How POS Software can help you manage your business finances
How POS Software can help you manage your business finances.
There are many challenges every business person face, whether they are large or small. One of them is having enough time to take care of all their business tasks.
Many business owners get stuck working many hours a day, sometimes even on the weekends, to be able to take care of everything that must be done in the company.
We all need time away from work to recharge So, how do you create a rhythm that keep the business ticking over without compromising your quality of life?
Process automation is a good option if you’re looking to increase productivity and efficiency.
It can also free up some of your precious time, all while reducing costs.
Here is how a POS system can help you build an automated business, to help you manage your finances and other time consuming tasks.
Point of sale software – an essential tool for retail businesses.
EPOS is a complete retail management system that facilitates the smooth running of a retail business, taking care of everything from day-to-day transactions, to stock management, to customer relationship management.
POS software can manage much of your daily workload by automating your tasks and organising business data into useful and reliable reports.
When it comes to managing your business finances, POS software can be your best friend.
The more sophisticated systems will incorporate in-depth back office capabilities. This provides essential tools and features to monitor and manage your retail business.
There are lots of ways that POS software can help you manage your business finances.
Take the time to become fully familiar with the functions of your system, so you can take advantage of all the built-in features that best suits your business needs.
How POS software can help
Bookkeeping
Regular bookkeeping is vital to stay on top of any business’s finances. Set aside a time slot each week to carry out your financial housekeeping tasks, and use your EPOS software to help you.
Essentially, bookkeeping is the organisation of your financial data – the incoming and outgoing transactions of your business.
Bookkeeping can be a tedious task. One of the major benefits of a POS system is its accounting capabilities. Every transaction and data entry is recorded and organised by the system.
For example, Retail Solutions POS software comes with a full accounts management suite and reporting package.
This can generate your all your daybooks and end of day reports for transaction checking, as well as profit and loss reports and balancing sheets.
EPOS can also help you to manage your debtors and creditors. Use the reports to ensure your suppliers are paid on time, and that your credit account customers are paying you. Then cross reference transactions and reconcile your bank account, so you can be sure that everything is accurate.
All that is left to do is make regular checks to ensure that any manual data has been input correctly, and that outstanding tasks (such as due payment collections) are followed up.
POS software is also capable of integrating with other leading software suppliers, such as payroll packages. So, if you already have a system in place, they can work together for seamless functionality.
Managing inventory
Inventory management can have a huge impact on your business finances. By tracking and monitoring your inventory with your POS software, you can make sure you are always carrying just the right amount of stock. POS can alert you when stock is running low, so you can reorder when necessary and reduce wasteful excess stock.
Input details of deliveries, get a stock valuation, monitor stock movement, and view departments & summaries. Don’t forget to make adjustments for waste, breakage etc., the system can record these too so you can analyse losses.
You can also manage cost and sale pricing, and even set minimum sale pricing to prevent errors at the counter.
POS manages your stock control for you, so you can better utilise your time on other tasks, such as inventory analysis for improved margin.
Planning and Forecasting
POS systems provide insights and help with the analysis your business’s performance. There are multiple built-in functions that will help you with this, so choose the ones that work best for you and revisit them often.
View your sales data to find trends, and track inventory and pricing to make better purchasing decisions.
Use POS reporting to plan targeted campaigns and promotions, then monitor your successes and failures for future adjustment and improved strategy.
Use your historic data to create a budgeting plan, and be sure to stick to it. This will help you to manage your business finances better, and even discover your growth potential.
Discover your fastest moving and highest margin items, to make the most of them. Monitor and analyse all your resources, such as utilisation of staff during busy periods.
Base your decisions on facts and data, rather than instinct and guesswork.
Forecasting and analysis means you make better financial decisions both now and in the future.
Useful tips & tools
Be revenue ready
POS software can handle the data required for your annual revenue commitments.
Manage VAT rates, set financial periods, and generate transaction and profit reports.
Don’t get caught by surprise with a big tax bill either. Use your built in year-on-year financial reporting tools to forecast your tax liabilities and set aside regular deposits for this. Smaller, regular payments will be easier for your business to manage than one lump sum. By the time you receive your bill, you’ll be more or less covered for your liability without blowing your budget for the month.
Have a contingency fund
As a business owner, you should always have a plan for a rainy day. We recommend building a contingency fund, and trying to keep a minimum of 2-3 months expenses in case of unexpected emergencies or loss of business income.
Use your back office reporting suite to calculate your average monthly income and expenditure. You can then set up a regular, manageable payment from your business bank account to your rainy day fund.
Clear your debts
Prioritising the reduction of your business debts is beneficial for 2 main reasons. Firstly, it reduces the interest you pay on outstanding sums, and secondly, regular or early payment of outstanding balances is good for your credit rating.
Use your reporting suite to help forecast your income and expenditure, and calculate when you can comfortably manage to make some overpayments.
In conclusion
Make you’re you are making full use of your POS software features to manage your finances.
Familiarise yourself with all of the available functions, try everything out and get training if necessary.
When used to its full potential, your POS system offers all kinds of tricks and tools that will help you to better manage your business finances, so be sure to make the most of them.
Want to know more? Contact one of our experts to find out more about improving your retail business with EPOS integration partnerships!
Contact us!
Who are we?
Retail Solutions is a market-leading EPOS provider with over 25 years of business experience. Our leading sectors are convenience stores, supermarkets, forecourts, pharmacies and coffee shops.
We are dedicated to providing your store with the most up to date and reliable point of sale hardware, along with software management tools to help you manage your business effectively.
Our self-checkout partners are NCR, who are global leaders in self-checkout technology.
About the author:
Susan McGuire is originally from London, United Kingdom, and has now lived in Galway, Ireland, for 15 years. She has been with Retail Solutions for almost 7 of those, and during that time has enjoyed various roles within the areas of Maintenance, Finance, & Marketing. You can follow her on LinkedIn!
