What is Point of Sale Software?

Point of Sale (POS) software is a computer application and a part of a pos system solution for billing. It helps to automate accounting and inventory for a small businesses like retail shops, grocery shops, medical stores, supermarkets, and hypermarkets in India. It helps to reduce queue-in time with its advanced features like generating online invoices, bills, and keeping track of the inventory. This is available for computers and mobile devices both.

POS Billing Software Importance

POS billing software is the most important module of any Point of Sale software, helps with generating receipts & bills, calculations, financial record maintenance, marking products sold/exchanged, etc. Let’s assume your store sells 350 products. If you were to bill them manually, you open up the possibility of human errors. You could potentially miss marking a product as sold in your register or fail to account for certain sales which leads to financial turmoil at a later stage.

With POS billing and invoicing software, you eliminate that risk as every purchase, big or small, is registered into the system along with purchase history and stock status. Additionally, the billing & invoicing module assists with bookkeeping by maintaining detailed records of transactions, taxes, and expenses. Different elements of accounting such as tax registry, ledger maintenance, dues tracker, and balance sheet maintenance, can be performed by the billing & accounting module. Most POS billing software payment solutions in India are GST-compliant, so your invoices are calculated and generated correctly. This prevents any discrepancy in your financial numbers.

How does POS Software work?

POS software is a digital system for managing sales and the cash register. POS software lets you accept payments online and helps track all transactions whether you sell online or operate through a physical store. POS system software works in the following ways:

• Data entry: The process is related to entering all details regarding a product and customer into the catalogue. The next time when a customer places an order, sales details are filled automatically by the POS system.
• Inventory updates: POS systems regularly update the stock level when an item is sold or new products are added. Many top POS systems also provide notifications for low inventory levels.
• Price confirmation & customer checkout: As a customer visits your physical store and enquire about a product’s price, the sales associate may scan the barcode label of the item to confirm the price. For online stores, the POS works after the customer has added the product in the cart and clicked on check-out.
• Calculating the total cost: POS calculates the overall cost of the product by adding taxes, discounts, etc. Once this is done, the inventory gets automatically updated.
• Payment completion: POS software can integrate with multiple payment gateways. As soon as the payment is complete, the bank authorizes the transactions accordingly. The following are the steps to configuring the different payment modes in a POS system:
  • Step 1: Set up the merchant account
  • Step 2: Pair with the terminal devices
  • Step 3: Display on the screen the POS options
• Receipt generation: Finalizing the product sales is the last step, as the retail ePOS software saves all the sales details before generating a printed receipt.
• Running reports: POS software prepares reports on sales, customer details, inventories, and staff. These reports give a snapshot of how your business is performing.
• Order history: POS software records all inventory, shifts summaries and sales details in the order history tab. The information is considered critical for strategizing business growth.
• Customer marketing: POS system creates a customer database with purchase details that can be used for running loyalty programs. The database is also helpful in creating personalized recommendations for customers by checking their past transaction details.

How does Online POS Software help With Chain Stores Management?

Online Pos software is also known as a cloud-based pos software solution that doesn’t store your data on the local device but on the cloud. You can retrieve data, process payments, and get automatic updates with the help of the internet. You can also access your pos system from anywhere through the web and the internet. A cloud POS system also provides advanced analytics which can help you to make better business decisions.

There is no need to pay additionally for maintenance as a cloud POS system has the feature of automatic upgrades and data backups. Managing multiple stores and scaling their operations is easy with the point of sale software solutions. Maintaining stock levels to keeping employees engaged and focused are other ways in which the software helps with chain stores management operations.

• POS software make it easy to manage staff operating in multiple locations.
• Staff management through detailed employee information such as sales performance, schedules and attendance.
• Eliminating the possibility of customers encountering out of stock status of their favorite products.
• Online information is always available for retail inventories to check product availability.
• Inventory analysis for ordering and tracking sales trends.
• Adjusting stock levels as per seasonal fluctuations in demand for products.

Modules of Point of Sale Software

• Retail Pos Inventory Management for Retail Shop - The retail pos inventory management module of a POS software helps with stock handling, procurement, and logistics, supply chain, warehouse management, inter & intra warehouse transfers, stock planning and more. For stores that handle large volumes of FMCG products, this module is particularly useful to keep a hawk-eye view over their movement.
• Inventory management - also helps in automating manual activities, that would require excess human resources. A POS software’s inventory management solutions simplify your tasks related to managing stock. Once product details are entered into the system, you can track their shelf movement anytime. And, rest assured knowing that in case of a sale, the system will mark it sold for future reference. Additionally, should the stock volume be on the lower end, retailers will be reminded about placing orders for the respective items.
• Sales Tracking & Reporting with a pos machine - When a customer walks into your store for the first time, the POS machine is used to make a record of their personal information. This record contains the details of the said customer, their name, phone number, email id, address, purchase history, birth, and anniversary date, etc. Based on these details, a retail store can communicate discounts, along with exclusive deals geared towards the customer.
• Employee Management - Employee management is a useful add-on module that helps businesses keep tabs on their employees. With this module, managers can track attendance and shift timings, and assign tasks to employees. If you run a hypermarket or a large-scale grocery store, this is a critical module for your use. Such stores tend to hire a large number of employees, and it can be tiring to manage them manually. With the employee management module of best POS software, you can assign shifts to your employees, maintain a time-sheet, and keep track of which employee is on leave or absent in real-time.
• Point of Sales CRM - Customer Relationship Management (POS CRM) is vital for any business. The goal of CRM is to keep customers happy and satisfied and eventually, turn them into loyal patrons. After all, happy customers lead to better word of mouth publicity and more sales, eventually. CRM module assists with the customer’s journey- Informing them about the happenings in your store and keeping them interested enough in your products & services.
• Reports and Analysis - The analysis module helps in customized report generation. These reports are made as per your requirement. It presents you with all the details in a synchronized form. Product-wise sales and purchase analysis, stock and sales summary, stock aging are some of the things covered under the analysis module. You can directly mail these reports if required. Also, you can export it to excel, PDF and other formats.
• Electronic data interchange with Electronic Point of Sale Software - Electronic data interchange or EDI system is necessary for meeting requirements of trading partners as well as sharing such EDI documents with the customers. EDI helps with receiving of purchase orders and functional acknowledgment as well as sending purchase orders and invoices. EDIs are necessary for managing the different aspects of document trading. It helps check each file sent/received from any trading partner. POS software helps manage inbound and outbound documents and the deleted log of such documents that were deleted before the final processing.
• Warehouse management with POS Terminal - The warehouse management module is critical for tracking product costs and usage. These are further required for maintaining inventory levels and managing flow of the inventory stock. Businesses rely on this module of POS software solutions for checking inventory status, quantities available at hand and quantities committed so far.
• Cost Analyzer - Average and standard cost methods can be used for controlling the cost of inventory with POS software’s warehouse management capabilities. Then there are also available different pricing methods so that repricing the inventory is never an issue. You can also use this feature for checking units sold/purchased, latest selling prices, reorder points and product categories. Control all serialised and non-serialised items with built-in barcoding functionality for printing labels. Reporting for audit trials, bin level controls, inventory processing, automated reorder logic and RF scanning are other key benefits of using warehouse management module.
• Order Entry with Point of Sales Systems - Along with different systems for processing orders, there also exists system for auto generated work/purchase orders. This is a fast method for processing shipping orders even if these orders have a high volume. For more streamlined processing of order entries and purchasing orders, you can have CSV files imported directly from Excel files. The XML SOAP interface is especially designed for such imports. Further, your current inventory levels can be automated directly with the account receivables. Anytime you want to check for order details, the history option is there to show active or inactive status of items/customers.

Most Common Features of Point of Sale (POS) Software

• Split payments - Split payments system in POS software helps with not just debit/credit card payments but also mobile payments. This feature also helps customers who wish to pay through multiple gift cards. The split payments option is also critical for developing customer-friendly return policies as consumers prefer to avoid shopping platforms that have strict return policies. With all these flexible options for returning a product and getting store credits/refunds, ePOS systems are crucial for running an online store successfully.
• Bulk product uploads - Uploading products in bulk is easier than manually uploading each item. By importing products in bulk with POS management systems, retail stores and other businesses can save time and resources. Unless you have fewer products for sale, opt for POS billing software for PC that supports product uploads in bulk.
• Product variants and barcode - POS systems for sales perform this excellent job of providing product variants support so that multiple varieties of one product can be recorded as a single product. For example, a coat is available in five different colors. POS systems record these as one single coat rather than five different coats so that it is easier for you to create different variants of any product. The Barcode system further helps with tracking of all such products through the tagging option. With the barcode feature, you can track the movement of any product starting from its entry into the stocks till the final sale.
• Auto filled orders and stock - Best Point of Sale Software is helpful in generating auto-filled orders. These are especially important for businesses dealing with the sale of perennial objects. Through the feature for inventory management, you can quickly create orders for your eCommerce store. The sooner such orders are created, the quicker you can send these to customers.
• Sales reporting and monitoring - Generating sales reports is quick and easy with POS system software. Monthly, yearly and weekly takings/outgoings help businesses understand how well their strategies are working. Identifying sales trends such as demand for seasonal products, insights on product overspends, stock management and forecasts are simplified with POS software's sales reporting and monitoring feature.
• Cross channel management for returns - Aside from facilitating refunds and returns, the software helps with accepting of cross channel returns. You can use the POS billing software for creating multiple returns for single sales order at different intervals of time. All important details such as the reason for returning product remarks, the name of the salesperson, etc. get recorded here.
• Personalized shopping experience for customers - Retaining customers is important for online stores as only then your eCommerce business would prosper. All purchase history and customer data get stored in POS billing software. This information is later on used for sending customers personalized emails, discount offers and vouchers based on their preferences.
• Employee reporting and management - Appropriate employee management techniques help identify best performing sales professionals so that you can set sales targets accordingly. With employee reporting tools, you can also find out those salespersons that haven't been performing so well so that more training can be provided to them. You can further use this feature for creating email schedules for employees, tracking employee's work hours as well as adding more employees to the system.
• Invoicing transactions - Recording transactions at your store is a hassle-free process with POS software solutions. Creating invoices for collecting payments from customers is the main function of the best POS system software. Businesses also use this feature for operating a cash drawer by calculating sales. Querying the sales database too is easy and so is tracking product movement.

How to Use POS Software?

1. Adding items: The important steps to adding items for sale with POS system are:

• Scan the barcode label of a product
• Search the product using this sell screen option
• Use the sell screen shortcut

After finishing this setup, you are free to alter the quantity level of all products, as and when required.

2. Applying discounts: Adjust now the pricing of products or the discounts available. In case the feature is missing, you may change manually the price structure.

3. Receiving payments: POS systems are designed to receive payments from sources like credit cards and cash. You may add here other payment modes like:

• Gift cards
• Buy now, pay later
• Loyalty

Almost every POS system can be configured for accepting payments from multiple payment sources.

4. Attaching notes: Attach or add notes like special requests from customers and change of address details as and when required.

Types of Point of Sale Software

1. POS Software for Restaurants, Cafe,s and Bars

Restaurant POS Software is used to make the activities happening in the restaurant easier. In a restaurant business, with the help of a mobile restaurant pos system, the waiters can send the orders directly to the kitchen. The restaurant pos designed for a restaurant business also has a bill splitting feature, which makes it easier for the customers to pay their bills. With inventory management inside POS, you can track your ingredients and keep your kitchen stocked up with the essentials. You can:

• Track your sales and taxes
• Get a faster billing process with the restaurant billing system
• Control your inventory better with the help of POS
• Never go out of stock with your most-used ingredients by using a restaurant POS
• Get regular KPI reports for quality reporting
• Menus can be set up and changed according to your needs
• Manage table reservations
• Get several marketing tools to help your business grow
• Accept card payments
• Run loyalty programs

2. Supermarket POS Software

Getting a supermarket pos system is the most practical solution for streamlining the sales process through their transactions. Using cash registers and handheld devices to process transactions, it makes the retail experience of a customer better. With the help of supermarket POS, you can interact with the customer instead of sitting at the register counter and take payments from the customers from anywhere in the shop.

Supermarket billing software is designed for the retail industry to ease out their business processes. It contains a computer, cash drawer, receipt printer, and barcode scanner collectively known as the cash register. A supermarket POS software also contains a debit and credit card reader as well. You can:

• Manage faster retail billing at peak hours
• Get knowledge of what is present in the store and what isn’t
• Track and manage performance and analyze your sales with the help of system generated reports
• Integrate with the latest retail technology
• Make use of CRM by pulling new shoppers to your store and retaining the existing ones with the help of loyalty programs
• Manage multiple stores

3. Beauty and Spa Salon POS System

Whether you are self-employed or work for a dedicated lifestyle organization, the salon POS system is something you should use. A spa salon POS software will provide you a lot of features. Some of them are:

• Track your appointments easily
• Get Faster Salon Billing
• Accept gift cards and coupons from the customer
• Upsell on the spot and collect payment
• Set up an advance spa or salon appointments
• Improvised email marketing
• Run loyalty and reward programs efficiently
• Store before and after pictures of clients to use in the future
• Manage payroll and scheduling

4. POS Software For Banking and Finance

In banking, POS enables the bank to acquire transactions from merchant POS terminals and route these to the appropriate card network. Best POS Software tools can provide a web-based portal to review and monitor transactions as well. You can:

• Get instant access to account information
• Enables provides services like cash and cheque deposit on the POS terminal, bill payment, refund, etc.
• Allows you to have more security and end-to-end protection
• Monitor every POS activity remotely

5. Mobile POS System (mPOS)

With the number of mobile devices increasing every day, a mobile POS system comes in handy for both the users and the business owners as it is a platform will do not even require an investment from the business owner. All they just have to do is download a payment gateway app. With the help of mPOS, you can do a variety of things:

• You can access the information about your inventory anytime anywhere
• You can increase your sales by interacting with the customers with the help of mPOS
• Because of its mobility, it is extremely easy to use
• You can access customer data
• You can have a variety of payment methods which helps the customers to make payments easily

6. Retail Pos Software For Stores

Use Retail POS software in your retail store for automating back-end processes and tracking inventory status. With POS system software's live reconciliation and monitoring in real-time, you can automate stock management processes. Retail billing software performs multiple functions of improving employee productivity, ensuring faster customer services, and timely business reports for quick decision-making. Businesses aiming at expanding their delivery channel too can benefit from the software's real-time status of deliveries as well as navigable maps.

The key features of POS billing software for retail are:

• Simplified checkout processes for faster transactions
• Automated purchasing programs for connecting with the suppliers
• Online access for greater mobility in remote operations
• PCI (payment card industry) agreement for protecting credit/debit card details of customers
• Reporting tools for reports on monthly/annual sales, hourly transactions and product model
• Digital signage for cross-selling products and promoting features sales
• Shipping module for getting shipping rates from shipping carriers
• Flexible return policies for satisfied customers
• Single link for displaying on the same page the products that have different variants

7. Pharmacy POS Software

Run your pharmacy operations smoothly using the point of sale software for pharmacies. Pharmacy POS software will help with cross-checking purchase rates, fast billing, order management, and generating patient/doctor wise reports. There are multiple tasks that need to be handled at a pharmacy store. With the support of pharmacy POS software, managing such processes are easy, fast as well as customer friendly.

All the data of your business is on your fingertips and feature for report requests on-demand provide accurate reports on the status of your business. All due to the application's advanced analytics tool and report scheduling capabilities.

Besides these, the other capabilities offered by point of sale software for pharmacies are:

• Data stored within pharmacy information systems for inspection purposes and preparing new business strategies
• Electronic prescriptions for sending refills
• Multi-store support for checking sales, stock levels and returns
• Reporting features for maintaining transaction records
• Substitute availability option to suggest alternative medicines
• Expiry management for tracking expired and about to expire medicines
• Sales reports for checking profitability margins and increasing sales
• QR code scanning for receiving orders
• Easy to import bills from CSV and Excel formats
• eWay bill and GST billing

8. eCommerce POS Software

eCommerce POS system for sales is the backbone of businesses operating online stores. The software is critical for handling the entire buying and selling process through multiple functioning such as order management, customer services, and other such operations required for self-hosting an e-commerce store. These applications are page-builders for all kinds of online shopping sites. It helps display unlimited products for sale, supports multiple payment gateways and helps track the stock level.

While growing businesses can easily scale their operations with eCommerce POS systems, those that have just started too can use these applications without much difficulty. The setting up procedure is quite simple, which requires a single click on setup wizard before selecting the kind of products you would like to sell online.

Some of the best services offered by POS eCommerce software are:

• DDOS protection and PCI compliance for multilayered security
• Visual builder for developing online stores
• Search engine optimization along with the support for managing inventories
• Blogging platform also included
• Integration with social media platforms
• Easy to sell all kinds of products such as digital, physical and services also
• Multilanguage support to help customers set up their shopping account
• Support for unlimited products and orders
• Developer API and store reports

Benefits of POS Software

• Improves Sales Number - With a Point of Sale software, you can effortlessly find out your sales numbers and understand what’s selling more and what isn’t selling as expected. Accordingly, you can take steps to market these products.
• Creates a smarter inventory - POS tool informs you of the products with most sales, best shelf-life and those which are popular among your customers. You can use this information to stock up on top-performing products and eliminate/reduce the volume of underperforming items. This helps in creating an inventory that pays off in the long run and maximizes the usage of your storage space.
• Faster checkout - A well-built and feature enriched retail management software will ensure that the checkout process is simple and quick. All product details are available on the POS system screen by simply scanning the product via barcode reader and payment is received in a hassle-free manner via multiple payment modes. The whole process is fastened by the POS system and customers are happier than ever, as they don’t have to wait in long queues. Manual work is not required to complete the checkout process.
• Improves efficiency - Retail owners work on tight margins. There is a lot to manage in stores and in the warehouse. Using manual methods to keep track of records becomes difficult with time. Tedious tasks such as stock management and sales reporting consume so much time that opportunities to grow business are often missed. However, a POS terminal automates these mundane tasks, leaving you with ample time to focus on those areas that will generate extra revenue in the business.
• POS printer quick service - Do you like standing in those long queues in supermarkets? Of course not, no one does. A POS printer software breaks long queues by replacing manually- handled cash registers with an efficient machine-run billing system. Simply put, products are scanned through a barcode scanner and all details appear on the screen. In fact, if there is any discount or scheme going on with that product, it’s automatically picked up by the software and applied to the bill. All a cashier needs to do is press a few buttons, receive the payment and hand over the bill to the customer.
• Detailed invoice - Complete details related to the product are already there in the system. Unlike earlier times when invoices were generated manually, only date, product name, number, and price used to be there on the bill. However, now all those details that are there in the system related to a product are printed on the invoice. Complete product information including name, price, discount, item description is clearly mentioned in the receipt.

Here are Some Examples of Point Sale System Software

HDPOS Smart

HDPOS Smart is inventory management and smart billing software used for business reporting and bookkeeping services. The POS system supports multiple payment options along with a barcode scanner for all kinds of online retail stores. Use the POS system software for optimizing the stock management by setting reorder levels and ensuring quick order management.
Features of HDPOS Smart:

• Expiry items report
• Auto-transaction and financial bookkeeping
• Customer display for promotions and schemes
• Bar code label printing and designing

QuickBooks Point of Sale

QuickBooks Point of Sale software for retail stores helps with managing multichannel inventories as well as contactless payments. You can use the software for looking after the business operations of both in-stores as well as online product stores. Take advantage of the POS system's repeat business generating capabilities for sending customers personalized promotional emails/messages and expanding the customer base.
Features of QuickBooks Point of Sale:

• Cash flow management
• Tracking expenses and income
• Run reports and track miles
• Invoice and estimates
• Bills and sales tax management

Gofrugal POS

You can buy Gofrugal POS software for its efficient order management systems. The software's delivery management capabilities are key to creating a seamless customer experience. Businesses use this point of sales system software further for filing GST returns besides handling store's operations.
Features of Gofrugal POS:

• Centralized data management
• One-click updates
• Supply chain management
• Data backup & security
• Integrated accounting

Vend POS

Grow your online business with Vend POS billing software. What makes the software unique is the metrics it offers on key retail for improving sales, profitability, inventory levels, etc. Adding new registers and outlets is also easy with the software and so is managing multiple online stores. Use the ePOS system for creating product composites/variants as well as printing barcodes/labels. Features of Vend POS:

• Data backups every hour
• SAQ A-EP security standard
• Real-time insights and reporting
• Automatic stock reordering

eZee BurrP

eZee BurrP is a restaurant point of sale software used for managing restaurant chains and dispersed outlets. The platform offers various hospitality features to offer the best customer support services. Billings, shifts, payments, orders, menus, etc. can be easily looked after with eZee BurrP point of sale system for restaurants. The best part is this POS system for restaurants can be integrated with several online portals for ordering food.
Features of eZee BurrP:

• Real-time inventory tracking
• Digital restaurant menu
• Feedback system
• Stock management

Ginesys

Ginesys is a user-friendly POS system for a retail store that assists retail outlets with fast billing. It not only manages retail POS but also helps retailers take charge of the entire retail value chain. Above all, it includes POS billing, procurement handling, managing inventory, wholesale & distribution, sales report generation, etc.