If you’re a restauranteur, retailer or entrepreneur, answering the question what is a POS system should be one of your first tasks as you start your business. For any company that deals with customers face-to-face selling goods and services, a point of sale system, known as a POS system is the way you process your transactions and take cash and card payments from your customers.
Modern POS systems have replaced the traditional cash register and the outdated, often expensive technology that smart business owners had to work with to take payments from customers and process sales.
For over a decade, new tech companies have worked to bring POS systems up to date, using cloud technology and modern hardware. Now, entrepreneurs and business owners have so many options, with POS systems for sale targeting every business niche.
Cool features like iPad displays, portable hardware, and intuitive payment interfaces make the customer experience of using a modern POS system quick, simple, and efficient. Not only that, but for the business owners themselves, integrated accounting and inventory features make both day-to-day operations and forward planning so much easier.
Let us give you the lowdown on everything you need to know about exactly what POS means and how upgrading a modern POS system will radically improve your business.
How Does a POS Work in Your Cafe, Bar or Restaurant Business?
Nearly a third of restauranteurs think they’re behind with using technology in their business. Investing in a new POS system is an awesome way to keep your hospitality business ahead of the game, with improvements that you, your staff, and your customers will all appreciate.
We don’t need to tell you how busy and hectic running a restaurant or bar can be. Compared to a regular retail environment, there are a lot more plates you need to keep spinning. Not only are you taking payments from customers and keeping on top of your stock inventory, but in a cafe, bar or restaurant, you have to think about how your servers take orders, communication with the kitchen, table plans, and how to help customers pay split bills and add tips easily.
If you’re thinking about upgrading your current POS to a modern, iPad POS system for your restaurant, you’ll get so much more than just a sleek new order display unit. You’ll also get smart and effective solutions to all those things you have to keep on top of in your hospitality business.
The most sophisticated POS systems track your stock in real time. You can even group together ingredients in your inventory, so when a certain meal is ordered, the POS system knows exactly what ingredients have been used. Pretty smart, right?!
Taking orders at the table with portable tablets will impress your customers and gets orders straight to the kitchen in seconds. At the end of the meal, you can easily create separate bills, and take payments from your customers directly on tablet POS devices. Whether your customers are paying by cash, card or Apple Pay, they’ll be able to add a tip and sign with just a few taps on the screen.
Energize Your Business With Modern POS Software Features
You don’t need a degree in computer science to work with today’s modern POS software. Unlike traditional POS software that would have to be uploaded and updated manually, now the software is online, hosted securely in the cloud.
POS software is responsible for taking payments, creating reports, integrating with other software - for accountancy or payroll, tracking inventory and managing promotions.
Your POS software will always stay up-to-date and all the data you have on latest payment transactions and tracking your stock will be updated in real time, ready for you to get down to business and check out the latest numbers whenever you want. We bet you won’t miss the dull, time-consuming tasks of reconciling transactions and running reports and the end of every day.
Some of the best POS systems have software that works offline. So if your wifi goes down, or you’re working out on location, you can still take cash and card payments from your customers as normal, and everything will update when you get back online.
You might already have a loyalty scheme in place for your customers. Especially in the restaurant industry, rewarding regular customers with discounts and freebies is a great way of building loyalty and creating a buzz around your business. Modern POS software allows you to take your loyalty schemes to the next level. You can track your regular customers' loyalty, add different types of discounts to make a more personalized experience, and allow your customers to pay with gift cards easily too. Your regulars will love the experience and you’ll find it easier to attract new customers as well.
Build Efficiency With Modern POS Hardware Features
If you’re looking for the best POS system, it can be hard to decide what’s right for you when it comes to the hardware that will work best for you. iPad POS systems give you a reliable, flexible option for cloud-based point of sale hardware, and it’s a system you and your staff will be familiar with if you’re used to using an iPhone or iPad at home.
When you’re choosing your new hardware, think about what equipment will help your day-to-day transactions the most. Hardware for a small cafe POS will be different from the hardware needed for a large full-service restaurant POS.
For small-scale businesses, a compact cash drawer with built-in receipt printer could be a perfect option, while a busy restaurant may need multiple cash drawers and credit card readers as well as wifi or Bluetooth connected printers for communicating with the kitchen.
Other specialized hardware like barcode scanners, scales, or an order display unit should be on your shopping list if your company is a retail business.
From Cash Register to Trusted Business Advisor
The industry around modern point of sale systems has truly grown out of your needs as hardworking business owners in the retail and hospitality sectors.
Growing customer loyalty and increasing efficiency with easy-to-use interfaces and modern hardware is just one side of the improvements you’ll see.
The benefits of POS systems moving to a cloud-based, SaaS (software as a service) model, is that the capabilities of reports and integrations with other SaaS services is constantly growing and improving.
You can rely on POS reports to log your inventory (and even individual ingredients!) correctly and keep track of your sales information in real time.
You might be used to using a combination of intuition, guesswork and good old-fashioned number crunching to identify the trends and opportunities in your business. Now, POS reports are as reliable as a trusted business advisor, showing you your best selling products, busy periods, staff performance as so much more.
Finally, the growth of great cloud-based accountancy and payroll services has meant that the most switched-on POS system companies have made it possible to directly export sales reports and timesheets straight into other services with just a few clicks.
Choosing the Best POS System for Your Small Business
If you’re making the decision to change to a new POS system, it can be pretty daunting. Leveling up a system like Nobly POS, that gives you loads more features to help your business will make the transition easier and help you realize that the effort you put in is totally worth it.
One thing that makes Nobly different from other modern POS systems is that we appreciate you as a smart business owner and allow you to make more decisions that are right for you. Rather than force you to use one particular credit card processing system and accept whatever fees come along with it, there’s no restrictions on which credit card system you choose, so you can find the one with the best fees and most suitable hardware for your business.
Nobly POS has award-winning support, so you know that our friendly, expert staff will be there to assist you with any questions you have about your new iPad POS. We’ll even help you set up the system for free.
Nobly is built specifically with the hospitality industry in mind. Our specialized features like ingredients tracking, table service, splitting bills and offline mode were created to serve entrepreneurs and business owners just like you. Whether you run a coffee cart, a busy cocktail bar or a full-service restaurant, our software, hardware and reporting features will work for you.
Define Your Goals and Upgrade Your Business with an iPad POS System
Now that we’ve answered the question of what is a POS system, it’s over to you to take the next steps to upgrade your restaurant, cafe or bar with a new point of sale system.
As you can see, the software features, types of hardware, and reporting capabilities are really impressive and can make a real difference to the efficiency and profitability of your business.
Your next steps are to figure out which of the features are most important to you, where your business could use some extra help and guidance from detailed reports, and how a new iPad POS system will work in your restaurant set-up.
Read some testimonials from your industry peers and find out how much of a positive change they have seen in their business since choosing a new POS system.
