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In this article I’ll cover the basics of a POS system and the top 5 reasons why you need one. And I’ll tell you how MerchantOS meets these key needs.

Point of Sale System Terms

POS

POS stands for Point-of-Sale, it’s where you take money from the customer in exchange for goods or services. The main function of your point of sale system is to automate the sales process and keep a detailed history of all transactions.

Inventory Control

The second most important function of POS software is to keep track of your inventory. Inventory control means knowing how much inventory you have and how much you need to buy at any given time.

CRM

CRM stands for Customer-Relations-Management, it’s how you keep track of customers. Most point of sale systems will store a list of customers and their purchase history.

Hardware

POS systems usually require or recommend specialized hardware. This includes a receipt printer and barcode scanner for the point of sale, and label printer for labeling inventory.

5 Reasons Why You Need A POS System

1. Quick and Accurate Sales

   It all comes down to sales. If you aren’t making sales you aren’t going to stay in business. Sales are the core of your business and how you handle this process is essential to your success. A POS system makes sure that everything runs smoothly on every transaction.

   MerchantOS makes the sales process super easy. Scan items, enter the payment, and print a receipt. It’s as simple as 1-2-3.

   We have the flexibility you need inside an easy to use, friendly POS system.

   Click to learn more about point of sale.

2. Inventory Control

   If sales are number one, good inventory control is a close second. Without good inventory control you miss out on sales, overstock unwanted product, and lose out on high profit margins. A POS system will keep an accurate count of every product in your store. It allows you to see what items are selling, what’s sitting on the shelf, and what you need to order.

   MerchantOS saves you hours each week on inventory. Purchase orders are quick and easy to create and reports give you the information needed to make the correct buying decisions.

   Because MerchantOS is web based you can manage inventory from anywhere you have Internet. This means you can work on purchases from home or the cafe down the street. If you own multiple stores you’ll have real-time data for all locations in one place, no data synchronization or complicated networking required!

   Click to learn more about inventory control.

3. Know Your Customers

   Sales and inventory might be one and two, but everyone knows the customer is always right. Without real people coming in you won’t have sales and there will be no need to stock any inventory. A point of sale system should give you the ability to track all of your customers so you can see which customers are big spenders, who is waiting for a special order, and who has a layaway on that product tucked away in the back room.

   MerchantOS keeps detailed purchase, service, layaway, and special order information for each customer.

   And it’s all accessible from the point of sale. See top spenders and export customer lists for use in marketing campaigns.

   Click to learn more about customer relations management.

4. Make Decisions Based On Data

   If you’re not making day to day business decisions based on facts and data you are gambling with your money and time! To make the right decisions you need reliable data. Once you have done the work to setup a point of sale system and get all your inventory in you can start to reap the rewards. Your system should provide reports on sales and inventory that will help you make purchasing decisions.

   MerchantOS has the reports you need to make smart decisions.

   You can see sales by item, category, department, customer, manufacturer. You can view your current inventory quantities, and generate purchase orders based on desired inventory levels. Like every feature in MerchantOS, you can view reports at home or anywhere else you have Internet access. All your business information will be accessible and safe no matter what happens.

   Click to learn more POS reports.

5. Save Time!

   There’s one thing that we could all use a little more of: Time! Possibly the thing you’ll love the most about a point of sale system is the time it will save you. With integrated barcode readers, label printers, receipt printers you’ll cut your manual labor dramatically.

   MerchantOS lets you scan instead of type.

   Need to do a refund? Easy just scan the receipt and the original sale is brought up on the screen and ready for you to do a refund. Want to ring up a layaway or special order? No problem, just scan the customer’s receipt. Processing a credit card transaction? Just slide the card and the sale is processed.

   Click here for POS hardware.

6. Bonus: Pre-loaded Vendor Catalogs!

   MerchantOS has over 500,000 preloaded item descriptions in it’s vendor catalog database.

   You will save many hours and tired fingers by using MerchantOS vendor catalogs. We’ve loaded popular vendor catalogs into our database so you don’t have to enter all that data, And if we don’t have a vendor catalog you need we’ll load it for FREE!