Difference Between Cash Registers and POS Systems
07 Apr

Difference Between Cash Registers and POS Systems

Businesses are always looking for faster, more efficient ways of doing things. For this reason, many of them have ditched their cash registers and made the transition to point of sale (POS) systems. In a nutshell, a cash register is a machine that records sales transactions, gives change and holds money. A POS system is a computerized system that handles financial transactions, tracks inventory, and records many types of business data. The biggest difference between a cash register and a POS system is efficiency and communication. When a transaction is processed at a retail store or any other type of business, the POS system not only records the transaction, it automatically does real-time tracking of everything related to what the customer purchased. For instance, if a customer buys a purse, the POS cash register will record everything about the transaction including the tax information. Once the information is captured, it is stored in a database where authorized company reps can access it when they need to.

Meeting Today’s Business Challenges

One of the biggest challenges for businesses is keeping the items customers want in stock. The larger the business, the more problematic this issue can become. A POS system fixes the problem by acting as the granddaddy of inventory tracking systems.

The computerized system keeps tabs of every item sold. If it’s necessary, an order can be placed to restock the item immediately. Since all the inventory information is computerized, business managers can easily track which items are hot and which items aren’t selling so well.

Shifts in Business Trends

Although cash registers have evolved over the years, they are being used less and less in retail, restaurant and hospitality settings. These machines are typically set up to record sales. If you want to keep track of inventory, marketing information, employee work hours and other business data, you’re out of luck.

Cash registers can be either manual or electronic. Unless you pass through a small town where the next filling station is 100 miles away, you’re not likely to find many places using manual cash registers. Most businesses that still use registers opt for the electronic versions because they’re faster and more accurate.

Meeting Industry-Specific Needs

Because a point of sale system is made up of hardware and software, it can be as simple or as elaborate as you want. A chain of retail stores and a small car rental service have totally different needs. For this reason, a one-size-fits-all way of recording data isn’t logical. Unlike cash registers, POS systems can be customized to fit the needs of the businesses that use them.

In today’s competitive market, businesses can’t afford to be inefficient. This is one reason a lot of them are getting rid of their cash registers and transitioning to POS systems. In the long run, the systems will improve efficiency, reduce administrative costs, streamline record keeping and improve customer service.

If you are considering a point of sale system, consider Bepoz POS for your restaurant or retail operation.

 

Learn More:

7 Reasons Why A POS System is Far More Superior Than A Cash Register

What Is a POS Cash Register?

Cash Register VS. POS: The Basics To Help You Choose What’s Best For Your Business

Video Transcript

Hey, this is Tim with Bepoz Enterprise Point of Sale Systems. And in this video, we’re going to answer the question: what’s the difference between a point of sale system and a cash register?

What is The Difference?

So first of all, it’s important to understand the limitations of most cash register systems. Cash registers are the old school systems that have been around for 100 years, which usually have very little memory, and very little things that they can do versus a point of sale system which is built on a computer. Oftentimes with a touchscreen, that has a huge amount of memory and can store lots of data about the transactions that are happening.

Cash Registers

In a cash register, for example, most cash register systems are not able to track inventory. In fact, most of the low-level cash registers couldn’t even, some of them can’t even have a button that says I’m going to sell a taco, press the taco button, and have it be $4.99. Some of them can do that, but most of them couldn’t, many couldn’t do that or even track the inventory levels, or then give you your reports in some backend system to be able to give you aggregated reports, and track how your sales are doing in an ongoing basis.

So in a point of sale system, not only could we have all of your prices changed, and have security for how people do certain pieces, we can lock down certain users so they can do only certain things. In a cash register, oftentimes the difference between a manager and a cashier is a key.

The Best POS Systems

In a point of sale system, the difference between a manager and a cashier, well first of all, it might not just be a manager and a cashier. It might be a cashier, a lead cashier, a key holder, a manager, a super manager, an owner, and a super admin. So we could have as many different levels of permissions, and lock down certain portions to certain employees. Of course, when I’m using a point of sale system, the whole point or one of the main points, is that I have standardized pricing. Oftentimes, in places that are using cash registers, what ends up happening is, you go to the cash register, and the cashier types in the amount that they’re supposed to sell you of whatever they’re selling. So you bet in a restaurant, this could be retail, it doesn’t matter what kind of organization. You go up to the counter, and you try to get your burger and fries, and a drink.  And So they ring up a burger at $5.99, and the fries at $1.99, and the drink at $1.99. But they accidentally press $59.99, or they press $4.99, or $3.99, or you know, whatever works, $1.99, and your prices are off because they didn’t have a standard price. Also, they forgot to add the drink, or they forgot to add the cheese to the burger.

We Can Help You Decide on The Best POS System

In cases in my past history, I’ve gone into a lot of organizations where we put in point of sale systems to replace cash registers, and I’ve seen sales jump by as much as $100 a day by putting a point of sale system in for replacement of the cash register. That point of sale system from day one was paying, more than paying for itself very easily.

So because, and oftentimes it’s fat fingered transactions where they hit the wrong button, they forgot to add the drink, they forgot to add the cheese. And then if you’re in a restaurant environment, and I ring up the items using an old school cash register, there also now needs to be some way to communicate to the kitchen. A point of sale system will oftentimes send the ticket or send the order and how it’s to be prepared to the kitchen. So the point of sale system not only has the correct pricing, so when you do a cheeseburger it’s always the same price, unless you have it on special which could be managed by the point of sale system. But it also prints to the kitchen. If you don’t have such a system, you need to handwrite a ticket and turn it in to the kitchen. Oftentime the kitchen cooks will look at that handwriting and try to read your chicken scratch and have to call you back and say hey, what did you mean here, what did you really want? And then that chicnscratch takes time. It slows down the order. Also, I wrote down the chicken scratch and I might have miswritten it or forgotten to write down the drink. All of those things could be things that could be costing you money in your organization by just using a simple cash register.

Not to mention things like inventory. If you’re running even a retail operation using a cash register that doesn’t track inventory, that inventory, the numbers of what inventory values are to your business is massive. If you have even $100,000 of inventory in your store, and you’re using a simple cash register, putting in a point of sale system that would help you track your inventory and a point of sale system like Bepoz that could help you optimize your inventory and help you make better orders, and help you make the orders, could save you tons of hours of labor, potentially labor that you could be paying some employee to do. So now I’m making my business more efficient and saving money on the labor. And most importantly, I could save you money on how much inventory you’re putting on the shelf. Because when you’re making manual decisions about thousands of products, the likelihood is that you’re buying too much or too little. And that too much is causing you to have wastage on the shelf. And that too little is causing you to miss sales.

Both of those could be fixed by a point of sale system. Point of sale systems also could do such things as loyalty, give you better data and reporting and analytics, and help you figure out things like what’s the employees that I should be looking at, who could be potentially stealing from me, and all sorts of other things.

So if you want to talk about how Bepoz can help you upgrade from your cash register to a point of sale system, we’d love to talk to you about it. You can call us at the number at the top of the screen, or click the link below.

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