Point of sale (POS) systems for iPad or other tablets are increasingly popular, especially for small or new businesses.
Since the POS tablet interface is key to your business taking money from customers, we strongly recommend considering the following advice for taking care of your iPad.
Keep the kids away
Anyone with children will know the allure iPads have for youngsters. Nowadays, one can even obtain toddler-friendly iPad apps to keep the little ones amused.
However, the iPad you use for your point of sale system is NOT the one you should let children anywhere near! It’s quite incredible how quickly a toddler can inadvertently trigger an unplanned FaceTime call or change a setting you didn’t even know existed. On this basis, they could easily start to log false sales and corrupt your POS data. If you feel your children badly need a tablet device, buy them one of their own.
Use a strong password
“1234” is not a sensible password for an iPad containing business data, so use something suitably complicated for the purpose.
Current versions of iOS permit you to use complex alphanumeric passwords rather than just four digits. You may also wish to consider using Touch ID features or some of the similar facilities provided by your Android tablet, if that is your chosen platform.
Consider a sturdy stand
Most cloud-based POS providers offer sturdy stands for the tablet you use for your point of sale system. Even if you don’t need a full setup complete with a cash drawer and receipt printer, you may still wish to consider one of these stands. Untethered iPads are awfully tempting for opportunistic thieves!
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Keep an eye on storage
All tablets have a finite amount of data storage, so you should keep a regular eye on how much you have available. On an iPad, you’ll find this information under Settings – General – Storage.
Failure to make sure you have some free space could mean you run out of room for transaction data or risk your iPad crashing in the middle of a transaction.
Use a dedicated device
This tip relates to the previous advice about children and iPads.
Unless you only use your iPad POS system very occasionally, it makes sense to dedicate an iPad specifically to your point of sale needs.
In other words, you probably shouldn’t use the same iPad to play Candy Crush, take a bunch of photos and play with lots of apps. Get yourself another device to do these things. Not only does this mean you have one device dedicated to your point of sale, it can also mean you have a spare one to switch to if the main device is lost or stolen, or suffers a hardware failure.
