What is an Epos system?

An Epos is a commonly-used acronym standing for Electronic Point of Sale. It is used to refer to a connected system comprising both hardware products and software products used at the place where sales are processed, as in high-street shops, or on e-commerce websites. Supported business operations include payments, checkouts, sales reports, transaction verification.

Epos systems help keep track of sales, staff, VAT, inventory, etc. The main difference with traditional point of sale systems is that transactions are registered by the central server, which matches them with relevant inventory data to adjust available quantities. Complete sales report with individual employee performance metrics, but also, inventory forecasting are made available.

Epos systems include at least one large monitor, one terminal, one customer display, one till, one barcode scanner, and rely on Epos software to operate. They may or may not have add-ons such as cash drawers, Pos printers, PDQ terminals or chip-and-pin machines, weighing scale or pole displays.

More advanced models include touchscreen displays, wireless data transmission to chip-and-pin machines and to drawers, advanced table and staff management, combination scale and scanner systems, etc.

Complete Electronic Point of Sale systems and their components are widely available and can be obtained as full packages, or as individual components. They can be purchased, rented or leased from many distributors.