Is Your Enterprise POS Software Able to Scale?

By Kristy Bauer

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Point-of-sale (POS) software is a crucial tool for any business that sells products or services to customers. It enables you to process transactions, manage inventory, track sales, and more. However, not all POS software is created equal. Some POS systems are developed only to support small businesses, while others are developed to scale and support enterprise-level operations. If you’re running a large or growing business, you need POS software that can scale with your needs and handle the complexity and volume of your transactions.

What is Enterprise POS Software?

It can be helpful to imagine Enterprise POS software as a central place where all aspects of a business are managed. An Enterprise POS software platform helps coordinate how multiple locations work together and connect. You can picture a platform as a hub, with spokes connecting all aspects of your business and all location to its center. The hub binds those disparate aspects and locations together and orchestrates them to work in unison.

When you use an Enterprise POS software platform you break down data silos that cost you money and limit your business intelligence because a platform collects, stores, reports, and analyzes all company, store, customer, and channel data in one centralized platform.

What Does It Mean to Scale?

Scaling is the ability of a system to handle an increasing amount of work or demand without compromising performance or quality. For POS software, scaling means being able to support more transactions, more products, more selling channels, more locations, more users, and more integrations without slowing down, crashing, or losing data. A POS system built to scale will also allow you to implement these changes quickly (within days or weeks, not months), enabling you to be agile and change quickly as demand or the market shifts.

Why Is Scaling Important for Enterprise POS Software?

Scaling is important for enterprise POS software because it affects the efficiency, profitability, and customer satisfaction of your business. If your POS software cannot scale, you may encounter the following problems:

Latency Issues: If your POS software cannot handle the volume or complexity of your operations, the speed and performance of the system will suffer. For example, it may take longer to process information and transactions, or cause the system to time out while you’re using it. This results in inefficient workflows and processes that frustrate customers and employees.
Inaccurate or outdated data: If your POS software cannot sync your inventory across multiple locations and selling channels, your data will likely be inaccurate or outdated. This can lead to overselling, underselling inventory, inaccurate reporting and poor customer experience if real-time isn’t available while you’re working with a customer in-store or online to process a transaction.
Limited or incompatible integrations: If your POS software isn’t built to scale, you’ll be limited in how you can integrate with other software or hardware that you use, such as accounting, marketing, e-commerce, or payment processors. This reduces agility, productivity, efficiency and profitability, and creates data silos or errors.
Difficult or costly maintenance: POS software that isn’t built to scale cannot update or upgrade easily, causing difficulty or high costs to maintain it. This can expose your system to security risks, bugs, or obsolescence, and prevent you from accessing new features or improvements.

Key Advantages of Using an Enterprise POS Software Platform

Increased flexibility. You can have different configurations by store, while still giving a holistic, company-wide view into your operation

Faster to scale. Ability to add locations, products, features, security simply and without days of delay
Improved span of control. Robust reporting provides real-time visibility into store, channel, and company performance, as well as employ
Easily access & control data. Flexible architecture gives you the ability to centralize and decentralize access to data by location.
Increased visibility. Full visibility into store, channel, company performance and employee performance & profitability

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Tips to Identify if an Enterprise POS Software is Scalable

PRO TIP: If you're answering "no" to these questions, you're using a limited system and might want to consider switching to a flexible platform.

Can you quickly add a new location without delays of weeks or months?
Can you easily and almost instantly add eBay or other online marketplaces to your company's offerings
Do you have full visibility into your company-wide data?
Do your customers have the same experience across locations?
Can you see all mobile interactions with employees & customers across all locations in one place?
Do you receive automatic updates & enhancements to your system several times a year?
Is your software consistently running at top speed?

Enterprise POS software is a vital tool for any large or growing business that sells products or services to customers. However, not all POS software is scalable, and choosing the wrong one can have negative consequences for your business. To choose a scalable enterprise POS software, you need to consider whether your software allows you to be agile and easily add products, locations, and selling channels. By doing so, you can ensure that your POS software can support your changing business needs and goals, both now and in the future.

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Is your organization ready to make the move to an enterprise POS software platform that will allow you to scale? Schedule a demo to learn more about enterprise management with Bravo!

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Author | Kristy Bauer

As Head of Product Management at Bravo, Kristy is responsible for leading Bravo's development roadmap. Kristy has over 15 years of experience working across all levels of pawn and FFL. Having worked as a pawnbroker and in sales and product development for multiple pawn software companies, including PawnMaster, she's a pro at understanding industry trends and market outlooks, and how that can impact Bravo customers. She is a product expert who knows what matters to pawnbrokers, and is known to go above and beyond to help develop the best solutions for their needs. Kristy holds Masters certificates in Internet Marketing from the University of San Francisco and UX Design from the UX Design Institute in NY.