Real-time information about your business is critical.

The title of this post is quoted from an excellent post by Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons. Though he has nothing to do with point of sale systems, he has something to say that matters for any company: old news is of little value for taking decisions. As a business manager, you make decisions each and every day, and on every hour of the day.

If you own a small shop, with only one till, you’ll find yourself checking reports from the POS systems once in a while. And whenever you run this report, the point of sale shows you the sales data and benefits up to that very second. In other words: you base your decisions on real-time information.

As your business grows to lets say five shops, your decisions become more important, and your need for up-to-dat information grows. But most multi-store managers don’t have up-to-dat information. They have to base their decisions on yesterdays Z reports from the POS systems and on last months financial reports.

Of course this is not necessary. Modern POS systems link in real-time to your backoffice software, so you can follow your business on an hourly basis if needed. These POS systems don’t have to be more expensive than the systems without real-time communication, but if they are more expensive you can earn your extra investment back by taking your business decisions on current data.