When you think of a point of sale (POS) system, you likely think of completing sales, transactions, returns, and refunds for customers. However, most modern day POS software is much more than a sales solution. In fact, POS systems offer a wide range of features including inventory management, customer information databases, loyalty programs, and even mobile device support.
POS systems are also known for allowing business owners and upper management to better manage their employees. Here’s what you need to know about using POS software to more efficiently manage your employees.
Time Tracking
Clocking in and out of the workplace can be time-consuming and slow, but accurately tracking when employees are working is a critical part of properly managing your workforce.
With a modern POS system, you have an efficient and quick time tracking solution. Using POS software, employees are able to use a secure PIN when clocking in or out. The systems also offer personal profiles for workers so that they can see how many hours they’ve worked in a day, week, or month.
Managers and upper-level company staff also have purview into this data, showing which employees are working and for how long.
Scheduling
Along with clock in and clock out times, a POS system can also be used to create work schedules. With scheduling, managers can see who should be at work on any given day and shift. The POS system serves as a central database that houses all employee schedules.
Unlike paper-based schedules, managers can make on-the-fly updates and changes in the system. This makes managing schedules much more convenient and flexible, which is especially beneficial if you have a large number of employees.
Improve Customer Interaction
Using a mobile POS system, you can give your employees the chance to improve their customer interaction skills. Customer engagement is crucial in providing customers a happy and satisfying experience.
With mobile POS software, sales associates and cashiers aren’t stuck behind a register. Instead, they can use iPads and other mobile devices. This allows employees to walk around the store and interact and engage with customers. Using a connected device, a sales associate can answer inventory questions for a customer and even complete a transaction.
Mobile POS software makes customers feel more welcome and valued. The software also allows your employees to learn the ins and outs of a highly-technical system, improving their skill set and overall knowledge.
Identity Top Performing Employees
With the data and reports that POS systems capture and log, managers can see which employees are generating the largest amount of sales. This feature is especially helpful in the retail industry where managers want to award those employees that are going above and beyond to ensure customer satisfaction and sales goals are being met.
At the same time, that same data can be used to determine which employees are falling behind sales goals. In turn, those employees could be provided with extra training to boost productivity.
Choosing the Right POS System
Now that you know how a POS system can help you to better manage your employees, you may be wondering how you go about choosing the right system for your business. As with any business expense, choosing a POS system isn’t a decision you want to make without proper research.
Before purchasing a POS system, there are several factors to consider.
- Know your price point – POS systems vary in cost, and often times there are hidden fees. Before researching options, figure out how much you can afford to pay each month to maintain a POS system. This way you can easily weed out options that are over budget.
- Know the features you need – Aside from transactions and employee management, POS systems offer a host of other features. Think about what features would most benefit your company. For example, a retail company or restaurant may benefit from payment splitting services as it offers flexibility and convenience to the customer.
- Determine what support is provided – As with any technology, POS systems can have hiccups. You want to find a vendor that offers technical support so that you don’t have to worry about downtime. The good news is that most POS systems can work offline, and when the system is back up, data will sync to the database.
- Look for non-proprietary hardware – In the future, you may upgrade the POS software. You want to choose a vendor that offers non-proprietary hardware that will support any type of POS software. This way you can reduce the cost of future upgrades as you only need to change the software and not the hardware as well.
Conclusion
There are endless benefits to having a POS system. Not only can you offer more convenient transactions to customers, but you can also better manage your employees, which means a stronger and more productive workforce.
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