4 Best POS systems and their key features
Published on 07/09/2022 Written by Sukanya Awasthi.
A point of sale (POS) software can help businesses streamline their payments and accounting and manage their physical stores digitally. In this article, we’ve compiled a list of the four best POS systems with at least a 4/5 user rating listed on Software Advice UK.
In this article
Many businesses are aiming to go digital in today’s times of smartphones and other handheld electronics. The penetration of the internet is also increasing worldwide to allow for digital advancements to enhance operational efficiency. In such a scenario, merchants could progressively use technologies like point of sale (POS) systems to streamline the process of their company’s bookkeeping and accounting-related tasks.
According to a report by Fortune Business Insights, ‘the global point of sale (POS) market is projected to grow from US$25.24 billion in 2022 to US$70.75 billion by 2029‘. To keep up with this growth, many businesses may be looking to incorporate these digital systems to increase the output of their day-to-day accounting operations. Before we learn more about these, let us first understand what a POS system is.
What is a POS system?
‘A point of sale system, or POS, is where your customer makes a payment for products or services at your store. Simply put, every time a customer makes a purchase, they’re completing a point of sale transaction.’ according to an article by Software Advice.
A POS solution can be hardware or software that possibly allows your company to make those sales and is potentially used to take an offline business online.
This article offers a list of the best four
SMEs can use to track and manage their sales. The tools listed below are arranged in alphabetical order. We have chosen the software listed in this article based on the following factors, and the complete methodology can be found at the bottom of the article:
- Have an overall user rating of at least 4/5 stars
- Have at least 100 user reviews between September 2020 and September 2022
- Meet the market definition of point of sale systems
1.
- Value for money – 4.6/5
- Functionality – 4.6/5
- Ease of use – 4.6/5
- Customer support – 4.7/5
CAKE is a cloud-based POS system intended for restaurants and other dining set-ups. Users may keep tabs on sales in real-time across many locations and pay, hours, and overtime. Additionally, real-time on-demand peak hours tracking and consumer tracking are available in CAKE POS. The tool also helps keep track of inventory, so the system immediately refreshes after every order to show what’s still in stock.
In order to reduce potential no-shows, CAKE POS further enables restaurants to contact and send automatic SMS to guests once their tables are ready. Owners and managers may drill down into sales data using the reporting module to identify sales by week, day, or hour. The dashboard also provides customised process workflows, real-time menu changes, and order entries. The software also comes with an offline mode that enables users to run restaurants and take payments even when offline. The tool offers various third-party integrations and more information on pricing can be found on its website.
2. Lightspeed POS
- Value for money – 4.3/5
- Functionality – 4.2/5
- Ease of use – 4.4/5
- Customer support – 4.5/5
Lightspeed POS caters to apparel, restaurant, bar, cafe, resorts and other food, retail and private businesses. The tool enables inventory tracking and management, which companies can use to add new goods to their inventory, develop multiple variants and track existing stock levels. Retail businesses can also manage discounts and promotions and set up seasonal offers to attract new customers through Lightspeed. The tool has various integrated payment solutions which enable the company to collect payments from multiple sources and sales channels.
Moreover, Lightspeed users can use reporting and analytics features to keep track of inventory, sales, staff and customers. The analytics feature can also forecast the demand for goods so that the business can decide which products to put on sale. Additionally, the tool can collect consumer information during translation to further personalise the experience for each visitor by creating custom fields and customisable buttons and receipts. Lightspeed offers various third-party integrations and more information on their pricing can be found on their website.
3.
- Value for money – 4.6/5
- Functionality – 4.6/5
- Ease of use – 4.6/5
- Customer support – 4.7/5
SpotOn is a POS solution designed for SMEs to streamline their restaurant, retail, automotive, and enterprise business. Restaurant businesses can use SpotOn to design their unique menus, receive online orders, and send orders to the kitchen on a unified platform using online ordering capability along with features like digital bookings & waitlists, labour management etc. Within the retail business, SpotOn can streamline in-person and online sales by providing a single cloud-based catalogue for all the available goods and services.
The tool offers payment processing for businesses selling in-person, on the go or online. Retailers can also use an omnichannel catalogue to create and update their in-store and online sales logs. Additionally, executives may learn more about how transactions, POS, hourly sales, special events, and loyalty programmes are processed in the SpotOn dashboard. With the help of SpotOn’s third-party integrations, partners may scale their integrations and provide their clients with solutions to expand their businesses. To learn more about their pricing, check their website.
4.
- Value for money – 4.5/5
- Functionality – 4.5/5
- Ease of use – 4.7/5
- Customer support – 4.4/5
Square Point of Sale offers various options to retailers, restaurants, bars, and other SMEs. Using Square POS solution, a merchant may search and categorise consumers to examine their purchase history, target email marketing campaigns, and deliver tailored communications that encourage repeat business. Critical customer information is automatically included to construct profiles. Moreover, merchants can accept payments remotely from users, release payments to the staff using the Team Management feature and sell their products at the counter, online, or on the go.
Merchants may view their sales data from any device using the dashboard and built-in sales reports on the POS, which include real-time hourly sales reporting for each location, transaction and deposit monitoring, and more. Additionally, merchants can keep track of consumer preferences and transactions. Square POS also offers inventory management. Users can receive daily stock alert emails alerting them about the availability of certain goods, and inventory levels may be exported to printable spreadsheets. The tool offers third-party integrations and more information on the pricing can be found on their website.
Methodology
The software mentioned in this article are listed in alphabetical order. For the point of sale system listed above, the following factors were considered:
- A minimum of 4/5 star average overall rating.
- The existence of at least 100 reviews of the software over the past two years (September 2020 – September 2022).
- All of the above software match Software Advice’s definition of a point of sale system: POS software helps businesses manage both sales transactions and operational processes, including payment processes, inventory management, customer management, sales reporting, and employee management.
- All the software have the following core features: sales reporting, payment processing, and inventory management.
- Out of our resultant list of tools, we selected the five best tools with the top average overall ratings of more than 4.5/5 stars.
This article may refer to products, programs or services that are not available in your country, or that may be restricted under the laws or regulations of your country. We suggest that you consult the software provider directly for information regarding product availability and compliance with local laws.
About the author
Sukanya is a Content Analyst for the UK and India market. Committed to offering insights on technology, emerging trends and software suggestions to SMEs. Café hopper and a dog mom.
Sukanya is a Content Analyst for the UK and India market. Committed to offering insights on technology, emerging trends and software suggestions to SMEs. Café hopper and a dog mom.