Start with how you actually sell
List peak hours, number of concurrent cashiers, typical ticket size, and whether the shop can sell when the internet fails. A cafe with one till has different constraints than a pharmacy that needs roles, tax rules, and end-of-day reconciliation.
If connectivity drops during lunch rush and the till freezes, “cloud-only” becomes an expensive experiment. Offline-first or hybrid queues keep orders moving while sync waits for the network.
Must-have features (before loyalty apps)
Prioritize reliability and correctness, then convenience. Most shops regret optimizing for dashboards while still fighting wrong tax or locked screens.
- Roles and permissions so staff cannot void or discount without oversight
- Tax-correct receipts (mixed rates, exempt lines, printable formats)
- Inventory that moves with sales — or at least clear export for your stock book
- Shift open/close and Z-report style reconciliation for cash and card
- Hardware path for drawer, printer, and payment terminal — or a documented workaround
- Data ownership: exports you can open without the vendor’s portal
Cloud, on-premise, or hybrid?
Cloud PoS suits multi-location catalogs when internet is stable and ops want a single admin. On-premise puts the ledger on the register hardware — slower for chain sync, stronger for outages.
Hybrid keeps a local queue for sales and syncs when possible. MiniBook3 is offline-first for single-location shops; we also engineer cloud and hybrid systems when your network model requires them.
Cost beyond the sticker price
Budget for software (license or build), hardware, payment processing fees, training, and support. Free tiers often move cost into hardware lock-in or paid add-ons for reporting.
Custom engineering costs more up front but can match unusual tax rules, kits/BOM, or peripherals. Packaged products like MiniBook3 trade customization for faster go-live.
Migration without losing a trading day
Ask how products, customers, and open balances move. Run a parallel weekend with the new till on a spare machine. Confirm receipt numbering, refund flows, and end-of-day totals against the old system before cutover.
If a vendor cannot explain offline behaviour, refunds, or data export in plain language, keep shopping.