Best Point of Sale Services
Based on In-Depth Reviews

Imagine yourself starting a small business. Maybe you have a knack for fabrics and you decide to sell your own homemade clothing items or accessories. You're likely going to need a way to advertise online or take non-cash payments. You might also want an easy way of calculating the tax owed on your products and sales, if you want to streamline your administrative workload. 

Or picture a different scenario, one in which your adorable corner bakery got popular overnight and now you need to hire additional staff. Suddenly, you need to keep track of employee hours, worry about shift changes, and ensure the cash drawer is always in order. Not to mention, you’ll probably want to limit the types of transactions your employees can make, to avoid surprise discounts or too many voided transactions.

Thankfully, POS systems these days can handle all of these scenarios and more.

Why get or upgrade your POS system?

Modern POS systems combine multiple aspects of running a business into a single convenient point. They’re particularly useful for product-based businesses or services (liquor stores, restaurants, clothings boutiques, etc.) that benefit from keeping track of inventory, sales trends, and flexible payment methods. Though the cost-cutting benefits of integration are common knowledge to most business owners, the significance and real world effect of said benefits are often overlooked. In order to get a more concrete understanding of the impact these systems can have on a business, we reached out to owners or managers of both established and new small businesses. 

One person we spoke with is Fernando García Rodríguez, owner of a neighborhood bar in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Bonanza, as it’s popularly known, has been in his family for over 50 years, and he had recently decided to modernize some aspects of the old-school bar. Part of this was the installation of a POS system, replacing the various standalone cash registers that had been in use throughout the years.

Mr. García, a Puerto Rican residing in New York, responded with a chuckle when asked about his decision to adopt a POS system, “To be perfectly honest, I made the decision on a lark. Times are changing and I thought I’d try changing with them.” He explained that he was initially wary of trying a POS system, given that his bar’s daily tasks can be handled by one or two employees at a time, and all things related to numbers and figures have to go through him, regardless.

Despite the fact that the bar normally handles large amounts of customers—implying a healthy amount of sales and inventory metrics to be collected—most of those customers are regulars and people looking for affordable drinks and nice ambiance. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what my sales trends and inventory numbers are at any given time.”

Instead of metrics concerns, he stated that his main consideration when installing a POS system was the integrity of his merchandise and cash revenue. As can happen in many small businesses when there is not enough due diligence, numbers stop adding up and before you know it, you’re incurring losses. “I figured that since most devices these days are connected to the internet, I could install one of these systems to allow me to monitor the bar’s activity without having to hover around my employees all day. Not to mention that I can’t just take a plane every other week to do so.”

Despite the ongoing pandemic preventing him from seeing the system fully in action, he has been able to test it out for a few weeks. Thus far, he has been pleased with the ability to have a more granular view of his business activity without having to be present for most of the day. The ability to set employee permissions, monitor clock-in times, and update product lists remotely has been a welcome change.

Though there hasn’t been enough time for technical issues to arise, he did have some observations. “I was a little worried that the setup process would be too complicated, since I’m not the biggest fan of current technology. However, I called in a favor from my son—who’s not exactly a computer technician—and we had the terminal set up in less than an hour.”

HIs biggest pet peeve so far is the software portion of his POS system. Mr. García signed up with Clover, a POS company that allows you to set up your system’s specifics through their website before you receive the physical terminal. Though Clover allows you to import spreadsheets in order to streamline the setup process, García’s prior aversion to technology meant that everything from product lists to employee schedules had to be inputted manually. “It’s not the worst problem to have, but it certainly has been a hassle to deal with. You definitely want someone familiar with computers and technology to help you handle the technical setup, if you want to save time.”

For people who are just starting their business

Rubén Ramos Colón, an experienced business owner who has had to implement POS systems on startup ventures, also spoke to the utility of these systems. Unlike Mr. García, whose business model barely requires any staff to successfully run it, Ramos Colón has worked with slightly larger small businesses with over 15 employees. Mr. Ramos called POS systems “the administrative backbone of everyday work in a small business,” due to the fact that everything related to figures, both administrative and inventory, is streamlined through them. It even serves to allow different permissions for kitchen and front of the house staff as they go about their daily tasks.

“In the first three months, we relied on a manual register and would keep books by hand. Much to our surprise, the store saw quick and exponential growth. We soon realized that it was impossible to keep track of all the daily activities, I couldn't have handled everything by myself without POS reports,” Ramos said. 

Between the large number of employees, their payroll and schedules, all orders and inventory, as well as handling the everyday management and mishaps of the store, (which had two separate rush hours and two separate work teams), the work really piled up. “Workdays were 12 hours long. Had I done figures manually, it would have easily added up to an extra day of work.”

His experience with these systems was not entirely positive, however, as technical difficulties did eventually rear their ugly heads. “Our POS system was infamous for having license or software issues on a regular basis. Our program needed an internet connection and would regularly crash mid-morning [during] rush hours.” He also bemoaned the lack of proper integration between his credit/debit card readers and his POS terminals, stating that they would regularly stop working altogether.

Lastly, Ramos emphasized his troubles with tech support due to their general unavailability and late response times, usually hours after the problem had first occurred and after he had been forced to keep manual tabs on sales. “Eventually, we learned how to troubleshoot the system using YouTube videos and other DIY repair websites.”

Benefits of POS Systems for different types of businesses 

• Restaurant

Restaurants can benefit from a POS system by integrating all administrative tasks into one point of contact. Modern POS systems combine inventory tracking, employee time cards, sales reports, and more. Many systems are also capable of setting up multiple printer output options, allowing food and drink orders to be sent to their respective work stations. Furthermore, there are POS hardware options specifically geared toward food service industries which are easy to clean and generally spill-resistant. 

• Retail

Retail-based businesses can get all of the same benefits as restaurants, as well as a few extra perks. For businesses with multiple locations, POS systems can also track sales and inventory between individual locations, allowing you to more efficiently manage several stores from a single online dashboard.

• Independent service providers

Independent service providers can also benefit from POS systems, since the mobile and ecommerce options allow you to take payments wherever you go, making them a useful alternative for services that don’t necessarily rely on traditional storefronts such as plumbers or artisans selling their wares at festival booths.

How much is a POS System?

POS systems can vary wildly in cost, from dozens of dollars a month for software solutions to over a thousand dollars per desktop terminal and associated accessories, such as receipt printers. Depending on the size and scale of your business, you may even expect to pay several hundred dollars for equipment installation and setup.

Some other costs to consider are credit/debit card processing fees. If your business accepts any sort of electronic payment, you’re likely familiar with them. They’re always presented in a percentage plus flat fee format, such as 0.25%+10¢. In the case of POS system providers, there is plenty of room to shop around, since rates can vary considerably. Some providers might offer their services for cheap, but charge relatively high processing fees, while others will strike a balance between the two. Some businesses may even charge you a flat percentage, choosing to eliminate the additional cash fee altogether.

Precisely because these systems are so flexible and variable in their costs, it becomes very important to assess your business needs at purchase time. After all, the small corner coffee shop isn’t going to need the same full package of POS services as the big box retailer in town.

Though all companies offer nearly the same range of services, they prioritize and bundle them differently, which means that one company might include the features you need in their most expensive plan, while another could do so with their most affordable option. 

For example, Clover’s POS Pro system (their largest and most expensive countertop terminal) offers a variety of plans depending on your particular business model. The restaurant configuration offers three plans, with the basic plan, simply called “Register,” allowing for the full range of POS features such as inventory management, basic payroll features, sales reports, and so on. The next plan on the list, “Counter Service Restaurant,” allows you to add rewards programs for your customers and other related features for no additional cost. The most expensive option, “Table Service Restaurant,” allows you to set a table map in your POS terminal, if your food business requires one, though it comes at nearly double the cost of the previous two plans.

Following this example, a small restaurant might want to spring for the middle plan, allowing them to more efficiently manage and retain their customer base, while avoiding the unnecessary cost of the table plan option. You also want to watch for any financial assistance the companies can provide when it comes to paying for your systems and equipment. Many POS companies offer monthly payment plans for their more expensive hardware, allowing you to soften the blow of your initial investment.