A point of sale system is a combination of software and hardware that allows merchants to take transactions and simplify key day-to-day business operations.
A number of noted emerging cloud-based POS systems came on the scene less than a decade or even half a decade back. These systems are usually designed for restaurants, small and medium-sized retail operations with fairly simple sale processes as can be culled from POS system review sites. It appears from such software reviews that enterprise-level cloud-based POS systems are currently lacking in the market. “Enterprise-level” here means that the inventory should be capable of handling a large number of records, such as required by grocery stores and supermarkets. It can also mean that the system–software and cloud server–must be capable of generating reports such as analytics of sale against inventory for both a single and multiple outlets that are interlinked for administration by the headquarters of the business operation.
POS vendors of such cloud based systems should also have a strong contingency plan for the breakdown of their remote server such as represented by failover server support. However, sometimes even a major data center can fail completely, such as in a fire. On-premises installations are therefore sometimes seen alongside cloud-based implementation to preempt such incidents, especially for businesses with very high traffic. However the on-premises installations may not have the most up-to-date inventory and membership information.