A job card software is so simple to acquire these days and it offers support, reports and so much more than you can do manually. Even with a few small transactions a day, it will be good for taxes at the end of the year, organization and a better understanding of business trends, times of transactions etc. ERPNext offers a great way to do that very inexpensively. There are a lot of really inexpensive options that will help you save time so you can grow your business rather than filtering transactions manually.
But if you are having problems or there’s a complaint from one of your customers, now is the time to consider the advice of your friend. For your small business, you can start all things manually and gently until the time comes that your business grows rapidly and you’re having hard times to keep your business on track, the next thing to do is for you to look for an advanced technology that can help you manage your business. And also, there’s nothing wrong if you want to be ahead. If you want to have the system ahead before the problems occur, it is a good preparation for the situations that may come up. Be wise and observe your business first, it can help you in your decisions.
Before suggesting the need for the PoS it is crucial that you understand the necessity of the system. A small business needs a lot of attention and care in order to establish and grow- and unlike being a manager in a well oiled machine – a small business has a 1,000 moving parts and keeping track of all of them is crazy to say the least – thus automating small tasks will help eliminate costly mistakes. ERP Software systems range from a few $100 all the way to the top. You have a lot of SaaS based PoS devices – that allow you to just use your iPad to not only process the sale but also the payment. Pos Systems come with integrated payment gateways or you need a separate payment terminal. IF you are starting up – I would always recommend a PoS for the following reasons:
- Keeping track of sales
- Keeping track of purchases
- Understanding which product sells better (for your product mix)
- Understanding which product is more profitable (for your profit matrix)
- Offering more services – such as returns (if your business allows you to handle it)
- Ensuring your taxes are computed correctly (VAT, service tax, federal, state etc) and finally
- One less thing to worry about
If you are not “that technical” – my recommendation would be to go with a service like ngo accounting software: though the service charge/processing fee is a little on the high side, the ease and comfort of working with a single vendor for PoS, reporting & payment processing is well worth the little extra.
If you plan to grow your business, remember that at some point your ability to track these things by hand starts to fail. If you are growing slow and steady, then the POS conversation doesn’t need to happen at this point. But if you’re growing like a thoroughbred out of the gate, take the advice and at least look into the ERPNext. I’ve always found it more comfortable to be out in front of the technology – rather than behind it.
First question to answer for yourself is, when you do the tracking manually and link a monetary value to the time you spend doing manually the tracking of purchases and stock, would the time you save be worth the cost of a field service management software?
Secondly, can the reporting you want be generated with the manual process, again take time as the main monetary value?
Thirdly, do you believe that you can save more by having a computerized stock system and help in the costing?
The last question is your suppliers” invoices and account, plus if you sell on credit, are you in full control of these accounts.
If you answers are no to more than 50% of the questions, I will suggest you start looking at a POS system that is small but you can build bigger as your business grows.
It’s not worth spending money on until you’ve developed your business enough to have a full list of “wants” from your CRM Software. However, there are some great free tools available! izettle card reader is free (usually) to obtain, and has POS software with the account that is also free, holds plenty of products, creates receipts, manages your inventory and creates reports for you – it even tracks VAT. So I would recommend using this until you grow enough to know what you really need.
While there’s no doubting you can run a small retail business without one, I would 100% be supportive of your friend who has suggested making the move to a manufacturing software.
The time saved and the ability to provide customers multiple payment options combined with no monthly fees and a minimal transactional fee really provide a good argument for using a POS system.
Most notably, if you have an online store and you also sell in a retail space, then it seems to make a lot of sense to start researching a hvac service software that can integrate both. Since you are a small business, Shopify is a reasonable investment where they can integrate data from a “Click & Mortar” model.
Another thing to consider is that ehs software can provide and segment sales data in which you can better analyse your customer’s trend and forecast your revenue and purchases. Excel could achieve similar results. However, one must consider at the current juncture of your business, is the savings in $ ending up costing you in time and effort?
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