What is a POS system?

POS stands for Point of Sale: the place where your customers pay. A POS system used to be mostly a cash register and a cash drawer. Today, it is the central payment point of a store, restaurant, or bar.

How does a POS system work?

A POS system usually consists of a computer with POS software, a payment terminal, a receipt printer, and a barcode scanner.  A key feature of POS systems is that they work with smart payment terminals that run in the cloud. This means customers no longer always have to come to a fixed checkout to pay. In hospitality, for example, guests can simply pay on the patio, which helps keep them satisfied.  

A POS system does more than show how much money you have. It tracks what you sell and tells you what that means for your business. This gives you better insight into the following: 

• Inventory management. When you sell a product, it is deducted from your stock right away. You see immediately what is running low, without walking the shelves.

• Reports. Your daily revenue is shown live, along with your best-selling products. Useful for seeing whether that promotion is working, or which dish isn't selling on Thursdays.

• Checkout and receipts. The system handles checkout, processes the payment method, and sends the receipt to the printer or to your customer's email.

If you sell through multiple channels, such as a physical store and an online store, you want that information in one place. We wrote about this earlier in the benefits of an omnichannel payment strategy.

Connect your POS system to your payment terminal

When you connect your POS system to your payment terminal, amounts are entered automatically as soon as an item is scanned. This prevents the input errors that occur more easily when you use a payment terminal separately from your register. A terminal integration avoids these mistakes. Using a POS system offers several important benefits, including the following. 

• No typos. The amount appears on your payment terminal automatically, so a misplaced decimal point or wrong digit is a thing of the past. 

• Faster checkout. One less step per customer. You notice it at the counter, and on a busy patio your customers notice it too.

• Error-free bookkeeping. Your register report and your card payment report match. This makes discrepancies in your records far less likely, saving you time spent tracking them down. 

Do you also take payments online? Then it pays to keep all your payments with one provider, so you can see everything in one overview. Read what that delivers in what the move to unified commerce delivers in practice.

Conclusion: choose a smart point of sale

A POS system is your point of sale, your stockroom, and your reporting tool in one. It only becomes truly smart when you can integrate your payments into it as well. Then you no longer have to retype anything, the line moves faster, and your books balance by themselves at the end of the day.

Buckaroo integrates with a number of well-known POS systems and handles your in-store and online payments in one system. Not sure whether your POS system can connect to our payment terminals? Just ask, and we'll take a look with you.

Frequently asked questions about POS systems