6 Best Touch-screen POS Systems for Small Businesses in 2022

A touch-screen point-of-sale (POS) system operates on tablets and handheld devices, typically via an app. The biggest advantage of using a touch-screen or tablet POS is a streamlined interface for faster checkout. Plus, touch-screen devices are more portable than cash registers or hardwired countertop POS systems, allowing for mobile sales capabilities.

The best tablet and touch-screen POS systems are affordable, easy to use, and have key business management features like inventory management and sales reporting.

Based on our evaluation of over a dozen options, the best touch-screen POS systems are:

· Square: Best overall and best free touch-screen POS

· Lightspeed: Best touch-screen POS for inventory management

· Shopify: Best touch-screen POS for ecommerce retailers

· Toast: Best touch-screen POS for restaurants

· Vend: Best touch-screen POS for building customer loyalty

· Mindbody: Best touch-screen POS for appointment scheduling

Square is the ideal touch-screen POS solution for most small businesses, especially since its free plans include many features for a single location, perfect for a new retailer, food truck, or cafe. Advanced features available in the affordable Plus plans at $60/month are ideal for quick-service restaurants (QSR), larger retailers, and sit-down restaurants.

Besides accepting payments, adding tips, and printing (or sending digital) receipts, Square lets you track employee hours, save a database of customers, and view sales reports—whether for your own reference or to integrate your sales and payroll data with QuickBooks. Square also offers optional upgrades for things like bar code scanning, a kitchen display system, appointment scheduling, and employee sales reports.

Square's Drawbacks

While the Square POS offers great value to startups, it might not be the best option once your operations grow. You will need a better inventory and reporting management tool if you begin maintaining complex inventories and multiple locations. For this, you will find Lightspeed the better option, with its more sophisticated inventory management feature, highly customizable reporting function, and better multilocation management tools. Additionally, Lightspeed offers a more flexible payment processing option, which means you can shop around for better transaction fees.

Lightspeed is our best recommendation for retail businesses with large inventories and those running multiple locations. The system comes with ecommerce features and a free payment terminal with each subscription, but Lightspeed’s inventory management features are what make it stand out from competitors.

It can sort through items with searchable tags, automatically add to your inventory by scanning barcodes, check supplier lists, and draft purchase orders straight from the platform. All these make Lightspeed highly effective in handling thousands of unique SKUs, which also makes it our top choice for POS inventory management.

Lightspeed's Drawbacks

One of the key features that we’re missing on Lightspeed is an offline payment processing function. It allows you to continue working on other business management tasks such as accepting orders and tracking inventory, but the system does not have the ability to accept card payment transactions while offline. If your business operates in areas with a less-than-stable internet connection, you’ll be better served with alternative solutions such as Square and Toast, which offer secure offline payment processing.

Shopify is the best POS solution for online retail businesses that want to expand to in-person sales. As one of the world’s leading ecommerce platforms for small businesses, Shopify allows you to create an online store and manage both your online and in-person sales from the same system. This keeps your inventory, sales, and customer data synchronized at all times.

Shopify's Drawbacks

If you have a storefront with the majority of your revenue coming from in-person sales, Shopify may not be the best choice. Shopify requires that its users upgrade to a higher plan to access general features such as advanced CRM and customized reports. You’ll also need to upgrade if you want to capture customer signatures on your digital device or customize your digital receipts.

Toast takes the lead when it comes to touch-screen POS systems for full-service restaurants. Its top-of-the-line order and table management features are designed to keep servers in constant communication with the kitchen, while handheld terminals ensure that servers are immediately notified whenever orders are ready or if an item is 86ed from the menu.

Also, the touch-screen KDS allows the back-of-house staff to keep track of all orders—whether they come from the dining room or from a third-party delivery app—and send notifications back to the waitstaff. And, all hardware, even the KDS, is industry-grade and built to withstand the heat of the kitchen.

Toast also offers detailed inventory management, an array of touch-screen hardware options, and flexible ordering tools—making it the best overall touch-screen POS for restaurants.

Toast's Drawbacks

As a touch-screen POS, the biggest drawback for Toast is that it uses proprietary hardware, which not only takes away the flexibility of this type of POS system but also drives up the cost of running your business. This ties you to a possible long-term contract and to Toast’s in-house payment processing solution, preventing you from getting the best deals on transaction fees. For a restaurant POS that runs on iPads, consider Square for Restaurants.

Vend is an excellent option for brick-and-mortar retailers looking for a touch-screen POS that offers built-in customer and loyalty management with its Advanced Plan. Very few POS systems include loyalty programs, store credit, and layaway functions in their POS plans–it is typically an add on. Combined with its offline processing features and its ability to integrate with third-party processors and offer multiple payment options, Vend is a solid option for retailers.

It also rivals Square with its inventory features, so high-volume businesses that prefer alternative payment processor options to offset the higher subscription plan should consider using this system.

Mindbody is a fantastic tablet POS system for appointment-based businesses with small inventories. Mindbody includes a custom-branded app that your customers can use to view your schedule and then book and purchase appointments, rooms, or classes. The software also includes reporting tools, an AI appointment management system, a fully integrated Virtual Wellness platform for virtual appointments and classes, and lead management tools.

Mindbody's Drawbacks

There is a lot that Mindbody has to offer for salons, fitness studios, and other appointment-based businesses. However, it does lack in its retail capabilities, making it an unsuitable choice for service businesses that also have a large inventory and process a lot of in-person sales. It also has limited offline capabilities, and cannot process payments if the internet goes down, like you find with Square or Vend.

For businesses that need both retail and appointment management tools, our suggestion is to pair Square POS with Square Appointments so you can get the functionality of both a retail and appointment POS system without needing to integrate a third-party platform.

Bottom Line

Head Sun Specialize in touch panel and LCD screen for over 10 years. We can also offer screen replacements for these POS terminals. Please call us at +0086 755 27402854 or email at headsun03@headsun.net. We will respond you within 24 hrs.