A POS system is software package that is frequently packaged with an accompanying compatible hardware package used to organize and operate your business. The software links your customer service, inventory, accounting, payroll and other departments within one program, which helps centralize your administrative tasks. Using a POS is tremendously time-saving and efficient compared with the alternative of using separate software to manage each area.

Customer details and sales reports organized by customer can be retrieved efficiently with POS, and most systems organize the information into reports with customized categories for optimizing comparisons and applying the data to future planning.

The National Merchant Association provides a useful questionnaire, which you can use to support your POS purchase. It includes all of the detailed and logistical questions you will need to ask yourself about a specific POS system, which is a great way to verify that the specific vendor, software and hardware, if applicable, will meet your business needs.

POS software that has an offline mode will continue to work, even during a server interruption. When the connection re-establishes, the data from the offline transactions are uploaded to the memory for use in transaction details and reports.