a cloud POS as long as its data is stored in the cloud server and you are able to perform back end settings configuration remotely through the cloud server.

Match each feature of the POS system you are looking at with your business needs

Every POS has its own strong features, hence, keeping your business needs in mind so that you will be able to identify which POS system is suitable by determining if its strong features match with your business operations model during the product demonstration.

If you are looking for a POS system for your business, feel free to leave us with your contact details and we will be happy to arrange a free demo session with you on our industry-proven, easy to use and most up to date POS system!