Till system for small grocery/bakery shop

[SpencerJ]

Hi,
I opened a small shop about a year ago and I've just been using a cheap cash register. I'm getting to the point where I'll need a better system so I can account for VAT but I have no idea where to start. I've tried looking around but there's so much out there that I'm lost.

I was hoping someone could give me advice on what sort of system I should be looking for and/or any recommendations. I sell products that I buy in and also make fresh food to sell. I currently use PayPal Here to take card payments through a tablet so something that incorporates this would be ideal.

Any help (or advice on where I could go for advice) would be much appreciated!

 

[Chris Ashdown]

What you are looking for is a called POINT OF SALE software or system which is a computer controlled system that inputs sales through a display along with a weighing table and printer etc just like the supermarkets

Like this sample
https://www.vendhq.com/examples/foo...900000001kxD&gclid=CJCZ5NzSk8wCFdMV0wodMLgB_A

 

[myfairworld]

No expertise but just a mild comment in passing. All (?) cash registers including very cheap ones can be programmed to apply VAT to the appropriate items. I've been VAT registered since I went into business 21 years ago and sell a mix of products some of which carry VAT at 20%, some at 5% and some at 0% but I've never owned a cash register which cost more than around the £100 mark.

I can see all the attractions of more 'do-it-all' systems but I'd say to anyone with a small shop be careful as costs for more complex systems can add up so quickly.

 

[swankypants69]

I run a simple till using three different category buttons for the three different VAT rates

Simple as that

Where are you based spencerJ?

 

[SpencerJ]

Thanks for the advice @myfairworld and @swankypants69 . An accountant recommended I get a fancy till, but it looks like my basic casio cash register will do the job. I just suppose there is a higher chance of human error, as everyone will have to know which vat catagory every product falls under, rather than a till that knows automatically when you scan a bar code, but it beats spending hundreds of pounds on a till system.
@swankypants69 I'm based in Cardiff.

 

[swankypants69]

Two different colour price tickets, two different colour departments on your till

Or 3 if you also stock 5% rated goods

 

[myfairworld]

We use four departments to cover 0%, 5% and 20% rated goods plus as we sell a great many non-food stuffs I preferred to have one dept for food rated at 20% and one dept for non-food rated at 20%. With hindsight I should have gone for just three depts but as we are used to four depts I just stick with it.

We don't use different colour price tickets but our pricing guns allow us to leave a small space after the price and then put the number of the department. Where feasible it is useful to indicate the till key to use 'upfront' as it were rather than when someone is under the pressure of serving, also if any mistakes are made in assigning departments to goods it is more likely to be noticed by another member of staff walking past the displays of goods. I don't find that goods are wrongly coded very often. There is a tendency on the spur of the moment to label cooking chocolate as '2' (vatable at 20%) when it should be '1' (vatable at 0%) and one or two similar small issues but I'm so aware of those that I sort of automatically glance at those labels when I pass them. To be honest if it was just my young apprentice and me it would hardly need the dept on the price labels and I think we'd only make the very occasional mistake but we do have some part-time staff and I think that someone who comes in say to just help on Saturdays finds it more difficult to remember that a biscuit even with chunks of chocolate in it is 0% Vat while even the plainest biscuit if just half coated with chocolate is 20% Vat.

I can see all the attractions of these all in one systems and I've investigated them from time to time, in fact last Autumn my apprentice and I had a detailed demonstration of such a system and I was very tempted and both of us would have enjoyed 'playing' with it (at least at the start) but when you went into the finances - only finally fully revealed after the tempting demonstration - it was a different matter. Also, at least with the system we saw, you were tied in for two years (or was it more?) and if you had to close the business in the meantime you still had to keep paying even though you were not using the system. Ouch!

 

[RPower]

+1 for Vend as I have seen similar small businesses using it in and around Bristol via an iPad!

 

[button_boxer]

We use a system called AirPOS, which is similar to Vend but much cheaper at only £17.50+VAT per month per till for the subscription. It runs on an iPad, Android tablet or Windows hardware, and the hardware for a basic Android setup is maybe £500, covering the tablet, receipt printer, cash drawer and barcode scanner. It integrates nicely with the various mobile card readers (iZettle, Payleven, PayPal Here) and all the inventory management and reporting is done through the web.

 

[EPOS-ECR]

There are hundreds of different solutions out there that will do the job for you.
You could start with a basic Cash Register such as the Casio SE-C450 (less than £350) or you could spend a little more and invest in the latest Android product from Casio, the VR100 is an "all in one" Touch screen which refers to its having a built in printer and customer display, (typically sold for about £975 which includes 12 months tech support, from an approved partner) and because its Casio there will be plenty of dealers who can supply you, it also has great green credentials with electricity running costs being approx 80% lower than traditional Cash Registers or PC based products.
There is no need to have a monthly subscription payment like some cloud based systems, you pay once and that is that, however if you did want the benefits that Cloud connectivity can bring you can upgrade the same system for an extra £21/month but completely optional.

 

[alejandro.dlucca]

Take a look at Cizaro POS, they have strong solutions for small business like yours and they give you the possibility to install a free trial version for 28 days without obligation to see if the software meet your expectations.