How a smart point of sale terminal can turn up your cash flow.

Cash is the oxygenated blood that circulates through your business, making it possible for you to purchase inventory, pay ongoing costs, and plan for future expansion. No doubt, you spend a great deal of your time and energy as a business owner in search of ways to maximize profits that will keep your operations humming. Even so, it may never have occurred to you that a smart point of sale terminal could be a vital assistant in managing your cash flow and generating profits.

What is a smart terminal?

As you may already know, you cannot accept credit cards without a combination of hardware and software that is capable of reading your customers’ cards and securely transmitting the data to the processing company and other players in the financial universe for authentication. This task has long been accomplished by standard credit card terminals. However, the smart point of sale terminal of today goes above and beyond this important job. Indeed, they are called “smart terminals” because they are packed with features that can make managing your cash flow and accentuating your profits into an art form.

How do smart terminals work?

Checkouts are quick and easy with smart terminals, which provide the standard options to dip, swipe, or manually enter credit card data. In addition, today’s smart terminals have built-in near-field communication (NFC) capabilities that allow for tap-and-go or contactless payments. Customers whose credit cards or devices are similarly equipped with NFC technology need simply to place them near a merchant’s reader for the transaction dialogue to begin. Within a matter of seconds, all information and responses are relayed securely, making for a safe and seamless purchase.

Many smart terminals are also wireless, operating via a tablet or smartphone that runs a payment processing application. This gives you the ability to accept a payment at any time and from anywhere, including curbside, at a customer’s home, or during a trade show across the country. In the end, your reach and ability to compete are elevated exponentially.

The benefits of smart terminals for your business.

Incorporating a smart terminal into your retail operation will jump-start your business in several significant ways. 

• Inventory management. As you already know, a good portion of your financial assets goes toward stock. While the importance of having what your customers want on hand when they request it cannot be overstated, you also need to be careful not to order more than you need or to stock up on things that are not moving off your shelves. Your smart terminal’s software can integrate with your barcode scanner to record and track each piece of inventory from the time it arrives at your facility until it is sold. With just a few clicks, you can produce documents highlighting what is selling and what is not so that re-ordering is efficient and cost-effective. You can even set the system to remind you when to rebuild your supply.
• Leverage customer relationship management tools to raise profits. Everyone likes to be rewarded, and there are few among us who turn down free merchandise. With the help of your smart terminal, you can launch and maintain a loyalty rewards program that incentivizes your best customers to come back again and again, perhaps even bringing friends and family with them. With this approach in place, everyone benefits. Today’s savvy customers receive the individualized attention and extras that they have come to expect. At the same time, you gain a way to build a loyal base of satisfied buyers who will act as brand ambassadors to carry your business forward.
• Reporting and analytics. Your cloud-based smart terminal is poised to tap into the many features that are freely available on the internet. For instance, if you run an ecommerce business you can harness your smart POS system to run data analytics tools. These tools will give you an accurate sense of who your customers are, what is drawing them to your site, what they are buying, and even who is clicking away and why. Armed with this data, you can then make intelligent decisions about the direction your business will go, with the potential of raising your profits at the same time. In just a few minutes, you can use your smart POS solution to create sales and productivity reports that would have required hours of your time in the past. Employee performance, profits and losses, and sales data for specific staff members or time periods are just some of the parameters that you can set. Accessing this data in a clear format that you and your staff and investors can understand will help you to run your business more efficiently and cost-effectively than ever before. 
• Communication with a virtual terminal. A smart terminal captures and stores information from all transactions, including customer details. Once you have a way to securely hold onto this information, you can actively work to create the curated, customized shopping experience that today’s buyers are increasingly demanding. For instance, you can use the email addresses that buyers opt to provide to not only send receipts electronically, but also as a means of contact should you decide to start a blog or company newsletter.
• Acceptance of multiple payment types. Whereas legacy terminals only worked with standard credit cards, today’s smart systems are equipped to provide numerous choices. These include old-school magstripe cards, EMV cards, NFC contactless payments, recurring/subscription payments and, depending on your customer base and business, even cryptocurrency.

Cash flows into your business through various channels. Of course, you get some of it in the form of profits when customers purchase your products and services. However, your smart terminal can expand your cash flow in other ways that supplement the income from your sales.

Financial rewards also abound when you boost your internal efficiency and enhance the external shopping experience for your customers. Updating your point of sale terminal is perhaps the single most effective way to enhance your financial fortunes while simultaneously boosting your brand!