It’s important small businesses choose the right point of sale (POS) system, which streamline the sales process, ensuring payments are made quickly and securely. A POS system can also make a small business appear more professional and legitimate, which is particularly important for business’s just starting out.

With a myriad of point of sale systems and software available, how do small businesses choose the right one their own specific needs? Small Business Trends has identified 25 point of sale systems small businesses could benefit from. Point of Sale Systems for Small Business Brilliant POS enables business to replace standard cash registers with a stand-alone terminal, a receipt/label printer and a barcode scanner, for a starting price of $399.

With the Brilliant POS system retailers can make payments, manage time sheets, track inventory, run reports, and more. With cloud backup and offsite access, Brilliant POS removes the worry of losing data if a device is lost or stolen, as all the data is stored securely on the Brilliant POS servers. Vend Vend is the United States’ leading retail POS software, dedicated to making it easy for retailers to sell to their customers. Working with leading merchant providers from around the world, Vend allows businesses to choose the best way to accept payments, including debit, credit and gift cards. Enables ease of sale, regardless of whether retailers use Vend’s responsive web-based POS on PC, Mac or the Vend Register iPad app. Vend offers a range of pricing structures. A Starter package costs $69 per month and is designed for a single outlet with three users.

The Advanced payment costs $79 a month and is for a single outlet with unlimited users. The Multi-Outlet structure costs $199 a month and can be used by multiple users. Banq Banq proudly asserts it can streamline the check-out process and deliver improved customer experiences, by providing modern businesses with a cash register with innovative features.

Some of these innovative features include a built-in CRM, the ability to create purchase orders, multi-language options, purchase ordering and stock transfers, and being able to track gift card balances. Offers POS solutions for retail, salon and spa, quick serve restaurant and the mail cart and kiosk industries. Banq offers four different packages of various pricing models, ranging from Basic, Small, Medium and Large.

As well as POS capabilities, comes with a host of other features to help simplify business processes, including QuickBooks integration, analytics, payroll management and appointment scheduling. A standard Revel POS terminal includes an iPad, payment device, POS stand, router, Wi-Fi access point, POS printer and a secure cash drawer. Revel offer POS solutions for diverse businesses, including retailers, restaurants, sports stadiums, self-service kiosks and convenience stores. Interested businesses can get a quote from the Revel sales team for a customized POS solution. Unlike other POS vendors, which offer tiered payment structures, ShopKeep, enabling businesses to benefit from its complete point of sale system from a low as $2.50 a day.

Acme Acme Point of Sale is built specifically for retail. Fighting credit card fraud at the point of sale is a for all retailers. Acme offers secure payment solutions with any device. The includes point of sale software, a 7000 Series Touch Screen Windows 10 computer with Intel Inside, a choice of Aggressive Built-in or external bar code scanners and a high speed/ hop swappable receipt printer. The Wonder Bundle costs $1,495 then $19 a month. Cashier Live offers smart online POS software solutions for retailers.

Businesses can access the software via the internet, or though iPad or iPhone apps. Cashier Live’s software help businesses ring up sales with ease, as well as tracking inventory, managing staff, accessing data and generating reports. This POS system boasts special features for retailers operating hardware stores, pharmacies and boutiques. Costs about $75 a month, to which users receive unlimited registers, unlimited inventory and unlimited support.

TouchBistro Restaurateurs might be interested in, an easy-to-use and affordable POS system designed specifically for the needs of the restaurant industry. Mobile payments are becoming a in modern payment systems, and TouchBistro is compatible with the iPad, giving restauranteurs additional flexibility. The POS system provides 24/07 support and a number of pricing structures, ranging from the Solo plan at $69 a month, to the Unlimited plan at $399 a month.

Bindo Bindo is a POS system for the iPad which helps retailers and restaurateurs manage their business easier with a cloud-based POS. From invoicing to time clocking, Bindo has more than 300 features designed to streamline business operations. The system provides actionable analytics, detailed metrics which are neatly presented to provide businesses with an understanding of how improvements can be made. Bindo’s hardware includes everything from barcode scanners to scales, which are supported by the Bindo’s comprehensive point of sale system.

Bindo offers a flexible pricing system, which can be custom-built depending on a business’s specific needs. This tiered pricing model starts at $79 per month. IConnect iConnect provides advanced POS solutions for the retail, salon, restaurant, petroleum and micro market sectors.

Through quantifiable IT and operational savings, multi-unit management and reporting, on demand access to reporting and cloud connectivity, POS provides companies with better employee and customer services. This corporate POS is helping thousands of small businesses on main street America increase sales with loyalty and marketing automation.

IConnect offers a variety of competitively-priced POS hardware and a seven day free trial. Springboard Springboard is a powerful, cloud-based POS software and management system for retailers. The platform is designed to help retailers sell more and sell smarter.

The intuitive and easy to use point of sale system works on mobile and desktop devices and being cloud-based, allows businesses to access key data whilst on the go. Offers a flexible and scalable, three-tiered payment structure, starting from $79 a month. Gotmerchant offers a fully loaded Harbortouch POS system for restaurant and retail businesses. This fully-inclusive POS system includes all the basic hardware and software required for an effective point of sale system, unlimited training, professional on-site installation, lifetime 24/7 technical support and other features designed to help small businesses revolutionize business processes with no start-up cost. Lavu Lavu is a POS system for the iPad for coffee shops, food trucks, restaurants, pizzerias, bars and other types of catering establishments. States it offers premier point of sale technology, which is designed exclusively for restaurants and bars.

Some of the key benefits of using the Lavu system, include industry-leading payment processing rates, 24/7 US-based customer care, menu and restaurant layout customization and shift scheduling for easy clocking in and out. Lavu offers flexible payment plans, starting from $59 a month for a single Lavu terminal. Lightspeed is a point of sale and ecommerce provider based in Montreal, Canada, providing small and medium-sized businesses in the retail and restaurant sectors point of sale solutions. Lightspeed’s founder Dax Dasilva how the company is the “most powerful cloud based commerce solution for independent businesses for both in store and online applications.” Lightspeed is dedicated to helping local businesses succeed through a reliable and intuitive POS software and a store management system. Retailers and restaurants can benefit from comprehensive data analytics and sales processing. Lightspeed offers three pricing options, starting from $99 a month.

Bluestore Live Bluestore Live offers retailers are flexible point of sale system that can run on different hardware. At the heart of is an admin console, in which a business’s data is securely stored on BlueStore’s servers living in the cloud or the company’s own private URL. From the console, retailers can create products, check stock, change prices, run sales reports, and more.

Bluestore Live as a simple pricing system, starting from around $25 per month for each store with one terminal. Tiger POS is a point of sale platform that has been built for store owners by store owners, specifically for liquor store owners. This affordable POS system has an age verification feature, as well as shelf labeling, reporting, security camera integration and purchasing and receiving capabilities. EPOS ePOS is a comprehensive point of sale system for the hospitality and retail industries The POS is available on mobile iOS and Android devices, as well as PCs and Macs. System is easy to use and staff can be trained on it in 15 minutes. Real time reports can be generated and monitored from anywhere. The POS includes a payment system, online ordering platforms, accounting systems an CRM.

Businesses can buy the complete system for $1799 or pay just $15 a week. PayPal Here is a credit card reader and mobile app that can be downloaded onto an iPad, Android or Windows device, providing a solid POS system for businesses that enables credit card processing. The system features automatic invoicing, barcode scanning, debit card PIN processing and digital receipts. Users pay once for the card reader and then from 2.75 percent to as low as 1.5 percent per transaction. Quickbooks ’ point of sale is EVA-ready and is designed to support the most updated payment technology. Small businesses can take advantage of simple credit card processing which is integrated with Quickbooks and encrypted for the protection of the business and its customers’ data. Interested businesses can give Quickbooks’ POS a free trial and pricing is dependent on the hardware and software bundle a business opts for.

SWIM offers a POS system for businesses operating within the jewellery sector. Designed for an iPAD, this POS assists jewellers with sales processing and the management of their business. Features are specific to the jewellery business and include stock counting, instant quotes and custom orders, as well as various marketing tools. SWIM offers four different pricing structures, starting at $0 a month, for trialling the software to $269 a month for unlimited sales and inventory items. Toast is an all-in-one management solution for restauranteurs. The system provides delivery tracking, real-time reporting, online ordering, and more.

The Android POS system is fully customizable and is available to eateries of all sizes. This POS software, designed to increase the profitability of restaurants, provides 24/7 support from a U.S-based support team.

MyCheck In 2014 full integration into POSitouch Point of Sale software. This payment technology platform enables brands to increase engagement with customers and customize their digital experience. POS integration requires no special hardware and provides unique reporting tools. MyCheck provides a pay-as-you-go pricing model in which businesses can choose the specific capabilities they require from the system. Are you a small business which relies on a POS system to streamline payments and other management operations? We’d love to hear your experiences of POS systems for small businesses. Photo via Shutterstock 2017-04-25 Editor's Picks.

Canadian Retail Solutions Now Offering Xsilva's Lightspeed Position

After being a customer of lavu for almost 3 years, we have had enough. We are a small business selling less that 20 items & no more than 5 employees. Lavu pos had problems from day one that caused hours of time on the phone with lavu trying to fix issues to make it run smoothly. We never got to a point where our issues were resolved.

One correction would cause another problem. First, we believed them when they stated that their pos would be great for our shop. Slowly we saw that system was not set to be able to accommodate our needs. Each issue would wind up taking weeks, months, or never being corrected. For the first two years we put up with the multiple hour long phone calls, emails, & facetime to walk them through each issue/ resolve. It just became too much of our time taken away from the business. BE AWARE OF THERE CUSTOMER SERVICE.

They will make appointments to call and help you. Then, never call. You have to call them! Each time you call customer service you have to wait 20 minutes to speak to someone and then explain what the problem is.

Even if you already called about it, you are now speaking with a different customer service person & you have to fill them in on what is going on, who you spoke with. So on and so forth.

So, even checking on a status of a problem would be at least a 45 minute call. Example- One problem NEVER corrected in the 3 years of being a customer, 50% discount button. Seems simple. But, every time we would have to hand enter it. It never worked.

Another is they had no resolve for satisfying local laws about what needs to be printed on a receipt. They would reconfigure some thing that would cause another problem. Example- They modified our happy hour so correct pricing would show on the receipt. Then in us using it, the pos was taking a discount off the discount.

Another example they had problems syncing the merchant cc company with their app. Customers were not getting charged or would get a double charge. Causing us to have to take a loss in sales. Lavu refused to pay the difference.

Canadian Retail Solutions Now Offering Xsilva's Lightspeed Poster

Saying it was our fault. Over the last few months they have shifted their company from a small business to a corporation that does not care about their individual customers.

They changed the structure of their billing. Taking away service and features. But, raised our rates. Lavu changed their policy of helping a customer to blaming the customer. Saying there was nothing they could do. BEAWARE- lavu has an extreme record of lying and blaming the customer.

Nothing is ever their error. Also, your time is of no concern to them. They have no problem telling you to go somewhere else. We finally did and are glad to not have this stress of a failing pos system with awful customer service. If you are looking for a new pos, continue your search beyond lavu.

We had Square and I will NEVER deal with them or one of their sub companies ever again. Everything is great with software but when you need service you are screwed.

We literally had our card processing account permanently deactivated without a even a heads up right before business rush hour. They simply sent an email saying we were “high risk” (we sell vitamins/supplements) and that was the end of it. No explanation or anything. We tried calling a support line which could only be done with a custom code linking our account and just got an automated response saying to reference the email sent and sent you to the main menu.

Don’t ever deal with Square as this may happen to you the same way it happen to countless other accounts like myself. Stick with a brand that provides a HUMAN rather than a robot.

Xsilva Systems rings up the sale with OpenBase SQL Dax Dasilva, founder and CEO of Xsilva Systems, Inc., identifies with the aspirations of the retailers who buy his company'€™s point-of-sale (POS) software-a ground-breaking suite of front-counter, back-office and e-commerce retail tools that run on the Apple Macintosh platform. 'Many of our customers are opening their first store,' he says.

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'They'€™re enthusiastic about the merchandise they'€™re going to sell, but they also really want the independence that comes from owning your own business. In a way, we'€™re helping them fulfill their dream.' It'€™s a dream Dasilva knows well. He worked for years as a consultant and developer before being able to start his own company in 2005. Now when Dasilva goes to work, it'€™s in the fast-growing company'€™s sleek, new headquarters-a three-story building in downtown Montreal with 'Xsilva' spelled out in large, gleaming silver letters. Building on an OpenBase SQL foundation From the beginning, the company'€™s LightSpeed POS has been built on the OpenBase SQL database, says Dasilva. 'In fact one of the very first retail systems I worked on while at another company was based on OpenBase.'

When that company went under, Dasilva decided to strike out on his own. 'I had a good understanding of what retailers needed and I could see how to architect it better,' he says. One of the things he didn'€™t change, however, was the database. Dasilva was already thinking big and he understood the critical role the database would play in the POS he envisioned. 'I chose OpenBase because it was an industrial-strength, high-performance database on the Mac platform that could handle many, many simultaneous users-and because OpenBase had many built-in features to keep the customer'€™s critical financial and transaction data absolutely protected and secure.' Apple connections Dasilva developed his first POS, a quoting and invoicing system for a small, independent Apple dealership, in 2002. Over time, he added more functionality-such as purchasing, service and repair, and a seamless connection to Apple'€™s warranty servers-to meet the dealer'€™s needs.

As word spread, he gained additional Apple dealer customers. In July 2005, Dasilva took his product to Macworld Boston, where he met with the Apple Specialist Marketing Co-op (ASMC), a group of independent retailers across North America. Soon he was taking orders from Apple dealerships across the U.S. 'LightSpeed became the standard for Apple resellers.

What'€™s nice is that these resellers also became our dealer channel. And because they used LightSpeed to run their own business, they really understood the product,' says Dasilva. Today, there are more than 270 Authorized LightSpeed Resellers in 20 countries, in addition to the company'€™s own direct sales team. Next-generation retail Dasilva'€™s vision, however, was to build a next-generation POS for all kinds of retailers. In October 2005, with the POS successfully running in a furniture store in Montreal and a spa in Vancouver, as well as in Apple dealerships, the Xsilva Systems company officially launched LightSpeed 1.0. Today, retail stores account for about 80% of Xsilva Systems business. Clothing and apparel retailers comprise the majority of customers, while lifestyle retailers, selling everything from sporting goods to wine, make up the company'€s second major segment.

Electronics retailers, including Apple dealerships, make up the third. 'LightSpeed covers all aspects of retail,' says Dasilva. 'It handles everything that the back office has to do-such as maintain inventory, process orders, and export to accounting-and everything the front counter has to do, to ring through sales as fast as possible.' A big part of LightSpeed'€™s appeal is the way it leverages Mac technologies to provide a visual elegance that fits perfectly into stylish new retail establishments. Its Cover Flow Interface GUI, for example, makes working with LightSpeed as fun and easy as using an iPhone.

What'€™s under the hood is just as important, says Dasilva, including the way OpenBase SQL reliability and performance enables retailers to track and manage all aspects of their business. 'Everything about the person'€™s business is in this software,' says Dasilva. 'OpenBase takes all sorts of precautions to make sure that data is protected and bad data is never written to the database. We have thousands of stores running on LightSpeed, and outside of hardware failure, we'€™ve never had any problem with the database, or any corrupted data in three years.' A database to grow on The LightSpeed POS has been surpassing the adoption rates of competing retail systems for a while now-and in the past 18 months, Xsilva Systems monthly revenue run rate has almost doubled. The company will continue to extend the capabilities of the LightSpeed POS in many ways, says Dasilva. Recently, for example, the company introduced a LightSpeed Web Store module with that make it easy for retailers to take their store product catalog online and enter the world of e-commerce.

Canadian Retail Solutions Now Offering Xsilva's Lightspeed Post

'Another big direction for us is multi-store, making it easier for people to manage multiple stores,' says Dasilva. 'It'€s the goal of most of our customers to own at least a few stores, to be able to buy in greater volume and have greater economies-of-scale on their side.

We currently have many chains up and running on LightSpeed and multi-store features and implementations will be a big focus for Xsilva in the coming years. 'OpenBase and the technologies that come with OpenBase have enabled us to easily scale our single database solution across multiple databases and across multiple stores,' says Dasilva. 'That'€™s something we wouldn'€™t have been able to do with other databases, or not as easily.

' Developer-oriented 'We'€™re very satisfied with OpenBase SQL,' says Dasilva. 'Our developer kit for certified LightSpeed consultants is based around a lot of OpenBase technologies. And since we run our own business on LightSpeed, we'€™re relying on OpenBase SQL, too.' 'The support we'€™ve received from OpenBase over the years has been very responsive. I can'€™t think of a developer-oriented software company that'€™s as responsive,' he says, adding that OpenBase has an active developer community that is also very valuable. 'Attending an OpenBase Developers'€™ Conference years ago actually helped me start my own business and the LightSpeed project. I learned things and made contacts there that were really critical to the early success of the company.'