Start with your own worst transaction
Every POS demo looks good, because every demo is one service, one client, one payment method. Write down the most awkward real transaction your counter handles — a package redemption plus a retail product, split between a credit balance and a card, with a staff discount and two therapists sharing commission — and make every vendor do that one, live, on the call. The differences show up in ninety seconds.
The ten questions
- What is the five-year total, with every outlet and every member of staff counted?
- Is there a per-user charge, and what happens when I hire?
- What happens to my data and my access on the day I stop paying?
- Can I export everything — clients, transactions, packages — to Excel, myself, without asking?
- Who answers at 8pm on a Saturday, and what does a site visit cost?
- Is there commission on payments taken through the system?
- How are package balances handled when a client moves between my outlets?
- Can staff see only what they should see?
- How do refunds, voids and staff discounts appear in the reporting?
- Who else in my trade, in Singapore, is running this — and can I call them?
The costs that appear after you sign
- Per-user or per-terminal fees as you grow.
- Payment commission on online bookings or stored value.
- On-site call-out charges.
- SMS credits for reminders and campaigns.
- Data export, or a fee to leave.
- Hardware that only works with that vendor's system.
The switch itself
- Export everything from the old system first, while you still have access. Keep the file.
- Clean the client list before it goes in — duplicates multiply once they are in a new system.
- Install and migrate in a quiet week. Never before a festive period.
- Train on the awkward transaction, not the simple one.
- Run the old appointment book in parallel for about a week. Only the book, never the till.
- Reconcile one full day's takings against the old system before you trust the new one.
Four steps: setup and install, data acquisition, training, then take off. Existing client lists come in from Excel, usually within days. Support afterwards runs 11am to 9pm Monday to Saturday by remote screen control and WhatsApp, with no on-site charges.
A reasonable shortlist
Three vendors, one awkward transaction each, the ten questions above, and a five-year total written on the same sheet of paper. If a vendor will not give you a five-year number, that is itself the answer. Our numbers are on one page, and here is where we are the wrong choice.
Questions we get asked
What is the single most important question?
“What happens to my data, and my access to it, the day I stop paying?” Everything else is recoverable. A client list you cannot export is not.
How long should a changeover take?
With a clean Excel export of your existing clients, services and stock, data acquisition is usually days rather than weeks. The longer pole is training, and the right time to switch is the start of a quiet week, never the week before a festive period.
Should I run both systems in parallel?
For about a week, yes — on the appointment book only, not the till. Two tills means two sets of takings and a reconciliation nobody will do.
What should I insist on seeing in the demo?
Your own awkward transaction. Not the sales script — a split payment on a package redemption with a retail item and a staff discount, which is the thing that breaks tills.