Cash register or IZettle ?

[pubrunner]

Hi All,

I'm involved with a small charity, which has a modest shop selling books, clothing, souvenirs etc.

We are looking into having a new 'all in one' bar-coded till with an integrated stock system. Give than our takings are quite modest, can anyone suggest a system that might be suitable ?

Should we go for something like this :

https://www.tecstore.co.uk/product_info.php/retail...

Or something like this :

https://shop.izettle.com/gb/configuration-white


Or should we stick to a more traditional cash register ?

Thank you for any helpful suggestions

[Ham_and_Jam]

Are you wanting to take card payments?

The first option, Tecstore, gives you most of the hardware except the card payment option. So you would still need to sign up to a card payment service and obtain (usually rent) a terminal.

The iZettle, will give you a card payment option, but you still need to buy a tablet to fit in the POS holder. They recommend an iPad as it integrates slightly better. You will also be tied to IZettle with the POS system. It can’t be used with anyone else.

Both the above will need an internet connection, so either a landline or 4G router will do, or in the case of the iZettle tablet get the cellular model and stick a sim in that.

Third option is a cash register. Cheap as chips, about £250 will get a half decent one, but no stock inventory option. IZettle or card payment options can stll be added as a stand-alone option regardless of what route you take.

We use iZettle and a cash register and find it very easy to use, albeit expensive once you get over £2k / week in card transactions. Great for lower weekly takings though.

[pubrunner]

Ham_and_Jam said:

Are you wanting to take card payments?

The first option, Tecstore, gives you most of the hardware except the card payment option. So you would still need to sign up to a card payment service and obtain (usually rent) a terminal.

The iZettle, will give you a card payment option, but you still need to buy a tablet to fit in the POS holder. They recommend an iPad as it integrates slightly better. You will also be tied to IZettle with the POS system. It can’t be used with anyone else.

Both the above will need an internet connection, so either a landline or 4G router will do, or in the case of the iZettle tablet get the cellular model and stick a sim in that.

Third option is a cash register. Cheap as chips, about £250 will get a half decent one, but no stock inventory option. IZettle or card payment options can stll be added as a stand-alone option regardless of what route you take.

We use iZettle and a cash register and find it very easy to use, albeit expensive once you get over £2k / week in card transactions. Great for lower weekly takings though.

Thank you very much, for an extremely helpful reply - you've neatly described the possible options - in a way that even I can understand.

[pubrunner]

Ham_and_Jam said:

We use iZettle and a cash register and find it very easy to use, albeit expensive once you get over £2k / week in card transactions. Great for lower weekly takings though.

This sounds the sensible way for us, given that we already have a cash register.

We do wish to be able to (continue) to take card payments.

So in a nutshell, with your own system, you use the iZettle for bar coded stock control and calculating a sale and then just ring the amount into a cash register ?

We have a cash register and card payment device so it seems to me, that it would be best if we could integrate what we already have, with iZettle ?

Edited by pubrunner on Tuesday 25th August 08:18

Edited by pubrunner on Tuesday 25th August 08:21

[Bacon Is Proof]

Can I ask what you are hoping to achieve with regards to the stock control?
It seems like an awful amount of work (and cost) considering your products will be constantly changing.

[Ham_and_Jam]

pubrunner said:

This sounds the sensible way for us, given that we already have a cash register.

We do wish to be able to (continue) to take card payments.

So in a nutshell, with your own system, you use the iZettle for bar coded stock control and calculating a sale and then just ring the amount into a cash register ?

We have a cash register and card payment device so it seems to me, that it would be best if we could integrate what we already have, with iZettle ?

Edited by pubrunner on Tuesday 25th August 08:18

Edited by pubrunner on Tuesday 25th August 08:21

Ok, now I understand where you are now
We don’t use the bar coder or use stock control, as for us it would be too complicated and not achieve much.

I have set all of our products as SKU’s up on the IZettle app but never used them. We ended up simply using a cash register and an iPhone with the iZettle app. The iPhone is simply used as a keypad to enter the total sale amount (from the cash register) which is transferred (by Bluetooth) to the card machine.

If you are wanting to enable stock control, then a cash register isn’t needed. The iZettle POS system (& the Tecstore one) can do both cash sales & card sales. They are just entered as such when you finalise the sale.

I would also ask, are you sure you want to enable stock control though? To make that work you really need to have the same SKU’s turning over in your business. It will become very time consuming setting new ones up all the time. It can work, but someone will need to manage it and it is very easy for it to it to go wrong and errors creep in.

[MagnusFrater]

If you do decide you wnat/need/could make use of an epos system, lots of charities use these people: -

https://www.cybertill.com/charity-software/indepen...

Useful touch of having gift aid option readily/easily available.
Caveat, I have no idea on price nor card payment compatibility