MENU
GET LISTED
GET LISTED
SHOW ALLPOPULAR CATEGORIES

What is Mobile POS Systems?

Brick and mortar shops use POS software to conduct sales. They typically use a computer, cash register, or even a tablet device to input the products, determine the cost, and finally, to close the sale. Most POS solutions can track inventory levels to ensure there are enough products in stock. Show more Most of the time, expensive POS software is used by big box retailers who prefer to have a system that is custom built to fit their needs. Smaller shops, on the other hand, are increasingly selecting cloud-based POS applications. Discover top-rated POS software apps by reading further, and check out our current topper Toast POS. Show less

How was this ranking made?

To develop this list of best Mobile POS Systems we have evaluated leading systems currently available on the market, comparing their features, ease of implementation, client support, offered integrations and mobile device support using our patented SmartScoreTM rating system. This ranking has been prepared by Nestor Gilbert, our B2B expert dedicated to the Mobile POS Systems category.

List of Top 12 Mobile POS Systems

Why FO is free Order by:
Sponsored
  • Sponsored
  • Score
Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

1. Toast POS

Our score: 9.5 User satisfaction: 98%

A software system that enables you to take your US-based restaurant business to new heights. The platform offers restaurateurs a unified platform packed with an array of sales-related features like order management, CRM, employee management, reporting and analytics, credit/debit card processing, inventory management, POS, and more.

Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

2. KORONA POS

Our score: 8.6 User satisfaction: N/A

A versatile and customizable POS system suited to any business size. Offers in-depth inventory management, advanced product reporting with custom KPIs, seamless ecommerce integration, and employee management tools. Integrates with most business platforms and uses Open API for the integration of other tools and apps.

Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

3. Cova

Our score: 8.7 User satisfaction: 98%

A POS solution created for the cannabis industry that specializes in enforcing compliance. Customers are required to submit verified customers’ IDs, whose information is synchronized with state traceability software like Leaf Data Systems. This makes it easy for the dispensary to generate audits and reports required by government authorities.

Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

4. Touchbistro

Our score: 9.1 User satisfaction: N/A

An all-in-one POS and restaurant management system that focuses on improving restaurant management and customer engagement.

Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

5. Revel Systems POS

Our score: 8.9 User satisfaction: 98%

A powerful point-of-sale tool for the food and retail industries. It offers an extensive range of sales management tools that can be accessed via its Revel Assistant tool, a smart Management Console. Its other features include kitchen management, product management, menu building, and employee management.

Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

6. Lightspeed Retail

Our score: 8.8 User satisfaction: 98%

An innovative POS solution designed to help businesses sell more efficiently and process payments with ease to improve customer experience and grow their bottom line. Lightspeed Payments provides all the tools you need to offer a fast, secure, and consistent checkout experience, whether in-store or online.

Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

7. Vend

Our score: 9.4 User satisfaction: 99%

Vend is an award-winning retail POS software for iPad, Mac, and PC with inventory management, ecommerce, and customer loyalty features. Key features include modules to manage customers, inventory, reports, store credits, and others. It provides users with an easy-to-use interface and a unified hub for critical sales processes.

Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

8. Sapaad

Our score: 8.9 User satisfaction: 100%

An affordable, user-friendly cloud-based point-of-sale system designed for restaurants, cafes, and fast-food chains of all sizes. Also known for its continuous upgrades, this POS solution is used by many foodservice firms across the world that provide walk-in, delivery, and dine-in orders.

Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

9. CAKE

Our score: 8.8 User satisfaction: 99%

A cost-friendly food service system that features end-to-end POS, online ordering, and guest management. Designed for full and quick-service restaurants, bars, pubs, and other dining establishments, CAKE helps you elevate the entire dining experience by streamlining operations, leading to improved customer satisfaction and increased profits.

Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

10. Upserve

Our score: 8.9 User satisfaction: 93%

A user-friendly, low-cost solution for restaurants, clubs, and bars. It includes food service tools such as workforce management, sales reports and analytics, table-side ordering, inventory management, and a point-of-sale solution. Upserve's POS module is an integral part of the productivity suite that also includes HQ, Live, and Payment solutions.

Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

11. Cegid

Our score: 8.7 User satisfaction: 93%

Cegid is a robust point of sales (POS) and store management software for retail businesses.

Select more products to compare
Compare selected products

12. QuickBooks POS

Our score: 8.8 User satisfaction: 88%

QuickBooks Point of Sale system provides users with a platform that enables them to follow sales, customers and inventory effectively and quickly.

Why FO is free Order by:
Sponsored
  • Sponsored
  • Score
  • User Score
Mobile POS Systems Guide

Table of contents

The selection and deployment of the best mobile point-of-sale system can help increase your business’ productivity and profitability. The best mobile POS systems possess common functionalities like accurate online accounting tasks, customer purchase habit tracking, product reordering, and inventory management, among others. From the myriad of POS tools on the market, it can be quite a difficult task to make careful comparisons in selecting a suitable solution for your company. This buyer’s guide was written to assist you by suggesting a list of the main features and functions to look for in the best POS tool for any size of an organization, whether small businesses, SMEs, or large enterprise companies. Hopefully, this article will provide you with all the necessary information for selecting the best-fitting mobile POS for your business.

Get to know each product with free trial

In doing your own research for the best mobile POS system, it is best to start out by test-driving the available free trials, demos, and the next-level tier of basic user plans of POS software vendors. This saves time and money since your own hands-on user experience will allow you to assess and compare each program’s features and capabilities and also identify any possible problems.

You can examine the best POS software ratings from our SmartScore rankings and Customer Satisfaction Ratings and try out their software offerings. These can be found in some of our POS software reviews, as follows: Toast POS, Lightspeed Restaurant, Cova, KORONA, Revel Systems POS, and Vend.

Targeted Businesses

Mobile POS software for customer tracking and inventory management is highly recommended particularly for the following business needs:

Small businesses that need to attract more customers. Having the best mobile POS system in your platform arsenal is a key advantage that helps boost profit margins by keeping best-selling products always at sustainable inventory level stocks and identifying reorder levels in a timely manner. Modern POS mobile systems help you track current inventory, match products with their respective vendors, and manage all purchasing activities automatically through systems integration.

Large Businesses that need to control employees and inventory and secure retail management.

For large businesses, a POS system with mobile capabilities introduces many benefits related to accountability and security checking. Reports generated by POS systems mobile apps can accurately track fraud, wrongdoing, and workflow failures among employees and in the entire system. Cash flow discrepancies can be easily and quickly traced with the POS system mobile app’s strict cash control algorithm.

Individual retailers that need to automate manual sales tasks.

Manual tasks are time-consuming, tedious, and error-prone, and automation of these tasks is where the best mobile POS systems shine the most. These software apps decrease the time spent preparing employee payrolls, performing administrative functions, calculating profit margins and losses, and help your company keep in compliance with industry regulations.

What are Examples of POS Software?

  • Toast POS: An all-in-one solution that is perhaps the best mobile POS system that caters to restaurants and the food and beverage industry. Its POS system is pretty robust and allows for the inventory management of ingredients and payroll management of chefs, cooks, and wait staff.
  • Lightspeed Restaurant: A cloud-based POS system for restaurants, bars, cafes, and other food and beverage establishments. It enables guest reservations, staff management, inventory management, and scheduling. It also allows for easy menu creation, taking orders and following them up, accepting payments, and monitoring staff performance along with cash flow and profit monitoring.
  • Cova: Cova is a POS solution for cannabis dispensary businesses and is designed to simplify sales and retail operations while ensuring full regulatory and legal compliance, specifically seed-to-sale compliance. It has a built-in age checker to prevent underage or illegal purchases. It also calculates the equivalences of cannabis products to maximize your profit.
  • KORONA: A versatile, cloud-based POS app that has seamless ecommerce integration and is customizable for any business or organization size. It helps speed up checkout time and has advanced product reporting features that allow you to include custom KPIs specific to your business needs. It also performs in-depth inventory management and automates ordering and purchase functions to prevent under- and over-stocking.
  • Revel Systems POS: A cloud-based restaurant POS and business management system solution. It is suitable for any size of establishment, from a single proprietorship to small chains or a multi-location enterprise. It helps in product management and menu building and provides real-time business data insights to help you monitor your business from anywhere through mobile device connectivity.
  • Vend: A powerful Cloud POS that is easy-to-use and requires minimal staff training. It allows for notes and discounts on customers’ receipts. Its ecommerce capabilities include direct website design editing and direct customer purchases from mobile devices for in-store pickup. It helps retailers monitor their stocks and new orders as they are received. Various payment processing methods allow for customer-friendly payment options.

Types of POS Software

There are numerous types of mobile POS software for businesses, ranging from simple purchase and record systems to sophisticated cloud-based platforms for large enterprises utilizing complex sales and retail workflows. In general, they can be classified as follows:

  • Mobile POS Systems. Standard to all POS systems is payment management, but in some businesses, tracking supply and product inventory is essential. Mobile POS apps are recommended for small businesses and users who want to manage business operations remotely or on the go. Individual retailers or sole business proprietors can start with affordable or even free downloadable apps from any Apple or Android app store.
  • Terminal POS Systems. These are the most commonly-used POS systems in companies due to their advanced functionalities and tier-managed pricing. The complete POS system consists of hardware such as barcode scanners, cash registers, and QR code scanners, and its control software. A great advantage of these is cloud-based backup and controlled authorized access.
  • Cloud-Hosted POS Systems. Having the cloud as their main setup, these platforms enable POS functionalities online, accessible using your own hardware (desktop computer, laptop, tablet, and mobile phone). They are reasonably priced and easy to use, suitable for all businesses as they scale up. Startups and small businesses would benefit from increased sales without spending too much money.

Key Features of POS Software

Because all POS programs provide different sets of functionalities for different business requirements, there is no universal one-size-fits-all program. Some programs have more functionalities than others, while others are more specialized for certain businesses or industries. The basic functionalities that all POS systems come standard with are the following:

  • Inventory Tracking. Inventory tracking is a must for a small or large business that keep inventory onsite or at multiple branches, warehouses, store rooms, storage lockers, etc. Inventory level management automatically monitors the stock and supply levels of all ingredients, materials, products, etc. that your business requires and alerts you if you are approaching reorder levels. Some can be automated to create and send purchase orders to your favorite suppliers and to replenish stocks in other branches.
  • Sales Reporting Analytics. Capturing and analyzing your company’s financial data from products sold, revenue, and ROI coupled with report generation are powerful functions that will help your business a lot. You can identify which products are revenue-generating and in what season, allowing for better sales and marketing campaigns and increased profitability.
  • Customer Management. Identifying your most profitable customer segments is easily done in POS systems as you have access to their full purchase history and purchase habits. Upselling and cross-selling to these segments can increase your earnings and keep customers loyal to your brand.
  • Employee Management. Tracking what your employees are doing and the time they spend on these activities can be done via your POS system, too. Enabling employee management from your POS system keeps them honest and aware of being monitored, ensuring less overhead costs and time wasted at work. Wages, commissions, and overtime pay can be handled directly by your POS system through these features.
  • Robust Reporting. POS systems with robust reporting capabilities help you gain valuable insights into all aspects of your company. Sales and revenue tracking of your products against customer, customer type, sales branch, salesperson, and other variables can help you identify decision-making areas you can improve on.
  • Mobile Access. Hardware-based POS systems physically restrict users to their specific terminals in specific locations, and obtaining sales and other relevant data may be slow and require error-prone manual input. In contrast, mobile access and cloud-based architectures allow for accurate and instantaneous data access, transparency, and work flexibility as you can access your company data from anywhere with a phone signal or Internet connection.
  • Powerful Integrations. Many POS systems have good integration capabilities with commonly-used apps and software, which allows you much flexibility in choosing your software ecosystem. Integration with accounting apps allows for direct data access, eliminating manual errors such as double entries. For ecommerce businesses, smooth integration of your POS system with enterprise software platforms is highly desirable to allow you to manage customer orders and purchases centrally and to maintain proper inventory stock levels at all times in real time.

Benefits of POS Software

Considering all this information, is it time for you to include a POS system in your workflows? Making life easier for you and your employees is always a good thing, and everyone will surely agree. The following are what a good POS system can offer you:

  • A more accurate business. Simultaneously handling orders, payments, products, inventories, and multiple customers is highly error-prone and inefficient, causing huge financial losses over time. POS systems automatically manage all these easily and enable you to view sales patterns for further sales optimization and profit maximization. You save money and increase revenue more efficiently.
  • Analysis. Analytics and raw data is not very useful if they are not analyzed and visualized accurately and informatively. A powerful analytics and reporting system allows you to see trends and bottlenecks in your business workflows, enabling you to make accurate data-driven decisions to improve your business and boost sales.
  • Networking to other terminals. Multi-location sales management from a single terminal or mobile device is feasible with networked POS systems and cloud-based setups. You can track and monitor all aspects of your business from your handheld devices from anywhere and in real time.
  • Shrinkage Security. One of the most useful features of POS systems is the ability to track inventory and SKUs over time as your business grows. You can incorporate this feature in all financial workflows to keep track of SKU reporting, seasonal sales data, promotions and discounts, customer orders, payment transactions, and even employee performance for each one of your employees.
  • Affordability. Despite all the useful features and functionalities of POS software, they are not the most expensive solutions out there. Also, most of them offer free plans that may be enough for your needs. You can always avail of the next-tier pricing plans as your business grows.
  • The Age of Self-service. Dining places like restaurants and fast food joints have replaced most wait staff and service staff with self-service kiosks. These allow for fully-automated steps including order taking, transmittal of order information to the kitchen staff, and accepting various forms of electronic payment, all from one kiosk. This streamlines the ordering and payment process, reducing ordering errors and wait times, especially during busy hours.
  • Virtual Restaurants. Ghost (or virtual) restaurants, including opp-up or temporary restaurant outlets, are gaining popularity, especially for made-to-order or cook-to-order types of cuisine. Outlets such as these will benefit greatly from POS systems for direct orders and quick transactions.
  • Mobile ordering. With POS systems, you can do everything related to online or phone call orders—take orders, collect payments or generate invoices and receipts, and prepare the orders while the customer travels to your location. Performing these steps from your POS eliminates wait times onsite, making pick-ups faster and more efficient, reducing turnover time, and keeping your customers loyal to your brand.

Potential Issues

  • Security. Cyberattacks and online hacking of POS systems are big security risks. Fortunately, most POS systems possess high-level encryption security, though some common sense steps can also help secure data and avoid data theft.
  • Charge issues. Inevitably, some unplanned glitches may happen at the height of your dining service—incomplete payments, incorrect charges, unreadable payment cards or devices, uncontactable online banking systems, etc. are only some of these. Make sure you discuss these with your vendor and have them demo their system before full production rollout.
  • Connectivity. A mobile POS system requires constant and strong online connectivity to its cloud-based hosts. Is your existing WiFi setup or telecommunications signal strong enough for long periods? How will you handle all transactions when there are connectivity errors? Ask your software vendor for advice and demos.

List of Mobile POS Systems Companies

Order by:

Newest
  • Newest
  • Score
  • User Score
Product name:
Category:
Smart Score:
Price:
User Satisf.
User reviews:
Cova reviews

Cova

Mobile POS Systems
8.7
by quote
98%
Upserve reviews

Upserve

Mobile POS Systems
8.9
$59
93%
Harbortouch reviews

Harbortouch

Mobile POS Systems
8.6
$29
90%
Oracle Food and Beverage reviews

Oracle Food and Beverage

Mobile POS Systems
9.2
By quote
94%
KORONA POS reviews

KORONA POS

Mobile POS Systems
8.6
$59
-
iQmetrix reviews

iQmetrix

Mobile POS Systems
8.7
By quote
67%
Floify reviews

Floify

Mobile POS Systems
8.7
$59
100%
Cegid reviews

Cegid

Mobile POS Systems
8.7
By quote
93%
GoFrugal POS reviews

GoFrugal POS

Mobile POS Systems
8.6
by quote
100%
AB POS reviews

AB POS

Mobile POS Systems
8.9
$19
100%
Lightspeed Restaurant reviews

Lightspeed Restaurant

Mobile POS Systems
8.6
$69
100%
CAKE reviews

CAKE

Mobile POS Systems
8.8
$69
99%
Revel Systems POS reviews

Revel Systems POS

Mobile POS Systems
8.9
By quote
98%
Touchbistro reviews

Touchbistro

Mobile POS Systems
9.1
$69
-
Sapaad reviews

Sapaad

Mobile POS Systems
8.9
$39.99
100%

Things to consider when you invest in a SaaS

There are plenty of cloud-based SaaS programs available in the market and this makes it tricky for a firm to select a suitable platform for their requirements. The first aspect to consider is usability. Be clear about the changes required for your team’s processes and workflow when you implement the software. Purchase a solution that adapts to your processes and not the other way around.

The second feature to consider is the user interface. It should be simple and easy to use so that your staff members get the hang of it quickly. Get them involved in the selection and usage process, and assess their daily requirements to find a good fit. Make the users look at the demos and try out the free trials and get their reviews.

The third important element is scalability. Select a tool that can grow with your business. Though many SaaS vendors offer enterprise plans, these are costly for a lot of businesses. So, check if the product allows you to export your data and move on to another system if required. In fact, select a provider that allows you to export your data as you can trust their honesty and they are the proper type of SaaS brands you should look to partner with.

Frequently asked questions about Mobile POS Systems

What is the best mobile POS system?

Currently, Lightspeed Restaurant is the best POS software, having won our Expert’s Choice Award for 2022 in this category.

Lightspeed Restaurant POS is a robust business management platform for restaurant management and for smaller setups like bars, coffee shops, cafes, etc. It has an array of floor management capabilities that helps you with menus and seating plans. Its drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to change table arrangements edit food and price menus.

The kiosk POS software automatically sends customers’ orders directly to the kitchen or bar without the need for wait staff, making everything faster. The Tableside feature allows guests to easily choose payment methods including credit card processing. Its other functionalities include CRM, online ordering, gift and loyalty, and labor (employee) and inventory management.

Lightspeed Restaurant POS streamlines and improves your restaurant business for more efficiency and increased revenue while keeping your customers satisfied and pleased with their dining experience.

What are the benefits of mobile POS systems?
  • A more accurate business. A POS system’s strengths are its analytical capacities – managing store inventory, analyzing sales patterns, and calculating revenue, profit, and ROI more accurately than using spreadsheets and manual input. These can help you visualize your business’s overall health and progress.
  • Analysis. Report generation on actionable insights and KPIs enables you to make accurate and informed decisions quickly. POS systems do this automatically and you can customize what parameters of your business operations are included in the output.
  • Networking to other terminals. Connectivity between POS terminals and the cloud server is possible through networking and software synchronization which are all centrally controllable using handheld devices. You can still monitor all business operations from your mobile phone even if you need to travel to your branches.
  • Shrinkage Security. Stock level monitoring is essential to keeping your products available to customers at all times. POS software can give you SKU reports through various time periods, sales promotions and discounts, and customer orders. You can even monitor your employees’ performance and overall business turnaround times.
  • Affordability. Generally, powerful POS solutions are not expensive compared to enterprise software, but they do quite a lot considering their more tailored software approach. Most small and medium-sized businesses can meet their needs even with free POS systems plans or first-level tier
What are the features of mobile POS systems?
  • Inventory Tracking. Tracking your stocks and inventory is crucial to consistently providing your customers with enough of your products. POS software can monitor your stock levels at all branches and arrange inter-branch replenishment or generate automatic purchase orders before your stocks run empty.
  • Sales Reporting and Analytics. Sales data capture is done automatically by your POS system such as the number of products or services sold, gross and net revenue, and return on investment rates. This allows you to identify promos, marketing campaigns, and ideas that work and which activities need improvement.
  • Customer Management. Customer loyalty programs can be implemented by identifying the highest-paying regular customers. This information can be seen from their purchase history and preferences. You can offer bigger perks or rewards and enhance your brand by making your loyal customers happy.
  • Employee Management. Tracking employee attendance, work habits, and work activity is easily done by POS systems, allowing you to maintain consistent staffing needs, especially during peak service hours.
  • Robust Reporting. POS systems allow you to track all areas of your business through reporting features that present information and insights visually for better decision-making. Examples include sales tracking by customer, product, outlet or branch, employee activity, etc.
  • Mobile Access. POS software solutions based on cloud systems allow your business to be accessible from anywhere at all times, have data transparency and safety, and give you much flexibility in running your business. Internet or mobile connectivity is all you need.
  • Powerful Integrations. Many POS systems can integrate smoothly with popular apps and platforms to provide more functionalities and smoother workflows that eliminate steep learning curves with your employees. New designs and functions are constantly being added, so continuous updates are quite welcome.
What is the easiest mobile POS system to use?
  • Toast POS features an easily comprehensible UI that makes it easy to teach the basics to new employees and walks them through each stage of the ordering system. It also contains a lot of features that help enhance customer servicing.
  • Lightspeed Restaurant has a GUI that is easy to use, especially its menu creation feature. Guest reservations, staff management, inventory management, and scheduling are quite easy to do.
  • Cova, being a POS solution for cannabis dispensary businesses, has an easy-to-use user interface to help users navigate its various dispensary and payment functionalities.
  • KORONA is quite easy to use despite its powerful ecommerce integration and its customizability is quite extensive.
  • Revel Systems POS helps make product management and menu building easier through its intuitive GUI.
  • Vend is easy-to-use and requires minimal staff training, allowing for notes and discounts; direct website design editing helps you update your website and menus in real time.
What is a good free mobile POS system?

Toast POS. Perhaps the best mobile POS system for restaurants and the food and beverage industry. It is an all-in-one solution with a robust POS system which also allows for the management of ingredients and product inventory. The software also helps in managing the work tracking and payroll of your wait staff, chefs and cooks, and other employees.

Orderly  This leading POS system and restaurant management app provides paperless invoice management, line-item invoice processing, and local/national market pricing access for the free plan. More features are available for the paid/premium plans.

Nestor Gilbert

By Nestor Gilbert

Nestor Gilbert is a senior B2B and SaaS analyst and a core contributor at FinancesOnline for over 5 years. With his experience in software development and extensive knowledge of SaaS management, he writes mostly about emerging B2B technologies and their impact on the current business landscape. However, he also provides in-depth reviews on a wide range of software solutions to help businesses find suitable options for them. Through his work, he aims to help companies develop a more tech-forward approach to their operations and overcome their SaaS-related challenges.

Updated

Why is FinancesOnline free? Why is FinancesOnline free?

FinancesOnline is available for free for all business professionals interested in an efficient way to find top-notch SaaS solutions. We are able to keep our service free of charge thanks to cooperation with some of the vendors, who are willing to pay us for traffic and sales opportunities provided by our website. Please note, that FinancesOnline lists all vendors, we’re not limited only to the ones that pay us, and all software providers have an equal opportunity to get featured in our rankings and comparisons, win awards, gather user reviews, all in our effort to give you reliable advice that will enable you to make well-informed purchase decisions.

TOP
Share
Tweet
Share