Every point of sale system demonstrates beautifully. The salesperson has a clean tablet, a good connection and no queue. Your Friday evening has none of those things.
Here is how to rate a point of sale system on the conditions it will actually work in, in a Maldivian shop, cafe or restaurant.
1. What it does when the connection drops
This is the first question and in the islands it is close to the only one. Ask the salesperson to turn off the internet on the demo device and keep taking orders. Then ask what happens when the connection returns.
A system that stops selling without a connection is not a point of sale system, it is a website with a card reader. The behaviour you want is that the till carries on completely normally, stores everything locally, and reconciles quietly when the network comes back without anybody having to do anything.
2. Whether it prints on the hardware you own
Thermal printers, cash drawers and barcode scanners are the least glamorous part of retail software and the most common reason a rollout stalls. Ask specifically about the models you already have. Ask whether the kitchen printer works when the front counter tablet is asleep. Ask what happens to an order if the kitchen printer runs out of paper mid service.
3. How it handles the money side here
Retail in the Maldives has details that generic software often misses:
- Rufiyaa and dollars taken at the same counter, with a rate you control
- GST at the correct rate, on the receipt and in the reports, ready for filing
- Service charge handled properly and reported separately
- Local bank transfer and card payments recorded beside cash
- Split bills, and the half paid in cash and half on a card
Any of these can be added to a system later. All of them are cheaper when they were there from the start.
4. Whether an untrained person can use it
Staff turnover is a fact of the business. Rate the system on how long it takes somebody who has never seen it to put through a table of six with two modifications and a split bill. If the answer needs a training session, the software will cost you a training session every time you hire.
5. What the reporting is really for
Most systems show yesterday's sales. That is the easy report. The useful ones answer the questions you actually have:
- Which items make money rather than which sell most
- What stock is on hand and what is about to run out before a supply boat
- How each shift compares, and where the discounts came from
- What last month looked like against the same month last year
6. Who fixes it, and how fast
A till that is down is not an inconvenience, it is closed doors. Before you buy, find out what happens at eight on a Friday evening. Is there a person, a number, and a realistic response time? Can they see the problem remotely or does somebody have to travel? What is the plan if a device dies during service?
Rate the support before the features. Every point of sale system sells; only some of them get fixed.
7. Whether your data can leave
Ask how you export your products, customers and sales history if you ever move. A system that cannot export is not a system you bought, it is one you rent, and the rent goes up when the alternative is losing five years of history.
Where RekordPOS sits
We built RekordPOS because we kept being asked for a till that survives an island connection. It keeps selling when the network is gone and reconciles when it returns, it prints to ordinary thermal hardware, it handles rufiyaa and dollars with GST and service charge on the receipt, and it is supported from Malé by the people who wrote it.
It will not suit everybody, and we would rather tell you that early than sell you a rollout that stalls. If you are comparing options, tell us what your counter looks like on a busy evening and we will tell you honestly whether ours is the right fit.