If you own a small to medium-sized business, chances are you're already familiar with Point of Sale (POS) systems. POS systems are hardware and software systems that small to medium-sized businesses use to take payments from customers. A customer can use their credit card, tap card, debit card, loyalty points, gift card to make the payment go through. Depending on the type of payment a customer chooses, their bank has to authorize the transaction.

POS systems are extremely handy if you have a small business because they eliminate the need to handle cash or check payments or having multiple accounting software for multiple process across the business. Instead, card payments can be processed through a system using point of sale. POS system also allows a business owner to track their sales statistics.

Many varieties of POS systems are now available in the market. Most of these can be integrated with different systems that make operating a business easier. Sometimes businesses also choose to outsource their point of sale needs to a third party to manage the retail POS, billing, etc.

Inventory is the goods or products a business intends to sell. Inventory management, a crucial part of the supply chain, is the tracking of inventory from manufacturers to warehouses and then to a point of sale (a retail store, etc). The goal of inventory management is primarily inventory control. It helps businesses keep track of what products they have, where the product is stored, what it costs, and when particular products expire, so that they can make informed decisions about restocking.

In short, inventory management is the process of monitoring, tracking, and maintaining a company's supply chain for it to function efficiently and effectively. In today's cut-throat world where the competition is only rising, inventory management helps in organizing businesses with a systematic approach. The basic steps of inventory management include-

1. Purchasing inventory
   
2. Storing inventory
   
3. Profiting from inventory

Some of the Best Inventory Management software helps a business gauge its inventory levels across multiple stores, manage purchase orders, and take timely account of stock levels, irrespective of the business types.

It can be said without an iota of doubt that managing inventory and accounting for each and every sale your business makes isn't an easy task. A lot of processes are involved keeping tabs on your stock, managing returns, and understanding a business's sales potential. To keep pace with your rivals in today's competitive retail market, it's important to have one of the best POS systems integrated with an advanced inventory management system to run a business smoothly. It improves efficiency, helps in gaining visibility into your stock, and automates some of the most difficult tasks.

If you are running a small business, it is important to understand that the point of sale system you have implemented includes business management features, including inventory management. Whether you're in the retail or the restaurant industry, an inefficient point of sale system with inventory management can waste time and lower your profits. With a plethora of affordable and advanced POS inventory software systems, it would be imprudent to not have a software that simplifies and automates important inventory tasks like inventory counts, transfers, and reordering.

For instance, the point of sale-Inventory software Lightspeed Retail combines inventory and transfers it. Once integrated in your system, you can sell gift cards, organize shipments and build a professional online store. It has other other capabilities like setting up an e-commerce platform as well as an in-store POS solution that is really helpful for small-businesses. While Square, which offers a few free inventory management features with its multiple product portfolio Square POS, Square for Restaurants Free (a restaurant pos software), and Square for Retail Free, has some of the most advanced inventory features. As an example, Square for Retail manages bulk inventory, shares daily stock alert emails, creates new items by scanning barcode labels, lets you view inventory based on category, among a host of other things. All of these organizations offer reliable Customer Service that helps a business operate without any hiccups.


In the next few points, we will discuss the advantage of having an integrated Point of Sale-Inventory system and how it helps in running a business efficiently.

POS Inventory software lets a customer have faster checkout processing. An efficient POS Inventory system eliminates long-duration of queuing up at the payment counter and processes a quick and accurate checkout. Items with barcodes can be easily scanned and tagged, sometimes even with an iPad or iPhone that has a credit or debit card reader enabled.

An efficient and effective POS Inventory Software tracks inventory with high accuracy, thus speeding up the inventory management process and ruling out unnecessary delays in inventory transfers. It is one of the best systems to implement to reduce costs and save time.

POS Inventory management system allows business owners to have multiple stores and reliably track inventory at each location without being physically present. With an efficient POS Inventory software, data can be found without receipts, transactions can be located in search engines, and bills can be automatically calculated. It reduces the risk of human error in billing as well as return.

Some of these software have a prompt payroll processing integrated in them.

A lot of times, small businesses fail because they are not able to catch up with the trend in time. With POS Inventory software, a business can get timely and updated sales reports at a regular interval. That takes the guesswork out and enables a business with a data-driven sales report for the day, week, month, or year. A point of sale inventory software gives a peek into the market trend, making it easier to keep up with it.

The POS Inventory software also helps in real-time inventory tracking, making inventory management easier, hassle-free and time-bound.

With an effective and reliable point of sale-inventory management system, a business doesn't need to manually write orders and count inventory anymore. POS Inventory software is an intuitive system that creates a swift billing process as it also predicts inventory requirements and makes purchasing decisions based on them. With point of sale/POS inventory software implemented in your business, inflow inventory and outflow inventory can be easily tracked on multiple devices, across multiple locations. POS Inventory management systems come with multiple benefits that can help small businesses grow quickly.