The first point of sale or POS system was a transactional tool that was used for processing and tracking sales in hospitality and retail environments. With the evolution in technologies and functional capabilities, POS software is now considered a critical resource, aiding in smoother business management.

An advanced POS system helps you grow your customer database and business revenue. It offers flexibility and real-time insight into the core processes while supporting particular demands of the business.

Depending on the features you choose to have in your POS system, it can give you effective control over areas such as inventory management, sales performance, customer satisfaction, and overall business productivity. Before we get into the necessary features, let's check out what is POS system?

What Is the Point Of Sale System?

POS system is an integrated business management software suite that is used by hospitality and retail businesses to simplify billing, sales promotions, product returns, and much more. From monitoring inventory to tracking sales, processing financial transactions to maintaining customer relationships, providing real-time reports to improving employee management, a full-featured point of sale software can handle all operations needed to run and grow businesses.

Though the POS software is meant to drive complex business operations, the intelligent system in itself is designed to enable anyone, from a tech-savvy professional to a technophobic entrepreneur, who wants to turn their business successful.

According to a Gartner report, “By 2022, 60% of organizations will utilize packaged artificial intelligence to automate processes in multiple functional areas.”

6 Must Have Point of Sale Software Features?

For businesses in the retail and hospitality industry, selecting the right point of sale system is of utmost importance to ensure their organizational operations run efficiently. But not every point-of-sale software functions in a similar way. Its features decide the usability of the application. Therefore, to select the POS system that is the best fit for your business, you need to know about the most essential features that would help you in keeping your business operations running smoothly.

Here are the six must-have point-of-sale features that you can lean on as a supportive management tool:

Inventory and Stock Tracking

Accurate inventory tracking is critical to ensure goods or services are always available to the customers when they need them.

Advanced POS systems include barcode scanners and other inventory tracking tools to provide you with complete visibility and accountability of stock movement, helping you avoid over-purchasing or shortages. The technology even identifies high-demand goods and notifies you to reorder inventory that is performing well.

Sales Report Monitoring

Knowing what is ordered most at any given time is the best way to determine sales trends. This insight is necessary to save your business from unnecessary product overspend.

A cloud-based POS system with modern features makes it easier to track and manage sales information. It is able to generate robust reports, enabling you to understand and make informed business decisions for increasing overall productivity.

Task Automation

Task automation is another great feature of a smart POS system. It allows you to handle sales, purchases, inventory, and other processes in a smarter way. You won't need to manually log the information, as the system automatically collects data from different processes and generate reports required to run your business smoothly.

Loyalty Program Manager

Loyalty programs are not an absolute necessity, but they help hospitality and retail businesses grow.

POS software with a built-in loyalty program manager makes keeping track of the rewards offered and loyalty incentives your customers are getting hassle-free. A strategically planned and well-monitored loyalty program increases sales thereby improve business profits.

Return and Refund Management

Product return is an inevitable part of retail businesses and customers nowadays prefer stores that have shopper-friendly return policies.

Your POS system must include the feature to facilitate the acceptance of cross-channel returns and faster refunds. This makes returning purchased items a stress-free process for customers and keeping track of them easier for you.

Split or Multiple Billing Facility

Your customers might want to make payments partially with credit cards or cash or gift cards or split the bills.

POS software can make billing and transactions swifter for everyone. Go beyond traditional payment methods with an advanced POS system that supports options for splitting bills and accepts payments made through multiple formats in a single transaction.

Choosing the Best Retail POS System

Overall, technologically advanced POS software is able to make your business processes more organized. It is necessary to have all the above features in your point-of-sale system, however, depending on the type of business you have, you can also opt to include additional features to enable you to maintain superior business management practices.

Still, unsure what to look for in your POS software, get expert’s help. Connect with us to discuss your challenges with our product consultants.