Are you happy with your POS System and what it does for your business? If not, we have resources available on how to find the right POS System for your business. We can help you know more about your POS and what it can do for you.
Going through the evaluation is a pretty straightforward process and we can walk you through the simple steps to find the right POS System for your business.
Keep in mind, there are many components to consider but we are seeing three hot topics that are trending now related to POS Systems for small and medium-sized businesses. Whether you own a retail store or restaurant, these are things you should be looking at now: Inventory Management, 3rd Party App integration and e-commerce order processing support.
With all of these key features, they are available with either in-house, on-site hardware and operation, or with a cloud-based system.
Inventory Management through your POS System
Last week’s blog talked a lot about the importance of utilizing your POS System to manage the inventory and how different components impact your retail store or restaurant. The real-time impact of carrying costs, out of stocks, inventory turns and rising costs of goods can be the difference between making money or not.
This last one is a critical topic and extremely timely in terms of getting through the current economic impact affecting business owners in all industries.
3rd Party App Integration through your POS System
Third-party application and software integration with the POS System is showing more and more that there are ways to save time and money.
One of the biggest things that might be clear to restaurant owners, but not to consumers, is the cost of third-party delivery services. For those who do not know, each order that is submitted to a restaurant that doesn’t have integration has to be re-keyed or re-entered. This takes time, ties up staff doing “double work”, can add the risk of losing orders or delay an in-person/customer order being fulfilled. Some POS Systems allow for easy integration, but there are add on software applications that can communicate between the two systems. These, although perhaps with a cost, can be more efficient and effective to make the most of the third-party orders.
Other integration tools for all business industries can be accounting, reporting, e-mail marketing, loyalty and gift card programs. Others may be related to online security and credit card verification. All of these tools will save time for your staff and you as the owner; use them to free up time that is better utilized in other ways. Engage customers, cultivate a better relationship and enhance the customer experience to bring them back time and time again.
e-Commerce Order Processing Support
Integrating online orders with in-person and phone sales is becoming more important. Beyond time constraints and staffing expense (as we all know, time is money), having all sales in one place for reporting, analytics, sales tracking, and yes, inventory management is more important than ever.
We have more information that we can share with you on ways to connect your brick and mortar processes and operational procedures to allow e-commerce sales to enhance, and not detract from overall sales.
NOTE: Remember, a business entity can only have one processing system (one merchant account) to be able to maintain PCI compliance. If this is a concern of yours, or you are just reading this and realize that your e-commerce processing is different than your in-store POS System, you should get in touch with us now.
These are just the highlights. Hopefully these three areas make you think about ways that your business could be operating more efficiently, become more streamlined, and in the end, save you money (as well as time.)
If you think it is time to learn more, get in touch now.