What Is a POS System?

What is a POS system is a very common question asked by many new business owners. POS systems are also known by the longer term “Point Of Sale” systems POS software and hardware systems are commonly used in thousands of retail businesses through out Kenya. And there are literally hundreds of different point of sale systems to choose from

They range from very simple POS system to very advanced systems with many different functions designed to help the operations of your business  and improve your overall business efficiency.

The term “POS system” is a little deceptive because most of the POS software programs handle MUCH more than just “point of sale” tasks. That’s why the term “retail management software” is being used more and more often.

You might see websites refer to POS Systems as “point of sale system”, “pos system”, or “retail management system”. They are all referring to the same thing which I hope provides some insight to the questions what is a pos system.

The term “POS system” is just a term that point of sale development companies came up with to describe their pos systems. The problem is that each POS system can be different and varied depending on the nature of the business requirements.

Before we get into those details, let’s start by defining what is a POS system in it’s simplest form.

POS systems are used at the counter where goods are sold to your customers. In fact a POS system takes the place of your cash register and brings your business into the 21st Century.

When using a point of sale system, all your sales and stock transactions are made through your computer. You set up your POS system with the products you are selling, the selling price and the stock you have on hand.

When a sale is made your point of sale system will calculate the total amount of the purchases, including tax, and it even tells you how much change is due to your customer. It  records every sale and tracks everything.

Since your system records every sale, it can automate all kinds of tasks for you. For example, it will calculate your sales for the day, your sales tax totals, and tell you how many times you sell an item for a given time period, all at the push of a button or two.

This is an example of “what is a POS system” in its simplest form, however as mentioned before there is a lot more functions available to the small business owner.

POS systems can serve a variety of businesses from a local dairy to a local restaurant, to a national chain of stores.

Functions that can be added to a POS system include:

And any other functions that your particular business may require.

Common misconceptions of what is a POS system.

You may of thought that a point of sale system just tracks your stock on hand, and your sales but as you can see above a good POS system can be created to help you run your business more effectively and efficiently.

If you are still asking the question what is a POS system, give us a call today on our number.

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