Point-of-Sale 101 for Home-Based Businesses

Operating a home-based business can present its own share of challenges. Even so, it’s still important for the owner to handle inventory management, sales, and reporting in an efficient manner.

Whether you sell items online or customers come to your home-based business to make purchases, you need to be able to ring up sales accurately and streamline as many processes as possible.

Inventory Management
Regardless of the type of home-based business that you operate, it’s important to keep up with your inventory. This is often one of the most significant challenges faced by many home-based business owners.

An online spreadsheet can only do so much, but a point-of-sale system designed specifically for home-based businesses presents the opportunity to manage inventory quickly and easily.

Home-based business owners can gain insight into which items sell best and which products may need to be removed from inventory. With an inventory management feature on a home-based POS system, it’s also possible for business owners to determine when they need to reorder stock.

Sales Tracking
As a home-based business owner, you are often responsible for handling everything from accounting to marketing on your own. While that can be a difficult task, integrated sales tracking can help business owners to manage their operations in a more efficient manner. Sales tracking not only makes it easier come tax time, but also helps business owners to make more informed business decisions.

Reporting
Business owners can utilize the reporting feature of a home-based POS system for generating a variety of different reports. Discover best-selling items, gain insight into areas of the business that may need improvement, and develop customized marketing programs based on sales trends.

The reporting feature can also make it much easier if you need to apply for financing in the future, as you will be able to quickly produce reports demonstrating historical sales data.

Trying to decide whether now is the right time to expand your business operations? The reporting feature can give you the insight that you need to make those decisions.

How to Choose a Home-Based Business POS System
A variety of factors need to be considered in choosing a home-based business POS system. Every home-based business is different, and many of the decisions related to choosing a point-of-sale system for your home-based business will depend upon the type of business that you operate from your home.

By understanding the various capabilities of a point-of-sale system, you will be better able to make a more informed decision regarding the best type of POS system to meet the needs of your home-based business.

Payment Processing Capabilities
Consider the types of payments that you need to be able to process in your home-based business. For instance, do customers come to your home to purchase products or services? Do you offer products online and need to be able to accept payments remotely?

Your POS system should provide you with the capability to accept a variety of different types of payments, including debit cards, credit cards, cash, and checks. In addition, you may wish to consider whether your POS system is able to accept mobile payments. The ability to apply coupons and discounts can also prove to be helpful in terms of boosting sales and creating customer loyalty programs.

Tracking
A POS system for a home-based business can offer numerous options for tracking every aspect of your business. How you choose to use those tracking capabilities may depend on the structure of your business. For instance, if you employ staff, you may wish to gain insight into the average number of hours worked, how much they’re selling each week, etc.

A POS system can also provide a variety of other types of tracking capabilities, including: 

• Clocking employees in and out
• Recording methods of payment
• Calculating cash due for sales
• Creating sales reports
• Tracking number of items sold. 

Marketing
As the owner of a home-based business, you must often handle marketing on your own. While this can be challenging, a POS system can make the process easier by giving you greater insight into your business.
For instance, you can capture vital customer information at the point of sale, including telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and order information.

This makes it easier for you to build a strong database of customer information that can be used for personalizing promotions and creating direct marketing campaigns.

Included Hardware for Your Home-Based Business POS
The point-of-sale system that you choose for your home-based business will need to include certain pieces of hardware in order to provide all of the capabilities that you need. The types of hardware required will vary based on how you operate your business.

For instance, if you sell items onsite, then you may require a touch screen monitor that will allow you to ring up sales quickly and easily. If that is the case, then a cash drawer may also be a necessity.

If you are operating out of your home for various goods and services, you need a system that can support you and your business goals. There is a lot of flexibility that comes with home-based businesses, so finding a means of payment processing that will work with ease is of the utmost importance.

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