Best POS System for Small Business with Your Bottom Line in Mind

Owning and running a small business is no easy task, and requires a lot of hustle, as well as trial and error. When you find a tool that makes your life easier and your business run better? That’s the jackpot of small business ownership. 

You’ve created your small business to showcase your talents, spread good energy through great products, and, of course, make some money. So you need a point of sale system that maximizes your revenue and growth potential.

Here’s how the best POS system for small business boosts your bottom line:

Save Money & Make More Of It

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: For a POS system to benefit your bottom line, it needs to help you cut unnecessary costs, and increase your profitability. 

CUT UNNECESSARY EXPENSES

Using a POS system is a must to run your small business, and it can be tricky to narrow down your options based solely on pricing. That’s why the best POS system for small businesses offers transparent, fair pricing. 

Here are a list of things you should not be paying for:

• Monthly POS software costs → You’re running a business, not signing up for a subscription!
• Monthly costs per features → Features are extra tools POS systems provide to help better support you. Charging monthly fees and positioning them as add-ons is not something the best POS system for small businesses does.
• Monthly hardware fees → Upfront costs to purchase hardware is reasonable. Paying extra monthly fees based on how many devices you actually used? Unreasonable.
• Support fees → Your POS system should gladly onboard you onto their system and answer your burning questions down the road with a smile on their face, not with the objective to cash in on your naiveté.

Now, what you can expect to pay your POS company is credit card processing fees. To make a long story short, accessing credit card networks isn’t free, and every credit card issuer has a base fee. There are also flat fees per transaction, and these vary by POS provider.

Keep in mind that every POS is hopping this same credit card processing hurdle. If a POS is boasting unbelievably low rates, they’re likely making up that money elsewhere in unreasonably high monthly fees. 

You can learn more about POS system costs here. But the key takeaway is this: The best POS system for small business will not only be transparent about the credit card processing fees they charge, they will also eliminate unnecessary monthly fees because they know that those tools are made to keep your business successful, not fatten their own bottom lines. 

DIFFERENTIATE REVENUE STREAMS TO MAKE MORE MONEY

The objective of smart POS systems is to maximize opportunities for small businesses to make sales. This means increasing the ways in which guests can buy. 

1. Online storefront: The convenience of shopping online is only making it more popular. That’s why it’s absolutely crucial that your POS equips you with a way to host an online storefront. A customizable site that allows you to showcase your small business’s brand drives reach, which ultimately increases revenue potential. 
2. Mobile POS: It’s also important that your POS is mobile. This means devices are easy to transport, like smartphones and tablets, enabling you to travel with product, a device, and a big smile to sell anywhere in the world. An added bonus of the best POS system for small business is offline mode, which allows you to sell regardless of internet connectivity. You could be Burning Man’s newest vendor!
3. Mobile app: An app that customers can download to open their own tabs and place orders offers another avenue of purchasing. When guests are looking for something to do on a Friday night, an app on their phone that lets them purchase from your small business keeps you top of mind, too!

By creating easy-to-use purchase opportunities for guests, the best POS for small business increases your revenue stream potential and casts a wider net of customers.

Decrease Ordering Friction

In addition to providing multiple avenues to make sales, the best POS system for small business ensures that the actual ordering process is smooth sailing. Tools like the following make this so:

• Digital card on file: Staff and guests alike are haunted by credit card rolodexes. Guests hate forfeiting their cards with the fear of forgetting them, and staff dread the responsibility of holding them. Plus, it’s an added step in the checkout process! Instead, the best POS system for small business keeps tabs open without holding onto physical cards themselves. 
• QR code ordering: QR codes were the hottest technology of the pandemic, and they continue to rise in popularity for small businesses nationwide. A large part of the reason they’ve become so mainstream is because of the ease of ordering that they facilitate. QR codes allow for flexible ordering, meaning guests can either order themselves from their own smartphones, or via a staff member on your team. Guests being able to close their own tabs also speeds up the entire process. 

Curious to learn more about how QR codes benefit staff, guests, and increase tab sizes by 24%? Check out The Ultimate Guide to QR Codes. 

• Dynamic tab functionalities: Guests can change their minds at the flip of a switch, and the tab functionalities of your POS system need to be just as dynamic. Merging and splitting tabs need to be a quick couple taps of a finger to save everyone the time and headache.

A seamless ordering experience keeps guests satisfied and brings them back for more. Which brings us to the next feature of the best POS system for small business…

Generate Repeat Business

You wouldn’t be where you are today without your guests, and ensuring they have a good time and great grub is essential to running a profitable business. So when you’re noodling on a POS system, make sure it has the necessary tools to help you create a loyal fanbase.

LOYALTY PROGRAM

Reports say that 75% of consumers prefer to purchase from businesses with loyalty programs in place, which should bring that capability to the top of your list when choosing a POS. More than loving a good deal, customers love to feel like they’re a part of something exclusive and special. Loyalty programs are great for your bottom line, sure, but they’re also the first step in creating a meaningful community of like-minded people!

The best POS system for small business provide loyalty programs with the following tools:

• Easy signup: It should be easy for guests to join via checkout or a dedicated loyalty program website. Want to create FOMO and make it exclusive? Customize your program to fit your business needs by making members pay a fee to join, or limit the amount of members that can cash out on certain perks.
• Email marketing: Engage with guests and drive traffic by sending members emails. You can promote specific items, grow tab sizes, and even encourage guests to visit during the times business is slower.
• Point-based rewards: Guests earn points by spending money, and redeem them for discounts, free items and merch, or even VIP pre-orders. Think of it as a digital punch card!
• Fully integrated with your POS: A built-in loyalty program integration saves you the time consuming task of cross-referencing reports and managing your back-end inventory in multiple places every day.

Word travels fast, and a fun loyalty program can only grow with the more love and brand personality you invest in it. Make sure that guests that enjoyed their visit with you have the incentive to come back again—and next time, they’ll bring their friends!

SECURE PAYMENTS

Alright, a less fun note here: Processing payments is a data-heavy operation that requires the utmost security. The best POS system for small businesses handles this sensitive information with care, and prevents it from leaking to dangerous places. For the sake of your guests and your business, ensuring your POS is secure is something your small business simply can’t live without. 

Facilitate Proactive Decision-Making

Besides being a useful tool during the ordering process, the best POS systems for small business sets you up for long-term success by providing the tools you need to make good business decisions regarding staff, operations, inventory, and more. 

REPORTS YOU CAN COUNT ON

The best POS system for small business is mobile for more reasons than listed above—it also makes for much more robust reporting capabilities. Just like the ability to sell from anywhere in the world, you can also access mobile POS reports from anywhere! 

It gets better: Reports update in real-time across all data dashboards with mobile POS systems. As an owner or manager, this means you can accurately check in on how sales are doing on a Saturday night from the comfort of your couch. Because of this advanced ability to sync across all devices at all times, the reports you pull can be as granular or broad as you wish.

These are some examples of handy reports that small businesses rely on:

• Hourly sales by product: This report shows the exact time a product was ordered and sent to the kitchen or bar. If you know the time each product is ordered, you can curate timed menus with the most popular menu items. That means you’re making informed menu decisions and keeping food fresh and costs down!
• Hourly total sales: This report totals orders by hour of the day. Over time, you can see when your small business is the busiest, and plan staffing accordingly. Plus, this gives you the ability to push marketing efforts and plan events around your slower times to keep traffic steady. 

The best POS systems for small businesses make these kinds of reports completely customizable, too. Crunch the numbers you care about most in order to identify what sustains and grows your business, as well as where there are opportunities to refine. 

INTEGRATIONS THAT EXPAND POS CAPABILITIES

POS technology is impressive in a lot of ways, and the fact that it integrates and works with other smart softwares is at the top of the list for reasons why! Below are some integration categories that makes your life easier and make your small business run smoother:

1. Inventory management: If you’re selling, your inventory is depleting. The best POS system for small business takes inventory depletion and ensures that data flows accurately into other systems using inventory management integrations. This saves you a ton of time on manual data entry and analysis.
2. Accounting: Making money requires your small business to use software that helps contextualize sales. Accounting integrations with your POS optimize staffing schedules, increase productivity and organization, and assist in forecasting efforts. 
3. Business management: Reduce manual bookkeeping of transactions both online and on-premise with business management integrations. You can eliminate duplicate entries and instead focus on growing your small business!

Consider integrations as software teammates for your POS system. Check out more of them here! 

Ensure Positive Team Dynamics

Speaking of teammates, your small business likely has an army of hard workers of its own! The best POS system for small businesses facilitates a healthy, productive team environment by providing tools that staff love. 

Your beloved staff need to be well-equipped to serve your customers with a suite of helpful, easy-to-use tools. That means an ordering interface that’s easy to navigate, as well as equipment that doesn’t require lengthy training and onboarding. That way, staff can shine as gracious hosts and speedy servers!

In that same vein, the best POS system for small businesses prioritize providing an accessible, knowledgeable customer support team. Not only should that team be available for necessary training, they should also be available by phone or email 7 days/week, and any knowledge base articles should be as helpful as the team claims them to be. 

But the proof is in the pudding. It’s one thing to say that customer support is available every day of the week, and it’s another to actually answer questions quickly, empathize when there are frustrations, and follow through on making amends when need-be. Your small business is fast paced, after all, and you need a POS that can keep up and flex with your changing business needs. 

Why Arryved?

Tools and a team that support your small business not only make for a great work atmosphere, they help boost your bottom line, too! Arryved POS is committed to your small business’s success. Request a personalized demo today to learn how our mobile POS system can meet your ever-evolving needs!