Loyverse review: free POS app in Australia, mixed experiences

Costs and fees

The main strength of Loyverse is that the POS system is free to use.The core features have no monthly cost or contractual commitment

Certain specialised features for staff management, inventory management and integrations do require a subscription, through. This can be paid monthly or annually upfront, but note that any costs paid cannot be refunded.

Subscription costs are paid in US dollars, not Australian dollars, with GST added on top.

The paid add-ons start with a free 14-trial, which does not require card details. If you choose to continue with a paid subscription, you are free to cancel it any time from your web dashboard.

Any hardware is purchased outside of Loyverse, and card processing is charged for through your chosen payment provider.

Checkout interface

The point of sale interface on a tablet and smartphone is pretty standard. When you first start using it, it looks incredibly basic and worryingly featureless, but adding items to the product library makes it look much richer.

Once you’ve added products to the system, you can just tap an item to add it to the bill. There’s a choice between a grid and list view of products on tablets, and a black or white theme to match your surroundings.

We noticed the whole interface, including the web-based dashboard, looks like it was designed by Google – the font and menu styles are exactly like Google’s software. This could be off-putting by some, but it won’t matter for the majority who will like the simple, intuitive style they’re familiar with.

Although basic, the checkout does shine through with useful tools like open tickets, in-app barcode scanner (using the mobile device camera), weight-embedded barcodes and the choice between eat-in and takeaway. These are not included in all free POS systems.

POS features

How extensive is the POS system, then? Let’s have a look at the POS features.

Checkout options: The till home screen shows a custom grid or list of the products you’ve added to the item catalogue. Discounts (% or value) and product categories can be added alongside bestsellers, but there are also hierarchical screens where same-category items are grouped together.

Because Loyverse is country-agnostic, no currency is shown in the app or reports. This may be unsettling for some users, but price totals will be communicated to card readers as AUD currency in Australia just like any other POS systems.

Running a food venue? Select whether a transaction is for takeaway, eat-in or delivery and attach different tax rates to theses statuses or different product categories and items. You may still have to manually make adjustments to ensure the correct rate is applied to every item (that was our experience) so the system does not work perfectly.

Receipts can be emailed to the customer or printed off from a receipt printer after each transaction.

Payment options: Need to split the bill between individuals? You can do that from the checkout screen.

Tips can only be added to Tyro and Smartpay card payments through the iOS app, not Android. You cannot add tips to cash payments or non-integrated card payments using another card machine.

Payment methods are added through the web portal. This includes cards, cash, cheques and “other” which can be named anything. If someone wants to use several payment methods, they can do that.

Orders: Not going to take a payment immediately? Save the current transaction – it can be opened through the prominent “Saved orders” button. Open orders can be assigned to an employee, table (though there’s no table plan) or have a custom description attached.

You can later search through orders, retrieve and edit them, then void or finalise them with a payment.

A complimentary kitchen display app (Loyverse KDS) can be downloaded for your kitchen, so orders are fired straight there for a more efficient service.

Transactions and cash management: Most basic POS systems tend to require an upgrade to include end-of-day reports specifically for cashing up the till – not Loyverse. You can add an opening cash float, pay money in or out (with a comment), close the shift and compare the actual cash in the drawer with the calculated float in your report.

This report is viewable in the POS app and can be printed off if a suitable printer is connected. The day’s sales totals are divided into payment methods, refunds, discounts and more, whereas the web dashboard lets you analyse the numbers in greater detail.

The POS app also has a dedicated section for receipts to check a specific sale, refund payments and resend receipts.

Inventory library: Items can be added in bulk or individually along with an image, variants, cost and sale price. Then you can put them into categories like Pastries or Hot Drinks if you’re a cafe. Each items can have a stock count (prompting low-stock reminders), a barcode and SKU number. Modifiers can be added to specific items, such as type of milk a customer wants in their coffee.

If you subscribe to Advanced Inventory, you also get:

• Purchase order options
• Stock transfers between locations
• Stock adjustments
• Advanced inventory counts
• Label printing
• Inventory history
• Inventory valuation reports

But even without the add-on, the POS system can handle more than one shop with allocated stock counts to each location. That’s not bad for free POS software.

Customers and loyalty: The free plan has the ability to save customer profiles with your regulars’ contact details, sales history and loyalty points to redeem at your business.

These customers can be exported to a spreadsheet, so even if you’re not subscribed to Integrations, it’s still possible to export data to upload into marketing software like Mailchimp.

A customer display app (Loyverse CDS) is available free. This allows your customers to view (on a separate tablet) transaction details and enter their email address on this screen instead of the main till display.

Employee management: Only one user, the store admin, can use the free POS system. Additional employees with a separate user profile require the Employee Management subscription ($25 USD/month)

This add-on allows you to allocate custom role permissions, for instance limiting access to settings and reports for cashiers, and PINs to log into the till app.

Timecards can be added for free in the Dashboard, then exported to Excel for accounting purposes.

Offline mode: The POS app works even if your internet fails, in which case the sales data will sync in the cloud the next time it’s got a live connection. This way, you can check sales in real time from any device. Card payments will require the internet to process chip and contactless payments, though.

Card readers and POS equipment

In Australia, Loyverse integrates with Tyro and Smartpay for card payment processing, but only through the iOS app.

No other card machines are currently compatible with Loyverse, but you can use a standalone card machine and just manually confirm in the POS app when the card payment has gone through.

In addition, Loyverse connects with a large selection of receipt printers, label printers, cash drawers, barcode scanners and even purpose-built Android touchscreen terminals (instead of consumer tablets or smartphones). The latter is not an option for any other commitment-free POS systems, except for Square that has its own flashy Square Register.

Integrations can get expensive

The free POS system does not integrate with any other software other than the above card readers.

With the Loyverse Integrations add-on, however, you can connect with external software for accounting, marketing, ecommerce and more. Those with development resources can develop custom integrations with Loyverse API when subscribed to the Integrations module.

At the time of writing, the only direct accounting integrations are for QuickBooks and Xero.

The only direct ecommerce integration is for WooCommerce, but connector software like SKUPlugs and Octopus make it possible to sync with online stores in Wix, Shopify, Adobe Commerce (Magento) and many other platforms.

As for marketing, SyncApps lets you connect with Mailchimp and Constant Contact. Then there’s a handful of connector modules including Dataddo, Zoho Flow, Integromat and Appy Pie Connect allowing you to integrate with other software.

With most of these options being connector software rather than direct integrations, you’re paying for:

• Loyverse Integrations add-on ($9 USD + GST monthly) just for the privilege of accessing integrations
• The connector software (e.g. from $29 USD monthly for Octopus)
• The software you actually want to use, such as Shopify

This could make Loyverse unnecessarily expensive compared with, say, Square that works directly with many external apps without an integration fee or a connector module in between.

Customer service and reviews

Loyverse likes to mention their 24/7 live chat support, but this only applies when you subscribe to one of Loyverse’s paid add-ons. If you’re just using the free software without a paid subscription, you just have an online help section with step-by-step guides and a peer support forum where you can post questions publicly.

There is an email address that anyone can contact for help, but you’re likely going to get a slow response to that. Only on a paid plan do you have a prompt live chat, but there is no phone number to rely on for help at all.

Most Loyverse reviews rate them highly. Users tend to like the simplicity and amount of features you get at no cost. You do see many feature requests as well, though, and users complaining that certain functions like tipping are not available in the Android app (the iOS app gets prioritised more).

Our verdict

Small cafés, pop-up shops and retailers with a low budget will probably like Loyverse. The software is adaptable with just the right combination of features for a small store, bar or food place without struggling too much.

You might not need a paid add-on, but retailers and teams of staff could definitely benefit from them. Since the system can be expanded with integrations and various hardware combinations, we recommend trying it if you’re already a Tyro or Smartpay customer in need of a simple POS system.

If you need accounting and ecommerce integrations, you do end up paying a monthly fee and should consider whether it is worth the cost compared with other POS software. Loyverse certainly has more POS features than some free POS apps, but still does not beat Square in terms of value, scalability, quality and service.

In our own tests, we initially found the app extremely basic, but further testing and adjustments of settings revealed it has more than first meets the eye. We did encounter bugs where the POS app froze several times, and tax rates did not function correctly. Also, we tested the iPad app, not Android which has had a good deal of criticism about missing features.

Bottom line: Loyverse is a great all-round budget POS, but it’s not feature-rich for hospitality or complex retail.