[Buyer's Guide] Best Tablet POS System in 2023
Businesses always innovate to improve sales and improve customer experience. One of the important elements for businesses is the POS system. From its launch till now, there have been massive changes in the POS systems to make them effective.
Nowadays, tablet POS software turns devices into handheld POS. These devices perform all the operations with additional support for portability. It is an effective way to digitalize the payment process in retail and other industries.
Let’s discuss the tablet POS system to understand its value for businesses.
Part 1. Key features of a POS system
Payment processing
The primary role of the Point of Sale system for enterprises is to enhance customer experience by providing them with various payment methods. People are convenient to pay bills online. So, every business needs POS systems with flexible payment methods to entertain customers instantly. Common payment methods of POS systems are credit or debit cards, mobile wallets, and cash. POS provides businesses to automatically generate bills and add discounts if available without any error.
Inventory management
Businesses like retailers can track their real-time inventory to ensure the availability of products at any time. POS system helps them update the product quantities on each sale so that items can be purchased before stockouts. It also helps to create a balance for overstocking items. The latest POS system automatically reordered when products reach a specific limit.
Sales tracking
POS system helps businesses keep track of sales so they can easily calculate the sales at the day's end and create monthly assessments on sales for each month. POS system helps save purchasing details like items, quantities, data and time, and prices. This feature is helpful for businesses to understand market trends and identify frequently sold items to manage stock and promotions accordingly.
Reporting & analytics
POS systems also provide reporting and analytics tools to get valuable business insights. It helps the owners and managers identify their current position and compare it with competitors' sales. Reports include sales, inventory and employee performance graphs. These reports help them analyze the areas for improvement.
Customer orders and supplier orders management
POS system streamlines the delivery process for customers and staff. Management can track the order status and communicate with customers about the delivery or pickup time. POS can identify the quantity of stock available and optimize the reordering process for retailers. They can also track the order status to keep you updated.
Part 2. Our Top Picks for the Best Tablet POS System
1Square
Square is a POS system with an intuitive interface to ease users without training. It provides complete guidelines and management features to streamline all business processes. It helps enterprises to understand the customer’s preferences and optimize the business according to their requirements. Square offers flexible solutions for different business types and levels.
Pricing
Square POS system is free to install and set up. It only charges for transactions performed that vary with the payment methods.
Hardware Compatibility
You can select the OS, brand and model to know which POS is compatible with your device. There are different compatibility POS models for Android and iOS users.
Security
Square POS System provides a single dashboard to manage and secure your business data. Real-time reports and analytics help businesses make effective decisions and provide data security.
Key Features
- Credit Card Payments
- Hardware Integration
- Barcode Scanning
- Email Marketing
- Inventory Management
- Reporting and Analytics
2Shopify
POS System by Shopify contains hardware and software that instantly ensures fast checkout by closing the sales using a user-friendly interface. These portable devices are easy to carry and provide smooth transactions. Shopify POS enables businesses to generate sales and save data from multiple locations at a single interface. You can also use them with wireless technology for various events.
Pricing
Its basic package costs $25 per month, the Shopify package charges $65 per month, and the advanced package costs $399.
Security
The Tablet POS system by Shopify provides high data security for customers' personal information and secure payment processing.
Key Features
- POS
- Price Adjustments
- Loyalty Programs
- E-commerce Integration
- Employee Management
- Inventory Management
- Reporting
3Lightspeed
Lightspeed POS system is an interactive platform that helps businesses to simplify complex tasks like payment processes and data collection. It provides greater opportunities for businesses to grow at multiple locations with easy to handle management system. Businesses can enhance customer experience and compete with competitors using their expert tools.
Pricing
It offers a lean package of $139 per month, standard for $199 per month, advanced for $319 per month.
Security
Lightspeed does not compromise the security of businesses. It provides data encryption for data safety and user authentication to restrict unauthorized usage.
Key Features
- Menu Building
- Reporting
- Point of Sale
- Accounts
- Inventory management
- Table management
- Check adjustment
- Takeout and delivery
4Toast
It is a specially built POS system for restaurants ranked in 2021 as G2’s leading restaurant point of sale system. It provides 24/7 support to ensure continuity of business. It has also reduced third-party commissions by up to 80%. You can even run your complete restaurant on Toast with 3x faster speed.
Pricing
The new restaurant’s basic package costs $110, while the essentials package costs $165.
Security
Toast provides a secure POS system for restaurants, and payment processing is secure by keeping the customer’s confidential information private.
Key Features
- Dashboard
- POS
- Kitchen Ticketing
- Payment Gateways
- Menu Building
- Reporting and loyalty programs
- Inventory and table management
5TouchBistro
TouchBistro is also a restaurant management system serving as a point-of-sale system. It helps restaurants to automate their routine tasks with cost-efficiency. It supports English, French, and Spanish language. It is compatible with iPads.
Pricing
For a solo license, its price is $69 per month; for an unlimited license, the price is $399 per month.
Security
Customers can safely connect to the POS system and pay bills online using credit cards and other digital mediums without hesitation. Their data is always kept secure and in authorized hands.
Key Features
- Employee Scheduling
- Accounting
- Reports and analytics
- Inventory management
- Table management
- Payment gateways
- Point of Sale
- Check adjustments
Part 3. POS System Makes Life Easier for Your Business
Big-time savings
A POS system enables quick transactions with full accuracy. Customers do not have to wait in queues, and more customers are entertained in less time. At retail shops and restaurants, POS systems enable staff to manage high customer turnover with instant actions for placing orders and performing transactions.
Automated inventory management helps restaurants and retailers easily identify the items that are overstocked and are about to finish. This method reduces the time for manually checking items and creates a balance between sales and purchases.
POS with employee management tools helps restaurant and retail owners to track the time of staff duties and highlight their time shortage. Centralized reporting also helps businesses to save time and perform quick actions.
Convenience
POS systems have user-friendly interfaces that can be used without technical knowledge or skills. Anyone can use these systems in restaurants and retail shops for convenience. Tablet POS system for restaurant help customers to add customized orders that are easily communicated to the kitchen staff. POS system enables sending receipts to the customers in a convenient way. It also helps them save customer information and preferences.
More control over sales and inventory
POS systems play a vital role in getting real-time sales insights regularly to identify top-selling and dead items for future purchases. They also ensure inventory accuracy with reduced risks of fraud and theft. It also helps retailers and restaurants to create a healthy relationship with the supplier team.
Part 4. POS System: What Hardware Components are Required?
Display/tablet
Tablets are a central part of the POS system as it provides an interface to display. These touchscreen devices enable restaurant and retailer staff to select items, quantities and finalize the payments.
Barcode scanner
Bar code scanners in POS systems help staff scan the items' codes and generate bills. It simplifies the billing process and calculates the prices smoothly and accurately.
Cash drawer
Cash drawers are the portions to store the cash and coins. They are highly secure; only authorized members can access the cash drawers. POS electronically controls the cash drawer to return cash to the customers.
Receipt printer
Receipt printers generate customers’ bills on a piece of paper. The printing includes items, quantity, prices and discounts if given. The bills are important for the return policy.
Keyboard & mouse
Modern POS systems possess touchscreen displays, but using a keyboard and mouse is necessary for convenience as scrolling becomes easier than a touch screen.
Part 5. How Do I Setup My Tablet for POS?
1Download and install POS software into your tablet.
Turning your tablet into a POS system is very simple and easy. You need to download the POS software on your tablet. You must need a credit card reader for processing credit and debit cards to perform transactions. Download the POS system app from Google Play Store and create an account on that platform. Pay the fee if the app is paid and then launch it after proper sign-in from the tablet.
2Challenges in setting up a tablet for POS
Here are some common challenges in setting up a tablet for a POS system:
- The application might be mistakenly closed, and the system breaks.
- Wi-Fi connectivity issues can cause interruptions in the functioning of the POS system.
- The application might get uninstalled from the device, or the tablet rebooting does not start the applications automatically.
Ultimate solution to these Concerns
It is crucial to have a system that allows admins to have remote access and troubleshooting on the POS devices to monitor security and activities of devices and ensure continuity of work.
AirDroid Business is a robust mobile device management solution that can easily turn your tablets into POS systems with the best and most efficient features to ensure data security and network connectivity. Admins can restrict the devices enrolled under AirDroid Business to a specific application unless the admins remove it.
Part 6. Apple vs. Android?
Android devices have versatile models with different sizes and specifications, while Apple devices have limited models. Apple devices are rigid, so they are difficult to customize, and file sharing is limited. Android is a flexible OS with easy customization. Moreover, Android devices are developed by various manufacturers, so their prices vary and are easily affordable by small businesses. Comparatively, Apple devices are very costly, and every business needs help to afford them. Considering these points, it is very obvious that choosing Android is the best tablet for POS system and best option for businesses.
Part 7. Closing
Tablet point-of-sale systems have transformed almost all industries especially retails and hospitality industry. They help businesses streamline payment processing, inventory management, reporting and sales tracking. Various POS software are available in the market, but finding the right one is a serious concern.
Businesses must find POS software with flexible pricing and abilities to remotely manage and control POS devices remotely. The software must have customizable security policies so businesses can comply with industry-specific security standards. Customers hesitate to provide their financial details unless they feel secure with the system. So, ensure data privacy and secure transactions to improve customer retention.
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