What is an Epos system?

What is an Epos system?

An Epos is a commonly-used acronym standing for Electronic Point of Sale. It is used to refer to a connected system comprising both hardware products and software products used at the place where sales are processed, as in high-street shops, or on e-commerce websites. Supported business operations include payments, checkouts, sales reports, transaction verification.

Epos Systems in Brighton help keep track of sales, staff, VAT, inventory, etc. The main difference with the traditional point of sale systems is that transactions are registered by the central server, which matches them with relevant inventory data to adjust available quantities. Complete sales report with individual employee performance metrics, but also, inventory forecasting are made available.

Epos systems include at least one large monitor, one terminal, one customer display, one till, one barcode scanner, and rely on Epos software to operate. They may or may not have add-ons such as cash drawers, Pos printers, PDQ terminals or chip-and-pin machines, weighing scale or pole displays.

More advanced models include touchscreen displays, wireless data transmission to chip-and-pin machines and to drawers, advanced table and staff management, combination scale and scanner systems, etc.

Complete Electronic Point of Sale systems and their components are widely available and can be obtained as full packages, or as individual components. They can be purchased, rented or leased from many distributors.

What are the benefits of an Epos system?

Benefits of Epos over traditional point of sale systems are quite striking. They are related to reporting, stock management, accountability, speed and efficiency, and accuracy.

Because Epos systems are part of a connected system, maintenance of sales and inventory become essentially effortless, instant and more accurate. All product data is automatically pulled from the product catalogue through barcode reading and inventory matching, all customer data is directly pulled from the CRM to calculate personalised discounts where applicable.

Since all operations are centralised, it’s also much easier to manage a pool of sales stations, without having to program each terminal individually.

Epos systems are connected with the inventory and human resource data also allow Epos to provide inventory reports and sales reports, with per-staff member figures if needed. This can be used as a management tool, but also as a security tool to detect and prevent fraud.

This latter aspect also illustrates the Epos benefits related to accountability: Epos helps built better accountability for each member of staff individually, and for the business itself taken as a whole.

This also helps making better, more accurate inventory forecasts, by programming alerts which will be automatically triggered when inventory levels hit a certain point. This allows suppliers to track sales and purchasing data, and identify popular products, versus unpopular ones instantly.

Finally, Epos benefits your business’s image in the eyes of your customers, who are handed out nice-looking, colourful receipts, and receive faster, more accurate, more personalised in-store service.