How to switch from a register or Excel to a POS

Most shops that move to a point of sale system have been running for years on a register book, a calculator, or a spreadsheet someone updates at night. Those methods work. What they cannot do is tell you, at any moment, what is in stock, what sold today and what you actually made, without someone adding it all up. That is what a POS changes.

If you are still choosing a system, our guide to choosing a POS for a small shop covers what to look for. This guide is about the switch itself: how to move without chaos at the counter.

Before you start: decide what 'done' looks like

Write down the three things you want the POS to give you that the register does not. Usually it is: an accurate stock count, daily sales totals by payment method, and staff who can sell without seeing everything. Keep that list; it stops you spending a week on settings you do not need.

Step 1: Clean up your product list

If you have a spreadsheet, it is your starting point; if you have a register, write a list. For each item note its name, selling price, what it costs you, and how it is sold. Then tidy it:

• One line per product, with sizes or colours as options of that product, not separate items.
• Packs (a dozen, a carton of 50) noted as pack sizes of the single item, so stock is counted in pieces.
• Names a customer would recognise, because staff will search by them at the counter.
• Duplicates and items you no longer stock removed.

Step 2: Add products, best sellers first

Do not wait until all 800 items are in. Add the products that make up most of your daily sales first, then the rest over the following weeks. On Biizay, you add products in the portal, and sizes and colours can be generated in one go rather than typed one by one; our guide to adding products with variants shows how.

There is no spreadsheet import in Biizay today. If your list is long, BiiConnect can help: connect ChatGPT or Claude to your store, paste in a section of your spreadsheet, and ask it to create those products. They arrive as drafts for you to check before they go on sale.

Step 3: Count your opening stock on one day

Pick a quiet day, or after closing, and count every product you have entered. Enter that count as each item's stock. From this moment, every sale must go through the POS, or the count will drift. Count in single pieces: three full cartons of 50 and 12 loose is 162 pieces.

Step 4: Set up staff accounts

Give each person who sells their own login rather than sharing yours. With roles and permissions, you can create a role that lets a cashier ring up sales without access to your reports or store settings. How many staff accounts you can have depends on your plan.

Step 5: Run a practice sale

Before opening, ring up a few test sales: a single item, a sized item, a pack, a cash sale and a card sale. Biizay's POS runs in a web browser, so a laptop, tablet or phone you already have works. Our guide to making a POS sale walks through each screen.

Step 6: Keep the register for one week, as a backup

For the first week, write sales in the register as well. At closing, compare the POS's sales total against the register and the cash drawer. Any difference shows you where staff need help. After a week of matching totals, retire the register.

What to check at the end of each day

1. 1Total sales by payment method: does the cash figure match the drawer, and card match the card machine?
2. 2Low stock: what needs reordering?
3. 3Any sale entered as the wrong item or quantity, while you still remember it.

Biizay's sales report shows totals by period, and low stock appears on the dashboard when you open the portal.

What about selling online too?

Once the counter is running on the POS, your online store is a small step. On Biizay the website and the POS share one stock count, so a piece sold at the counter is no longer available online. Our inventory guide for small shops explains why that one count matters most.

Common mistakes when switching to a POS

• Entering every product before starting. Start with best sellers and add the rest as they sell.
• Skipping the opening count and guessing stock. The numbers will be wrong from day one and staff will stop trusting them.
• Letting some sales bypass the POS 'just this once'. Every one makes the count drift.
• Sharing one login. You lose the record of who sold what.

Is it worth switching from Excel to a POS?

If one person runs a small shop and the spreadsheet is always up to date, perhaps not yet. If several people sell, you sell in packs or sizes, or you also sell online, the time you spend reconciling will soon be more than the time the switch takes.