After all, checking out is the last thing customers do before they leave. If the checkout experience isn’t designed well, it can ruin an otherwise good impression.

Plus, checkout often presents the most opportunities for frustration during a store visit. Common stumbling blocks during checkout include long lines, awkward workflows, confused employees, and hardware malfunctions.

However, if you can execute an expert checkout process for your store, it will stand apart from competitors and keep customers coming back again and again.

For a good checkout experience, you’ll need well-trained, cheerful employees and a thoughtfully-designed checkout counter. But perhaps the biggest opportunity to improve the checkout process — the one that will make the biggest difference in checkout ease and speed — lies with your POS system. This is where the power of retail cloud integrators really comes into play.

Cloud-based point of sale systems can connect to staffing software and marketing software in unprecedented ways that make for the easiest and most pleasant checkout experiences possible.

Here are just a few of the ways that modern tools improve customers’ checkout experiences.

They help get staffing levels right

One of the most common causes of delays during checkout is understaffing. If there aren’t enough people on hand to process orders, a long line is inevitable.

State-of-the-art staff scheduling programs can integrate directly with POS software to estimate how many employees you should have on schedule at any given time of the day or week.

These integrators can use sales numbers from similar days in the past to gauge how many people will be necessary to keep checkout moving quickly. Some programs can even adjust the staffing estimates based on factors like the weather or special holidays.

HR programs also have features that make it less likely that an employee will cancel for their shift unexpectedly, leaving the store short-staffed. HR integrators like Deputy can start contacting qualified employees for a shift replacement as soon as an employee notifies that they won’t be able to make their scheduled shift.

Related post: 6 Reasons Your Small Business Should be Using Staff Scheduling Software

They make it easy to open extra registers

Most modern POS systems run on tablets.

That means that opening a new register is as simple as powering on an additional tablet and clicking a few buttons.

It also often means that employees don’t have to stay behind the checkout counter. If it’s more convenient for your sales team, they can take their POS-software-loaded tablet and check customers out from any point in the store. For example, if a long line begins to form, an employee might choose to grab an additional tablet and offer to check out people who are paying by credit card from right where they’re standing.

They allow more purchasing options

Customers might be able to skip the checkout line entirely if they order and pay online. Most modern retail cloud integrators are fully equipped for omnichannel retail, which includes the ability for customers to ship their orders to the store or order online and pick up in-store instead of opting for shipping.

This feature can be especially convenient for customers who don’t want to spend the time navigating aisles looking for their favorite products, or those who are pressed for time and like to get their order lined up outside of regular business hours.

They get rid of paper (and the related headaches)

Put simply, paper receipts complicate the checkout process.

First, there are the extra worries about the physical equipment — whether or not the receipt printer will run out of paper or ink, for example, or require other maintenance. Even simply waiting for the paper to print out and handing it to the customer adds a few seconds to each transaction, which can really add up over the course of weeks and months.

New cloud integrators allow stores to give customers the option of getting receipts by email instead of in paper form. Stores can even collect signatures for credit card payments digitally via tablet instead of handing customers a paper to sign — which is another significant time-saving opportunity.

In fact, while they’re signing for the transaction, the customer can decide whether or not they want to receive a receipt by paper or email, or skip the receipts all together — all via the checkout tablet.

They make it quick and easy for customers to join loyalty programs

Asking customers to join your email list or keep in touch with you via email as they check out is a very valuable marketing opportunity that you don’t want to miss.

However, asking each of your customers these kinds of opt-in questions at the point of checkout can seriously slow down the checkout process. Plus, it can be awkward to ask customers to spell their names and personal information in clear earshot of everyone waiting behind them.

With modern point-of-sale systems, customers can quickly and privately type their email addresses and update their personal information quickly as the sales associate is completing their order.

They make checkout easier for staff

Modern point of sale systems does much more than the simple cash registers that were designed to simply calculate transactions and keep financial records.

Today’s cloud integrators make the checkout process more pleasant not just for customers (who will appreciate features like self-checkout, online ordering, and digital receipts) but also for the staff using the system.

Cloud integrators make checkout easier for both customers and employees.

For example, the workflows loaded into the software can take employees through common checkout scenarios step by step, reducing the odds that they’ll need to stop and ask for help.  These workflows also make it difficult for employees to miss anything important during the checkout process.

When a POS system is easier for employees, the checkout will run more smoothly. Plus, when new staff members can learn the ropes quickly, the business saves valuable money and onboarding energy.

The Bottom Line

Small business owners are smart to keep many of their expenses low. And at first, opting for cash registers instead of modern retail cloud integrators can seem like a big savings opportunity.

But investments in modern software pay off over time in things like better check-out speeds and improved customer experience.

If you’re considering investing in modern software at your store, we hope you reach out to us at Cloudscape Technologies. We’ll recommend, procure and install all the tools your frontline and back-office employees need to make sales and delight customers. To learn more about what we offer retailers, start here.

But they’re not truly making the most of all of that time and energy unless they’re also working to maximize average transaction values.

Encouraging customers who are already making a purchase to buy more is one of the simplest and best ways to boost revenue. When done right, efforts to boost transaction values can actually improve customer satisfaction as well as profits.

Here are some of the best ways to increase purchase values in your store.

Leverage Upsell and Cross-Sell Tactics

Convincing customers to buy more doesn’t mean being disingenuous, and it doesn’t have to come across as sleazy.

The best upsells and cross-sells are all about anticipating what your customers actually need and getting to the bottom of why they came into your store. It’s about making customers’ lives easier and adding value to their experience.

As you probably already know, upselling is the act of recommending upgrades or higher-quality versions of a certain product, and cross-selling is the act of selling products that are related to the others in a purchase.

Here are a few ways that upsells and cross-sells could play out in your store:

• Comparing product quality or life expectancy – Perhaps a certain product is more expensive upfront than its alternatives, but it won’t wear out as quickly, which makes it less expensive in the long-run. Similarly, the purchase of a more expensive product whose brand offers warranties can provide a much bigger payoff if repairs or a replacement is required (and also offers more peace of mind for the buyer).
• Highlighting valuable or money-saving features of comparatively expensive products – For example, a more expensive light bulb or appliance might use less energy, which decreases a customer’s energy bills over time. Similarly, one product that’s less expensive upfront might require more expensive complementary products, such as refills or batteries, making it much more expensive over time.
• Focusing on customer end goals – If you see that a customer is purchasing something for a certain purpose, you can suggest other, complementary products to make sure that they have everything they need. For example, if they’re coming in to buy hiking boots for an upcoming trip, you might be able to suggest hiking socks or even other related items, such as camping supplies. If you run a boutique, you can suggest accessories such as jewelry or other clothes that will make their purchase a complete outfit. At a hardware store, asking the customer what project they’re working on can give your employees a chance to suggest the other tools they need to complete the job.

Offer Employees Tools and Training

Although clever displays and store design can help promote higher quality and complementary products, upsells and cross-sells are difficult to pull off without the help of knowledgeable employees.

Ideally, you’ll have hired people who have personal experience using the products you sell, or who have a personal interest in how the brands and products work. However, even if they don’t have personal experience with products, they can gain in-depth knowledge with enough training and education. That’s a responsibility that falls to a store owner or manager.

Keep all of your sales floor employees in the loop on any new products that you’re adding to the shelves, and make sure they understand how the new products work and compare to other products — both the ones in the store and others available elsewhere.

Modern POS systems for retailers can help in this regard. These programs can suggest related products as employees are helping customers on the sales floor. They can also remind employees to ask certain questions or make certain offers during the checkout process.

Display Products Thoughtfully

As you probably already know, the way you position and display products in your store can make a big difference in customers’ buying behavior.

First of all, your store’s products should be arranged and displayed in an appealing and clear way so that customers can easily see what you have to offer and find what they’re looking for quickly.

However, as we’ve mentioned, positioning complementary items next to each other in the store can also boost sales. For example, you could position party supplies, small gifts, or holiday-themed items near the greeting cards. Or, you could stock facial tissues next to the cold and flu remedies. This kind of positioning can encourage people to buy more, but it can also help customers find what they need and enjoy their shopping experience.

If you use a cloud-based POS system, you can use your reporting system to analyze which types of product tend to be purchased together.

Another simple and very effective sales-boosting tactic is to keep small, universally useful impulse buys near the checkout counter so that customers can grab one as they’re checking out.

Offer Well-Timed Promotions

You can also encourage customers to purchase more by occasionally offering classic promotions such as buy-one-get-one-free, or percentage discounts that increase with the number of products purchased.

These discounts may convince them that they can indeed afford to spend a little more or encourage your customers to stock up now and save themselves an extra trip later.

With the right POS software, you can experiment with different promotions and track which ones performed the best, controlling for factors like the time of the week or year.

Promote Your Loyalty Program

When customers know that they’ll earn loyalty points with each purchase they make at your store, they’ll feel more comfortable spending more each time they come in. After all, with a compelling rewards program, spending money means that they can expect to save money later.

This is especially true when you use a modern POS program that makes it easy for customers to see how many points they’ve earned and reach out to them with chances to earn more points that are customized to their interests.

Join this recorded masterclass where we talk about how to leverage loyalty with Vend.

Encourage In-Store Pickup

If you sell your products online in addition to your physical store, make sure you give customers the option to avoid shipping costs by picking up their purchases in the store for free.

Then, when your customers come into the store, they may pick up a few other products for the sake of convenience (and thanks to your keen merchandising skills), which results in a larger overall purchase.

Any modern POS system with omnichannel selling features should be able to handle this task easily.

The Importance of POS Software

It’s tough to know whether or not your in-store-transaction-value-boosting tactics are working if you aren’t using the right software.

Not only do modern, cloud-based POS tools make it easy to run promotions and loyalty programs and sell both in-store and online, they also give retailers unprecedented access to sales data.

Because cloud-based software runs via the internet, multiple registers from multiple store locations across the world can sync up in real-time. This data is displayed on user-friendly dashboards that show sales, profitability, and KPIs like average transaction value.

If you’re interested in switching to cloud-based software for your retail store, please reach out to us at Cloudscape Technologies. Cloudscape was built with love in Dubai by tech geeks and retail veterans on a mission: helping retail store and restaurant owners do more with modern technology.

We can help you find the right combination of cloud-based software programs for your store, and then we can help you implement those programs and train your staff on them.

Check out our site for more information or to book a call.

In older software programs, you can physically see exactly where your data is stored: on your local machine. In that model, it seemed that you just had to make sure that your physical computers stayed safe and you could be guaranteed that your data would stay right there.

In comparison, cloud-based software’s internet connections seem to make your data susceptible to every hacker in the world who can access your data from any remote location globally.

However, in most cases, data stored on cloud-based software is actually much safer than data stored in older software models.

Among other reasons, this is because the latest cloud-based programs are run by companies that have tons of resources to dedicate to security and because local networks are still vulnerable to the same kind of internet threats that cloud-based programs are.

Here’s everything you need to know when it comes to cloud-based software security.

Cloud Computing Security 101

Technically, “cloud computing” only requires two things: a data server (a computer) and an internet connection. You can create a private cloud in your home or office, for example, to store shared data for everyone who is connected to your wireless internet network to access.

However, when most people use the term “cloud-based software” these days, they’re referring to the services that are hosted completely off-site.

When you use cloud-based software, your data is sent from the device in front of you to the on-site router, usually wirelessly, and then the router sends the info via cable to your local internet service provider. The data then sends it along to the off-site destination server that’s hosted by the company that owns your software.

Your info is stored there until you want to retrieve it again, at which point it travels back to your local device via a similar route on the internet.

It’s easy to assume that sending your data across the country, region or world would put it at more risk, but that’s not actually true. Your data is still very much susceptible to hackers as long as your local computers are connected to the internet and your employees are using the internet regularly.

Most employers know that they need to secure their local network with an encrypted password. But as an increasing number of devices such as smart speakers, smart doorbells, and smart security systems connect to the internet via local wireless networks, hackers can find new ways to exploit your personal information. And if your employees click suspicious links or fall prey to phishing scams in their email, their computers could become infected with malware that can give hackers access to your network too.

Digital Security Needs for Small Businesses

It may seem like hackers mostly target big companies because they have so much more valuable personal data than small businesses. However, those cases just tend to make the headlines more often. In fact, small businesses may make even more appealing targets for hackers, because hackers know they don’t have the same level of resources to devote to security.

According to a 2015 statement by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, “for every high-profile breach, there are many more threats to confidential data held by local businesses.”

Unfortunately, as this Denver Post article explains, these kinds of hacks can be especially harmful to smaller businesses. In fact, 60% of businesses that suffer a cyber attack are out of business within six months.

Advantages of Modern Cloud-Based Software over Locally Installed Software

So, we’ve established that small businesses can be the targets of cybercriminals and that storing data on a local server isn’t risk-free. But there are other unique security advantages to using cloud software that you definitely need to consider.

Easier hardware maintenance. When you store software locally on-site at your business, you must have someone technical on hand to make sure hardware is updated and is working properly. You’ll also have to make sure that your machines can handle an increasing amount of data as your business grows over time. In comparison, cloud-based software takes all of the responsibility for maintaining hardware, increasing storage, and updating software completely off of your hands.

Redundancy. Most modern software programs are hosted with companies like Amazon Web Services, which store your data in multiple places instead of just one. Because their networks of servers are distributed strategically throughout the world, even major disasters or power outages won’t affect your ability to access data.

Digital security. Almost all modern cloud-based software encrypts data both “in motion” and “at rest.” They use an https connection to make sure that no one can access data while it’s traveling across the internet. Cloud-based software programs also use industry best practices for security and authentication protocols to make sure no one gets unauthorized access to your files. When you use cloud-based software, you’re taking advantage of professionals who are fully dedicated to the task of keeping data safe from the latest threats — and that’s a resource that small businesses simply don’t have.

Physical security. When most people think about protecting their data, they think of digital security. However, your data is also super vulnerable to physical theft and damage. In some cases, all it would take to compromise your company’s most valuable data is for one of your employee’s laptops or personal electronic devices to be stolen. And unless you have the resources to employ top-of-the-line security cameras and live security staff, your data is likely more vulnerable to physical threats when it’s stored on-site at your business than it is with a professional software company that’s completely dedicated to keeping your data safe and secure.

A Reality Check

This is your business. It’s your income — how you support yourself and your family. And for most people, it represents years of work and has even become part of your identity. It makes sense for business owners to be wary of sending their information around the world on the internet, especially when data breach news is broadcast every day.

However, the fact is that you’re probably already sending your most personal information over the internet regularly and with a very little security risk.

Do you use a banking app for your personal finances? Or, do you log on to your banking website, to pay bills or transfer money among your accounts? If so, some of your most sensitive data is already traveling over the internet regularly.

You’re probably already sending your most personal information over the internet regularly and with a very little security risk.

With this in mind, we invite you to consider using modern cloud-based software for your local business. Besides the enhanced security, cloud-based software has many other powerful features. For example, it can integrate with other specialized cloud-based programs that come together to create a comprehensive software solution for your small business. And as a business owner, you can get real-time data from all your locations and from each individual register.

Ready to learn more? Cloudscape Technologies specializes in helping retailers and restaurateurs select and implement the best cloud-based programs on the market. We have helped small businesses all over the Middle East to train employees on the new software — and we are available for support when you need it.

Click here to learn more about our solutions.

But the search for cloud-based software can feel overwhelming, especially at first.

For example, should you get one comprehensive program that handles many tasks, or try a few different apps that expertly address different pain points? Should you pay more for a program that will grow with your company, or settle for a less expensive option that will work great for now?

And how much time can you afford to spend evaluating all the potential cloud-based programs to find the best fits for your unique needs? Is there any way to ensure that your investment in cloud-based software will pay off?

On our Elevated Entrepreneur blog, we’ve already spent some time discussing the finer points of the software selection process — comparing competing programs and listing specific features to look for.

But today, let’s simplify things. We think there are one question business owners should be asking first when they evaluate a potential cloud-based software solution: “Was this software built to address the needs of businesses just like mine?”

This question can serve as a bit of a “shortcut” in the search for cloud-based software. Here’s why:

The Growth of the SaaS Market

Cloud-based computing certainly hasn’t been around long in the grand scheme of things. But the market for cloud-based software, or Software-as-a-Service, has matured a lot in recent years.

This is especially true for point of sale software, which tends to be the backbone of the operations at most small customer-facing businesses, such as retailers and restaurants.

In the beginning, there weren’t many cloud-based POS options, and businesses had to make the available cloud-based software work for their own needs. But as demand grew for SaaS, more competitors entered the market. Cloud-based software companies have long since started to differentiate themselves by focusing on providing solutions for specific groups of clients.

That’s why these days, businesses can find POS programs and related software that caters to specific industries (such as restaurants), and even specific types of companies within that industry (coffee shops, pizzerias).

The Benefits of Industry-Specific Software Features

Most small businesses share the same needs when it comes to many basic business functions. They all need to process sales, get reminders for low inventory, run financial reports and analyze data, and manage staff, to name a few.

However, in other ways, different types of businesses have very different needs when it comes to these processes. These benefit from distinct sets of advanced features. That’s where industry-specific software can be particularly helpful.

For example, POS software that was designed for restaurants may have features such as table management, menu management, and tableside ordering — none of which would be useful to any other industry. POS software that was designed for retailers, however, tends to have robust eCommerce capabilities, plus plenty of options for combining and discounting products for sale.

On the inventory end, restaurant software may specialize in deducting ingredients as they’re used in meals. Retail software, on the other hand, features barcode scanners and tools for quick and efficient inventory reconciliation — features that restaurateurs don’t often need.

The Benefits of Industry-Specific Software Support

Beyond the advanced software features, industry-specific software also tends to offer more specialized help and guidance to their clients.

Because industry-specific support specialists work with businesses like yours all day every day, they have more in-depth knowledge about how your business works. They may even be able to alert you to best practices or improvement opportunities based on what they’ve seen elsewhere.

Industry-focused programs may also be able to provide support documents and other tools that are more relevant to your needs.

Some SaaS companies invite clients into exclusive online communities, such as Facebook groups where industry professionals discuss best practices. Some even offer industry-specific webinars or other educational resources on a regular basis.

The Pitfalls of “Generalist” Software

It may seem relatively harmless to invest in software that has a few more features than you actually need. After all, you might need the features in the future, right?

It’s true that some general POS systems might work well for your business, just as sometimes a Swiss Army knife works better than a single, sharp blade.

But consider that any extra features you don’t need right now can clutter up your software, and may even confuse your employees.

Plus, there’s a good chance that the cost of the features you aren’t using will still be passed along to you in the price of the software.

Think about it: As a software company adds more and more features that aren’t relevant to your business, they extend themselves further and further to provide tech support and customer support for those features. And with each additional feature, potential software integrations tend to get more complicated. That’s why finding a program that caters more exclusively to what you need it to do is almost always the best bet.

How to Tell if Software is Industry-Specific

Most cloud-based software websites have a list of supported industries featured prominently on their homepage or in their main menu. Each industry page should include a description of how the program works for that type of business, along with relevant features and testimonials from business owners in the industry.

If your business type is less common, you might not find it listed on any SaaS websites. But you may be able to find what you need by searching for programs that cater to industries with similar processes and needs.

However, you’ll have to look beyond the website and do a bit more research to know for sure whether a program really caters to your industry.

After all, it’s super easy for a company to list a certain industry on their website in the hopes of attracting new clients. It’s quite another to already have a deep list of satisfied clients within that industry.

If you have any doubts, you can ask your sales rep more about how many customers they serve that are similar to yours, and even whether you can get connected with any of them. Starting a free trial of the software before you commit can also give you insights into how relevant the program will actually be.

Enlisting the Help of Software Experts

Sometimes the easiest way to know which software will actually be the best fit for your business is to have a quick conversation with an expert.

At Cloudscape Technologies, our team is full of cloud-based software experts who have years of experience and dozens of certifications in the best cloud-based software programs on the market.

Sometimes the easiest way to know which software will be the best fit for your business is to have a quick conversation with an expert.

We specialize in serving restaurateurs and retailers, and we have plenty of industry-specific insights that can help improve your business as we work together.

If you reach out to us and let us know a little more about your software needs, we’ll give you a clear idea of your best options. Even better, though, we can help you get that software up and running, and support you for the long term.

Please click here to learn more about Cloudscape Technologies and book a free, no-obligation call.

But the best tech tools for retailers don’t end there.

There are other technology tools that can make your store even more appealing to customers and easier to run.

Modern retailers should consider adopting these tools, too.

HR & Scheduling

Scheduling retail employees and then managing those schedules has traditionally been one of the more difficult and tedious tasks that store managers have to contend with.

Manually making a schedule that takes everyone’s needs and preferences into account and makes sure that the right employees with the right skills are filling out each shift can easily take hours. Plus, schedules can shift and change at a moment’s notice when employees get sick or fail to come in.

Thankfully, HR and scheduling apps designed for these exact needs are coming to the rescue.

Features to Look for in HR & Scheduling Software

• Time clock and timesheet management tools – Clocking in, clocking out, and tallying up hours worked should be simple and error-free.
• Staff communication tools – Staffers should be able to check their schedule remotely, request time off, and easily send each other messages about their schedules.
• Task Management – Some scheduling software also has the ability for administrators to assign tasks for each shift and monitor which employees complete them.
• Auto-scheduling – Some tools have an auto-schedule feature that factors in sales forecasts, bookings, expected foot traffic, and more.
• Automatic shift replacements –  These suggest and contact potential replacements for your staffers as soon as they notify managers that they’ll be missing a scheduled shift. Because employees’ skills (and performance) are tracked in the software, it “knows” which employees are appropriate to suggest for scheduling changes. Employees can even swap shifts on their own through the software with no need for management to get involved.
• Payroll software integration – With direct integration with payroll software, it can be easier than ever to get employees’ paychecks based on their hours worked.

These scheduling needs only get more complicated as a business grows, so putting a solid foundation for scheduling in place early can save many, many hours over the long term.

Examples of HR & Scheduling Software

• Deputy
• Planday

Analytics & Dashboards

Separately, cloud-based software programs that manage things like point of sale, inventory, accounting, and scheduling for your store can save many, many hours of work.

But when you start connecting them together with the help of integrations, each of the tools becomes much more powerful.

Leveraging the power of integrations is especially helpful when it comes to data and analytics.

Without programs that share data automatically, there will be a lot of manual importing, exporting, and transferring to spreadsheets in order to get the data you need. And as we know, manual work takes a lot of time and causes expensive mistakes.

Features to Look for in Analytics & Dashboards

When your tools integrate together, they may be able to do the following things:

• Share customer, vendor, and staff data (no more entering new accounts manually in each program or worrying about duplicates or errors)
• Give you a clear idea of how much you’re spending each shift on staffing costs and identify trends and potential savings opportunities
• Easily calculate your store’s “cost of goods sold” and compare that to revenue, which makes it easy to calculate the profitability of each individual product and product category
• Show the average revenue per purchase, and see how much individual customers have spent over time
• Show how staffing costs relate to sales (such as how much revenue each employee brings in and how sales trends affect staffing needs)
• Sync transaction data from the POS system to the accounting system in real-time so you can understand how your store is doing financially at any moment

Examples of Analytics & Dashboards

• Most leading retail SaaS have built integrations with other major programs. However, there are also apps such as Tenzo, which specialize in connecting with each of your individual software programs (scheduling, point of sale, accounting, etc.) to create beautiful dashboards.

Loyalty

These days, customers want relationships with businesses, and the right kind of software can help develop those relationships.

Loyalty programs connected to your point of sale system can track and analyze customer behavior to understand how long each one has been coming to your store, what they usually buy, and what times they like to come in.

You can then use this knowledge to create compelling marketing offers and reach customers at the right times.

Features to Look for in Customer Loyalty Programs

• Easy enrollment – The best loyalty programs make it easy for your customers to enroll in the program in multiple ways, such as during checkout or through your website.
• Customer-facing interface – Customers should be able to easily find out how many points they’ve earned and which rewards they can get.
• Smooth POS integration – The most convenient loyalty programs automatically track purchases made across multiple locations and websites.
• Customer segmentation – You should be able to group customers together based on various behaviors and characteristics in order to send them messages.
• A marketing tool – Within your loyalty program, you should be able to create campaigns via SMS and email builder, and even schedule automatic messages for certain benchmarks.
• Customer insights – A good loyalty program will illustrate overall trends within the loyalty program, including spending habits and campaign results, clearly and easily.
• Coupons and special deals – You should be able to create and send special promotions that are limited by the date, type of customer, purchasing behavior, and more.

Examples of Customer Loyalty Programs

• Vend Loyalty – Available as an additional feature with the Vend POS system
• Lightspeed Loyalty – Available as an additional feature with the Lightspeed POS system
• Marsello – Allows customers to earn and redeem points across multiple POS systems, for example, if a business owner chooses to use Shopify for eCommerce and Vend for in-store sales

Gift Cards

Accepting gift cards at your store is a great way to boost cash flow, introduce your store to new customers, and generally increase revenue.

Gift cards are also a great way to promote your store during the holidays or special events and occasions, even during off-season times when people might not typically be spending money at your establishment.

Plus, when customers redeem gift cards, you have the chance to upsell them to boost your revenue even further.

Features to Look for in Gift Cards Programs

• POS integration – You’ll want a gift card program that’s directly integrated into your point of sale system so customers can purchase cards from their existing accounts and you can track their purchasing behavior.
• Online or in-store purchase options – Some of your customers will want a traditional plastic card with their purchase, and others will be happy to email or even text the card to their recipient. Your software should support all of those options.
• Balance lookup – Gift card holders should be able to easily check their balances online.
• Ecommerce use – If you sell any food, drink, or branded merchandise online in addition to your store, gift cards should apply to those purchases, too.

Most major retail POS programs come with gift card features included in the software, but others may rely on other apps and integrations for gift card features.

Summary

We’ve discussed many different tools throughout this guide to modern retail technology.

Individually, each tool can make running your store much easier.

However, the programs can work together in very different ways. If you use too many programs that weren’t designed to work together, you might end up with redundant features, confusing data and reports, and glitchy integrations.

It takes significant time and expense to choose the right software tools. You want to make the right choices the first time around.

It takes significant time and expense to choose the right software tools. You want to make the right choices the first time around.

That’s why many savvy store owners and managers are choosing to partner with retail technology specialists to implement their retail hardware and software.

At Cloudscape Technologies, our mission is to support local retailers in the Middle East region to find the best tech solutions. We take on the hard work of getting each program up and running for your store, making sure all the programs work together seamlessly, and finally training your staff on how to use the new programs.

With this level of help, store owners can focus on keeping their stores running smoothly.

The Cloudscape Retail Success Kit includes:

• Complete POS installation & setup
• Inventory management
• Staff training
• Ecommerce, accounting, payroll

Ongoing care includes:

• Priority email & phone support
• Lightning-fast troubleshooting
• Periodic system check-ups
• Free training for new employees

Click here to learn more about Cloudscape’s services for retail customers.

Ecommerce has completely upended the traditional brick-and-mortar retail model. Retailers are still thriving, of course, but they’re doing so in spite of competition from ecommerce — or perhaps because of the new opportunities that selling online gives them.

In the midst of these changes, plenty of digital technology tools have emerged to handle the needs of retailers that want to sell both in-store and online.

These tools can even track inventory and sales across all channels in real-time. They can run sales and discounts, combine items into groups for sale, and connect effortlessly to other apps that help run and promote your store efficiently. These digital tools also provide reports that can provide instant insights into the health of your entire operation.

Retail technology aims to make the job of store ownership easier and less risky — and it’s good at what it does.

In fact, so many software programs are now on the market that it choosing the right combination of programs can be daunting. Software costs can be significant, and making changes once you’ve settled on certain software can be difficult. It pays to make the right choice from the outset.

That’s why we wanted to provide retail store owners with a complete guide that explains exactly which technology retailers need, and how all of those tech components can fit together to build a comprehensive retail system.

In our retail technology guide, we’ll cover:

• Point of sale systems
• Accounting systems
• HR and scheduling systems
• Analytics and dashboards
• Loyalty programs
• Gift card programs

Point of Sale

The first technology tool that you need to choose for your store is the point of sale system.

A POS system, of course, refers to the hardware and software you use to accept payments. However, today’s cloud-based systems are much more complex (and useful) than the simple cash registers of the past.

Thanks to cloud technology, POS terminals can sync with each other continuously so users can understand how their entire store is doing financially in real time.

POS systems also come with a host of other features that form the backbone of your store’s technology suite. Your POS system should connect with almost all of your other tech tools to give you the complete insights you need to run your store.

Some retail POS programs, including Vend, Revel & Lightspeed, are subscription-based, meaning you pay a flat rate per month per terminal or per store location. Other programs, such as Shopify, charge a flat monthly rate plus a small percentage of each transaction and a small flat fee per transaction.

A Few Features to Look For in a POS System

Here are a few of the primary features that each retailer absolutely needs in a POS system.

Ecommerce / Omnichannel Sales

It wasn’t long ago that retailers needed separate programs for their web stores and in-store sales. However, these days, a POS system should handle sales from all channels in the same system. This is called omnichannel retailing.

In addition to having the same products and inventory available in both channels, your POS should also give customers the ability to do the following things:

• buy online and ship to their homes
• ship their purchase to a store location
• pick up their purchase in the store
• transfer purchase from one store location to another

Your customers should also be able to see their full purchase histories, including both online and in-person transactions, in the same place. That includes all returns, refunds, and store credits, from all channels. (This info is expected by the customer, but it’s also very helpful on the business end, such as for customer service and marketing purposes.)

Finally, as we’ll discuss in more detail later, administrators should be able to apply things like special promotions, marketing campaigns, loyalty programs, and gift cards to their stores both in-person and online.

Inventory management

We all know the basics when it comes to inventory: Your POS system should deduct inventory as it’s purchased and send alerts when levels get low. But once you start selling a lot of products with a lot of different attributes, you’ll need a more robust inventory system.

Sophisticated POS systems make it easy for users to keep their inventory updated with stock and auto-fill options. They enable administrators to order more stock, assign different characteristics and attributes to products, assign SKUs, and apply barcodes to products for quick checkout and easy counting.

They also allow managers to combine different individual products together for sale as a group (called “composites”). Managers should also be able to create sales and discounts easily for specific products or products with certain characteristics.

Inventory reports should stay updated across all channels in real-time. Omnichannel inventory will ensure that you don’t accidentally oversell an item that isn’t actually in stock, for example.

Inventory counting and reconciliation

Inventory tracking software can keep a fairly accurate estimate of inventory as it’s purchased, but it’s still necessary to occasionally double-check inventory counts to make sure that the quantities match what the software shows.

Inventory counts can be inconsistent for a number of reasons — accounting mistakes, operational errors, and losses from theft or damage are a few of them.

POS software with the right inventory features can help make these counts easier.

Many retailers opt to reconcile portions of their inventory throughout the year instead of counting all of the inventory at once. Some software, such as Vend, comes with a “partial count” inventory feature built-in. Others, such as Shopify, require you to add a cycle counting app for the job.

Learn more about inventory counts in this post: Which of These Inventory Reconciliation Techniques is Right for Your Business?

Stock transfers and multi-store management

Larger retailers with more than one location or a product that goes through a complicated inventory process need yet another level of inventory features. They need POS systems that let them track inventory through the processes of shipping, warehousing, and distribution.

These advanced inventory features allow users to manage multiple locations and move stock between stores and warehouses.

Omnichannel inventory software that supports multiple locations should also be able to let your employees (and your customers) know exactly where your products and supplies are in any given location or channel.

Special inventory reports

Reporting is a key feature for any POS system, but some systems have more robust reporting systems than others.

We’ll discuss more the analytics and dashboards you should be looking for later in this ebook. But as far as inventory is concerned, you should be looking for a system that can produce key reports such as a sell-through report and average ticket value.

POS Hardware Needs

In addition to the software itself, you’ll need to invest in the hardware the POS system requires to work. Even though today’s cloud-based software doesn’t “live” primarily on its hardware (instead, it’s accessed via the internet from a remote server), you’ll still need the following tools to make sure your system works properly. Specific hardware requirements will vary based on the type of software you choose.

You’ll need:

• Barcode scanners (USB or Bluetooth)
• Receipt printers (come in wired or wireless options)
• Cash drawers
• PC / Mac-based, iPad based (Which usually includes online & offline functionality

Examples of Omnichannel POS Software for Retailers

• Lightspeed Retail
• Vend
• Revel
• Shopify POS
• Square

Accounting

You can’t keep your business’ doors open if you can’t stay profitable, and you’ll never know whether you’re profitable without keeping careful financial records of money as it’s spent and as it’s received.

Thankfully, there are plenty of software programs on the market that automate the jobs of bookkeeping and accounting for retailers.

The most important feature to look for in an accounting program for your store is its integration with your point of sale system.

With a solid integration, your POS software can send the transaction data directly to the accounting software. This means you’ll get real-time reports with no need for manual reconciliations or spreadsheets.

Here are a few of the ways your point of sale software and accounting software should share data to make things easier for you:

• Transactions and totals, including details about payment types, cash transactions, and loyalty and gift card use, should be sent from your POS system to your accounting system automatically.
• Cost-of-goods-sold (COGS) from your POS is updated in real-time in your accounting system.
• Any purchases that require invoices should create those invoices automatically in your accounting system.
• New inventory orders should show up in your accounting software as accounts payable invoices.
• Product codes should sync from POS to accounting.
• Accounts created in the point-of-sale systems, such as those for customers and suppliers, should be automatically created and updated in the accounting system, too.

These integrations make it much easier for managers to track profitability and assess liabilities and expenses. They can also identify potential financial problems or errors quickly. Reports can draw on data across both programs for better insights on employees, customers, products, and more.

But integration provides more than helpful insights. It also eliminates errors and saves you and your staff hours of time that would have been spent producing reports and transferring data manually.

Examples of Common Accounting Programs That Integrate With Retail POS Systems

• Xero
• Quickbooks
• Freshbooks

Although POS, inventory, and accounting are a huge part of what retail technology specializes in, that’s just the beginning.  Click here for  Part 2 of our Modern Retailer Technology Guide, where we’ll dive into technology for managing your staff, and your customer relationships, and more.

But the best tech tools for restaurants don’t end there.

There are other technology tools that can make your restaurant even more appealing to customers and easier to run.

Modern restaurants should consider adopting these tools, too.

HR & Scheduling Apps

Scheduling restaurant employees and then managing those schedules has traditionally been one of the more difficult and tedious tasks that restaurant managers have to contend with. Manually making a schedule that takes everyone’s needs and preferences into account and makes sure that the right employees with the right skills are filling out each shift can easily take hours. Plus, schedules can shift and change at a moment’s notice when employees get sick or fail to come in.

Thankfully, HR and scheduling apps designed just for these needs are coming to the rescue.

Features to Look for in HR & Scheduling Software

• Time clock and timesheet management tools – Clocking in, clocking out, and tallying up hours worked should be simple and error-free.
• Staff communication tools – Staffers should be able to check their schedule remotely, request time off, and easily send each other messages about their schedules.
• Task Management – Some scheduling software also has the ability for administrators to assign tasks for each shift and monitor which employees complete them.
• Auto-scheduling – Some tools have an auto-schedule feature that factors in sales forecasts, bookings, expected foot traffic, and of course
• Automatic shift replacements –  These suggest and contact potential replacements for your staffers as soon as they notify managers that they’ll be missing a scheduled shift. Because employees’ skills (and performance) are tracked in the software, it “knows” which employees are appropriate to suggest for scheduling changes. Employees can even swap shifts on their own through the software with no need for management to get involved.
• Payroll software integration – With direct integration with payroll software, it can be easier than ever to get employees’ paychecks based on their hours worked.

Examples of HR & Scheduling Software

• Deputy Software
• Planday
• 7 Shifts
• Zoomshift

Analytics & Dashboards

Separately, cloud-based software programs that manage things like point of sale, inventory, accounting, and scheduling for your restaurant can save many, many hours of work.

But when you start connecting them together with the help of integrations, each of the tools becomes much more powerful.

Leveraging the power of integrations is especially helpful when it comes to data and analytics.

Without programs that share data automatically, there will be a lot of manual importing, exporting, and transferring to spreadsheets in order to get the data you need. And as we know, manual work takes a lot of time and causes expensive mistakes.

Features to Look for in Analytics & Dashboards

When your tools integrate together, they may be able to do the following things.

• Share customer, vendor, and staff data (no more entering new accounts manually in each program or worrying about duplicates or errors)
• Give you a clear idea of how much you’re spending each shift on food and staffing costs (also known as “prime cost”) and identify trends and potential savings opportunities
• Easily calculate your restaurant’s “cost of goods sold” and compare that to revenue, which makes it easy to calculate food cost ratio, beverage cost ratio, and the profitability of each individual menu item
• Show the average revenue per ticket or per table, and see how much individual customers have spent over time
• Show how staffing costs relate to sales (such as how much revenue each employee brings in and how sales trends affect staffing needs)
• Sync transaction data from the POS system to the accounting system in real-time so you can understand how your restaurant is doing financially at any moment

Examples of Analytics & Dashboards

• Most leading restaurant SaaS have built integrations with other major programs. However, there are also apps such as Tenzo, which specialize in connecting with each of your individual software programs (scheduling, point of sale, accounting, etc.) to create beautiful dashboards.

Customer Loyalty Programs

These days, customers want relationships with businesses, and the right kind of software can help develop those relationships.

Loyalty programs connected to your point of sale system can track and analyze customer behavior to understand how long each one has been coming to your restaurant, what they usually like to order, and what times they like to come in.

You can then use this knowledge to create compelling marketing offers and reach customers at the right times.

Features to Look for in Customer Loyalty Programs

• Easy enrollment – The best loyalty programs make it easy for your customers to enroll in the program in multiple ways, such as during checkout or through your website.
• Customer-facing interface – Customers should be able to easily find out how many points they’ve earned and which rewards they can get.
• Smooth POS integration – The most convenient loyalty programs automatically track purchases made across multiple locations and websites.
• Customer segmentation – You should be able to group customers together based on various behaviors and characteristics in order to send them messages and
• A marketing tool – Within your loyalty program, you should be able to create campaigns via SMS and email builder, and even schedule automatic messages for certain benchmarks.
• Customer insights – A good loyalty program will illustrate overall trends within the loyalty program, including spending habits and campaign results, clearly and easily.
• Coupons and special deals – You should be able to create and send special promotions that are limited by the date, type of customer, purchasing behavior, and more.

Examples of Customer Loyalty Programs for Restaurants

• Lightspeed Loyalty
• Loyalzoo
• DataCandy

Gift Cards Programs

Accepting gift cards at your restaurant is a great way to boost cash flow and increase revenue.

Gift cards are a great way to promote your restaurant during the holidays or special events and occasions. Plus, when customers redeem gift cards, you have the chance to upsell them to boost your revenue even further.

Features to Look for in Gift Cards Programs

• POS integration – You’ll want a gift card program that’s directly integrated into your point of sale system so customers can purchase cards from their existing accounts and you can track their purchasing behavior.
• Online or in-store purchase options – Some of your customers will want a traditional plastic card with their purchase, and others will be happy to email or even text the card to their recipient. Your software should support all of those options.
• Balance lookup – Gift card holders should be able to easily check their balance online.
• Ecommerce use – If you sell any food, drink, or branded merchandise online in addition to your restaurant, gift cards should apply to those purchases, too.

Examples of Gift Cards Programs

• Most major restaurant POS programs, including Lightspeed and Toast, come with gift card features baked into the software.

Summary

We’ve discussed many different tools throughout this guide to modern restaurant technology.

Individually, each tool can make running your restaurant much easier.

However, the programs can work together in very different ways. If you use too many programs that weren’t designed to work together, you might end up with redundant features, confusing data and reports, and glitchy integrations.

Choosing the right software tools represents significant time and expense, and you want to make the right selections the right time around.

That’s why many savvy restaurant owners and managers are choosing to partner with restaurant technology specialists to implement their restaurant hardware and software.

At Cloudscape Technologies, our mission is to support local restaurateurs in the Middle East region to find the best tech solutions. We take on the hard work of getting each program up and running for your restaurant, making sure all the programs work together seamlessly, and finally training your staff on how to use the new programs.

With this level of help, restaurant owners can focus on keeping their restaurants running smoothly.

Click here to learn more about our services for restaurant customers.

Not too much has changed at first glance: Customers still walk through your doors looking for a comforting meal or a unique culinary experience.

But on the back end, the infrastructure that makes it possible to run a restaurant has completely changed — and continues to change — thanks to new digital technology tools.

Restaurateurs are using software to help them better serve customers, analyze profitability, and manage their employees. These programs help them plan meals, publish menus, manage inventory, and handle all the financial aspects of restaurant ownership. Restaurant technology aims to make the job of restaurant ownership easier and less risky — and it’s good at what it does.

In fact, so many software programs are now on the market that it can get a little overwhelming to choose the combination of programs that will be the best fit for your restaurant. Software costs can be significant, and making changes once you’ve settled on certain software can be difficult. So, it pays to make the right choice from the outset.

That’s why we wanted to provide restaurant owners with a complete guide that explains exactly which technology restaurateurs need, and how all of those tech components can fit together to build a comprehensive restaurant system.

A Point of Sale System

The first technology tool that you need to choose for your restaurant is the point of sale system.

A POS system, of course, is what you use to check customers out once they’re ready to pay. However, today’s cloud-based systems are much more complex (and useful) than the simple cash registers of the past.

Thanks to cloud technology, POS terminals can sync with each other continuously so users can understand how their restaurant is doing financially in real-time.

POS systems also come with a suite of other features that form the backbone of your restaurant’s technology suite. Your POS system should connect with almost all of your other tech tools to give you the complete insights you need to run your restaurant.

A Few Features to Look For in a POS System

• Table Management – The best POS systems will let users lay out their restaurant floor plan and see, at a glance, which tables at a restaurant are available, which are occupied, and for how long each one has been occupied. It may also integrate with waitlist features that notify customers of their wait time estimation and let them know when their table is ready.
• Customer Management – POS systems allow users to keep track of their customers. In some cases, users can create their own accounts that sync up to marketing features (we’ll detail those later).
• Order Management – Of course, POS systems have to track customer orders and process their payments. Plus, with “tableside ordering” features, servers can put their customers’ meals directly into the POS system as they order their food. Some systems even have self-order menus so that customers can input their own orders via tablet.
• Menu Management – POS systems let restaurateurs build and “publish” menus any way they want, adding photos, price points, and calculating the value of each menu item based on ingredients used (we’ll get more into this when we discuss inventory features).

POS Hardware Needs

It’s worth noting that in addition to the software itself, you’ll need to invest in the hardware that goes with the POS system. Even though today’s cloud-based software doesn’t “live” primarily on the hardware (instead, it’s accessed via the internet from a remote server), you’ll still need the following tools to make sure your system works properly. Specific hardware requirements will vary based on the type of software you choose.

You’ll need:

• Kitchen printers
• Receipt printers
• Cash drawers
• Tablets for tableside ordering, self-ordering, or traditional checkout

POS System Examples

Here are just a few of the top restaurant-focused POS systems on the market.

• Lightspeed
• Touchbistro
• iKentoo
• Toast
• Revel

Kitchen Display System

A kitchen display system is a system your restaurant uses to communicate menu orders from the customers to the kitchen staff.

Kitchen staff used to have to deal with paper tickets that were printed out of the machine or even handwritten. More recently, the KDS of choice has been a mounted digital screen. However, modern kitchen display systems do more than just list the orders.

A Few Features to Look For in a KDS

• Timers – A ticking clock for each order allows your staff to see how long customers have been waiting.
• Color coding – Modern digital tools feature full-color displays, which let your staff see at a glance where each order stands.
• Instant communication – As long as your servers are using tableside ordering technology, the orders will go directly from the table to the kitchen, eliminating the need for servers to physically walk the orders there. This speeds up the order process for everyone and saves time for your servers, who can spend their time serving the rest of your customers more quickly.
• Special notes – Kitchen displays can give special weight to meal notes such as allergy needs or special requests to make sure that they don’t get missed.
• Order routing – Some systems can route orders based on where they need to come from and where they need to go (such as the bar vs. the kitchen, or the patio vs the dining room).

KDS Examples

• Lightspeed KDS
• Announcer online

Customer Facing Display

Depending on the style of your restaurant, you may also want to invest in a customer-facing display. With a CFD, customers can see exactly what they’ve ordered and the total price of their meal as it adds up, including taxes and discounts.

Customers will also come into direct contact with the POS when they check out — or, as we mentioned earlier when they order table site.

In general, you should be able to use any tablet or computer monitor as the CFD as long as the software or app is installed.

A Few Features to Look for In a CFD

• Receipt options – If your Customer Facing Display is on a touchscreen, your customer can also choose to receive their receipt by email.
• Branding options – Because this screen is customer-facing, you want the ability to be able to brand the display any way you want, adding things like background images, logos, and on-brand styles.
• Attaching to customer accounts – Customers may be able to see their account information or their loyalty points (which we’ll explain in more detail later) as they check out, or even be able to create a customer account or opt in to the loyalty program during checkout.

CFD Examples

• Lightspeed Customer Facing Display
• Touchbistro Customer Facing Display
• Revel Customer Facing Display

Inventory Management Systems

You can’t run a successful restaurant without a strong understanding of how much you’re spending on food.

As we explained in our post Bookkeeping 101 for Restaurants, if restaurateurs fail to keep a close eye on the Cost of Goods Sold (CoGS), their profitability can plummet quickly.

Restaurant managers also must keep careful tabs on their inventory so they don’t run out of any critical ingredients.

For these reasons, a good inventory management system is crucial.

A Few Features Typically Included with Inventory Management Systems

• Inventory tracking – Users can track the consumption of individual items, such as bottles of wine.
  Recipes – Users can “create” recipes for each menu item, then track how much of each ingredient is used in each meal.
• Alerts and notifications – Users can set up low stock level alerts within the system to let them know when they need to restock.
• Profitability Analysis – Because administrators also enter the costs for each ingredient, each program can calculate the total costs for each meal, allowing administrators to analyze their profitability.
• Integrations – Although most cloud-based software tools are equipped with the ability to integrate with other programs, it’s particularly important for inventory management software. Specifically, it should integrate with the POS system and the accounting system

Examples

• Market Man
• Kitchen Cut
• Growzer

Accounting

As we mentioned, restaurant owners have to understand their CoGS, but also have a clear grasp on other financial indicators such as prime cost, food cost ratio, revenue per ticket.

Plus, like other small businesses, they need to understand breakeven points and profitability measures.

This requires keeping careful financial records of money as it’s spent and as it’s received.

Thankfully, there are plenty of software programs on the market that automate most of these bookkeeping and accounting feats.

The most important feature to look for in an accounting program for your restaurant is its integration with your point of sale system.

With a solid integration, your POS software can send the transaction data directly to the accounting software. This means you’ll get real-time reports with no need for manual reconciliations or spreadsheets.

Examples of Common Accounting Programs That Integrate With Restaurant POS Systems

• Xero
• Sage
• Quickbooks

Stay Tuned for Part 2

Although financial and transactional management is a huge part of what restaurant technology specializes in, that’s just the beginning. Stay tuned for Part 2 of our Modern Restaurant Technology Guide, where we’ll dive into technology for managing your staff, and your customer relationships, and more.

Compared to traditional systems, web-based programs make customer checkout a pleasant experience. They also make it easy for owners and managers to get data quickly and in real time.

Perhaps most impressively, cloud-based software can link up with other cloud-based systems to create amazing and comprehensive tools for your business.

But with plenty of options on the market, making a final selection can be difficult.

Small business owners who are searching for a new POS system may find themselves wondering about the differences between Vend and Lightspeed, two of the best POS systems available today.

They both have an impressive set of features and are widely used by all kinds of businesses. But which one will be the best for yours? Here’s a little more about how the programs break down:

Industry-Specific Features

We have to start with the most obvious deciding factor: If you’re running a restaurant, Lightspeed is the clear choice. Vend focuses exclusively on retail, but Lightspeed offers solutions for both retailers and restaurateurs.

“Food and drink” businesses such as small grocery stores can still use Vend. But if you have customers dining in and you employ a staff of servers to wait on them, Lightspeed Restaurant is the way to go.

Many features of running a store and a restaurant overlap, such as scheduling staff, keeping inventory stocked, and accepting payment from customers. But others can benefit from industry-specific features. Lightspeed Restaurant has features like table management, tableside ordering, and menu design, for example. (For more on how these restaurant-focused programs work, check out this post: Lightspeed Restaurant Vs. Touchbistro)

However, if you’re a retailer, you still have some research to do.

Built-In Features Vs. Integrations

The biggest difference in these two cloud-based, retail-focused POS programs comes down to how a few major features are structured.

Lightspeed has ecommerce and inventory management features built into its core software, while Vend relies primarily on integrations with other specialized software programs for those functions.

Specifically, Vend has partnered with Shopify for ecommerce. A few other connections with ecommerce providers are in beta, and others are possible with other ecommerce connectors.

Although Vend does have some basic inventory features, it also integrates with Unleashed to provide more comprehensive inventory management. Related: How to Integrate Vend and Unleashed for a Complete Retail Management System

Whether these integrations will be a good fit for your company depends on your business needs.

Specialized software programs can sometimes offer extra features than the more all-inclusive programs.

However, using different programs for your core business operations (POS, ecommerce, accounting, and inventory management) can make running your store a bit more complicated, especially if you’re trying to set up all of the integrations on your own.

Free download: 4 More Specific Feature Differences Between Vend and Lightspeed

Getting the integrations wrong can cause big headaches. Some programs “push” information to the others without “pulling” it back, for instance, so you need to know that in advance. For example, Shopify has to integrate directly with Unleashed, not Vend, if you’re using all three programs.

Plus, syncing may not always happen immediately like it does when features are all built into the same program. There may be a slight delay in data transfer, or a full sync may require closing Vend registers down (such as at the end of the business day).

Finally, sometimes there are slight disconnects in integrated programs. For example, returns and exchanges made in Vend may require a manual stock adjustment in Unleashed. And because cloud-based, software-as-a-service programs are adding new features and improvements all the time, ongoing changes may affect how integrations work together on any given day.

That said, integration options and connections are only improving over time. Vend has made an effort to make sure its customers can get what they need quickly and in a centralized location. And both Vend and Lightspeed offer plenty of additional integration options for things like marketing, support, and employee management.

Pricing and Value

Paying for individual apps to handle POS, accounting, eCommerce, and inventory can add up. However, many smaller retailers may not even need all four pieces of software.

Most do need a POS system and accounting software. However, if you don’t have plans to sell online, you might not need an eCommerce app yet. And if your inventory needs are relatively simple (and don’t require multiple characteristics and bundling, for example), you might not need a dedicated inventory app.

In many cases, Vend can be a great choice for smaller businesses.

It’s generally the more affordable option at $99 for unlimited users and registers. Lightspeed’s most popular retail plan starts at $99 for one register (eCommerce is priced separately starting at $59/month). Vend notes on its site that it doesn’t come with any long-term contracts, while Lightspeed’s pricing appears to be part of an annual plan.

However, price is always relative to the value you get from the product. The right combination of features can save countless hours and lend invaluable insights. You certainly don’t want to make your software choices based on sticker price alone.

You certainly don’t want to make your software choices based on sticker price alone. Instead, look for value.

When you’re calculating the full, cash price of the product, make sure to factor in the cost of support. As of this writing, both programs offer support via phone, email, and chat as part of each plan, but Vend may charge more for premium support. Ask if you’ll be assigned a designated support rep who understands your business’ needs.

Customer-Facing Features

Vend was developed a few years before Lightspeed. One of its main selling points has always been a simple, intuitive, tablet-based checkout process that impresses customers.

Lightspeed has put a lot of work into its customer-facing features, too.

But, perhaps in part because of its simplified inventory features, it may be easier for retailers to search for products and ring up sales in Vend. Your staffers can look up products, add them to the order, and even discount them quickly and within the same screen, which Vend prides itself on.

That said, the easiest way to see the interfaces for yourself is to sign up for a free trial of each program. Do your research ahead of time so you can be prepared to vet all of each program’s features, both on the front and back ends of the programs.

Don’t miss: 4 More Specific Feature Differences Between Vend and Lightspeed

Weighing Your Options

Is your head is still spinning with all of the POS possibilities?

We have some good news: You don’t have to continue to take on this research by yourself. Cloudscape Technologies’ team of digital experts is certified in the best cloud-based software solutions on the market for retailers. We know these programs and integrations in and out.

If you reach out and let us know a little bit more about your needs, we would be happy to take you through your options and find the best combination of software programs for your business.

But we won’t stop there. If you choose to partner with us, we’ll also help you get the programs set up properly, add your staff and train them on how to use them, and continue to support you for the long term.

This is particularly important because although each program you use has its own customer support, having an expert on your team who understands the dynamics between each program and how they work together can be invaluable.

Click here to book your free strategy session with Cloudscape Technologies.

Vend handles all of the point of sale transactions, and Unleashed keeps track of everything when it comes to inventory.

Separately, they can save retailers hour and hours. Together, though, they can make up the backbone of a powerful, integrated system that can handle your entire retail enterprise.

However, because these programs have so many features and integration options, you have to take care to integrate the programs the right way. To make things a little more complicated, most retailers also choose to integrate both programs with accounting software, which can add a layer of complexity to the process.

Here’s what you need to know about integrating Vend and Unleashed with each other and a cloud-based accounting program.

Introducing Vend and Unleashed

First, it’s worth mentioning some of the amazing features that each of these programs has.

Vend can handle it all when it comes to point of sale. A few of its features include:

• Handling all types of transactions and payments, including returns, cash management, store credits, gift cards, split payments and sales and discounts

• Setting employee accounts and permissions levels

• Selling online and through other online channels in addition to in-store

• Tracking and managing customer accounts, including assigning rewards for loyalty

Although Vend offers some inventory tracking and counting features, Unleashed takes inventory management to the next level. Here are some of its main features:

• Product tracking, including variants, images, prices, locations, and suppliers

• Grouping related products together for sale

• Adding new inventory and adjusting stock quickly and easily

• Creating and editing purchase orders

• Tracking assembly components and adjusting inventory accordingly

(For more details on what to look for in an inventory management system, check out our full post comparing Tradegecko and Unleashed for inventory.)

The systems have some overlapping features, as well. Both have the ability to sell products online, for example, although Unleashed focuses on wholesale sales. Both also have the ability for users to track their products with barcodes.

They also both pride themselves on being user-friendly, and have plenty of powerful reporting features that can lend valuable insights into a retailer’s health and operations.

The Perks of the Vend/Unleashed Integration

When Vend and Unleashed are integrated, the two programs can “share” information about customers, products, and transactions.

This means that accounts for customers and entries for products don’t have to be created twice, but more importantly, it means that owners get real-time accuracy and insights into sales and inventory.

Unleashed inventory numbers are adjusted automatically as customers make purchases via Vend, and information from Unleashed about the total landed cost of each product is automatically factored into sales and profitability reports in Vend.

This syncing happens consistently no matter where products are sold (from any physical store, on any online store) or where you keep your inventory (for example, in multiple warehouses).

Integrating a Cloud-Based Accounting System

Although it’s helpful to integrate these two programs on their own, most retailers benefit immensely from integrating their accounting systems, too.

Cloud-based accounting programs like Xero and Quickbooks can integrate with both of these programs, as well as others.

The integrations send financial and transactional data from the POS and inventory system to the accounting program in real-time. This means that important reports like Cost of Goods Sold and Stock on Hand will always be up to date.

Plus, with an integration, supplier accounts and details are automatically synced to your accounting software, too, eliminating the need to enter and update that kind of data in multiple programs.

Deciding Which Integrations You Need

Technically, you have plenty of options for integration combinations. You could use Vend’s inventory features, skip Unleashed altogether, and integrate Vend with Xero (for more on that integration, check out our full post How to Integrate Vend with Xero).

You could also choose to use Unleashed and Xero without Vend, particularly if you’re a wholesaler or B2B business.

There are also other tools and plugins that can be integrated with each of these programs. Shopify, for example, is a dynamic, eCommerce-focused tool that integrates directly with Vend, Unleashed, Xero, and other accounting programs.

So if you’re just getting started, you’ll want to decide exactly which software tools you want to use upfront so you can make the right choices about how to connect the programs to one another. For example, Shopify needs to be integrated with Unleashed, not Vend, for optimal results when they’re all being used together.

In some cases, these integrations can’t be un-integrated once you pull the trigger, so you’ll definitely want to get all of your ducks in a row before you press the “Integrate” button.

You’ll also need to understand a little more about how the programs will work together for the specific day-to-day operations that you rely on.

For example, there are many options in each program’s settings that determine which programs “push” information to the others, and whether they’re supposed to also “pull” that information back. There is often a slight delay with some syncing (such as 15 minutes or so).

Also, making sure that the information in all three systems is up-to-date requires closing your registers in Vend at end of each business day.

You’ll also have to manually adjust stock levels in Unleashed to account for returns and exchanges made in Vend. For more on the integration, you can check out these detailed help documents from Unleashed.

Partnering With Experts

Although each of these software programs (Unleashed, Vend, Xero, Shopify) prides itself on being simple to use and potentially saving your staff hours each day, there’s still a very significant investment of time and energy required to get these integrations set up in the first place.

Technically, you can go into your Unleashed account settings and connect the integration in a matter of minutes. However, it will take much longer to ensure that the integration works properly and can handle day-to-day transactions and reports with no hiccups.

And although each of these software programs has its own support staff, those staffers aren’t always up-to-date on how the programs all work together. Cloud-based, software-as-a-service programs are improved upon constantly. This is actually a huge benefit for small businesses in most cases. However, sometimes these small, ongoing changes can affect how integrations work together.

Due to factors like these, selecting and implementing the right software for your business can be a major distraction. This is especially true at small retailers, where the people in charge of finding software and getting it up and running are also in charge of keeping the business running.

However, choosing software for your retail business doesn’t have to be a huge distraction that interferes with other important work.

You can work with experts like the team at Cloudscape Technologies.

Our staff has years of experience implementing the best cloud-based technologies on the market, including Vend and Unleashed. We can guide you through the selection process and the integration, make sure everything is working, then train new staff on how to use the software as they’re onboarded. In some cases, these experts can even work with you and your staff live and on-site to get these integrations up and running.

If you have questions or are ready to get started, please contact us.