A POS system is made of three parts; software, hardware and payment processing. You need to buy all three and you’re likely to be best off if you buy them separately and that makes things really difficult for you because each decision affects both the others a payment choice might affect your software decision and your software affects your hardware choice. So with that in mind here’s our step-by-step guide on how to buy a point of sale system.

Number one:

Choose the software first with a few caveats payment processing and hardware are both fungible, while there are choices you need to make in both category there’s only a couple of choices beyond those; you want it to be reliable, you want it to be the right price and in the case of hardware you want it to look good.

In contrast, every POS software is a unique, special snowflake they’re all different so there’s a much more meaningful and wider choice of things that it can do, in fact, we were able to identify over 400 discrete features in POS software so there are lots and lots of choice. That’s why, ideally, your software choice should inform your payment and hardware choices not the other way around. We’ve built a few different tools and resources to help you choose your software if you’re not sure what you’re looking for, check out our features guide or our vendor pages. Our comparison tool is great and it gets better all the time, but best of all our quality partners have a fantastic range of experts, who have a great knowledge of all the different systems out there and they will listen to exactly what you need for your specific business and industry.

Payments:

There are two questions you need to ask yourself which should determine your choice of action for payments.

1. Do you want integrated payments? If you’re not sure what that means, think about when you get a bill in a sit-down restaurant. The waiter types in the exact amount that you want to pay into the card reader and he does so for everybody there. He or she will then go back to the POS system and press a button saying they have paid, that’s non-integrated payment. In contrast, a fast-food restaurant will press one button on the till and the card reader will queue the correct amount ready for the customer to pay, that’s an integrated payment and it’s much faster and a little less flexible.
2. To pay as you go or contract? Now let’s be clear, a pay-as-you-go provider will always be more convenient than a traditional processor they work out the box and there’s much less paperwork. Not to mention their fees are also easier to understand but will they be cheaper? Now is the time to go and do your calculations to find out if it will be cheaper for your business. We’re left with some possibilities, you may want an integrated pay-as-you-go provider, in which case navigate to your software page to find the integrated providers available or ask the providers when you get your quotes, who they allow integrations with on their POS system.

Controlling your device:

There are two main parts to pay attention to when it comes to controlling your POS system. These are your receipt printer and your controlling device. This may be in the form of a touch-screen, monitor or other. If your point of sale software is web-based you can choose any device which can access the Internet and if your software is an app you need a phone or tablet with the correct operating system, which you can find on your POS software profile page. In addition, point of sale software needs to be programmed to work with specific receipt printers so it is possible to buy the wrong printer. That is why Smartie is here, to take the stress and risk away from purchasing the wrong products and having incompatible parts. We allow you to answer some simple questions and then match you with a range of quality POS system providers who will provide you with quotes. You get to make the final decision and ask any questions you may have with ease.