Most POS comparisons focus on the wrong thing first: the monthly price. Price matters, but it's rarely what determines whether a till system actually works for your business a year in. These are the questions worth asking before you commit to one, in roughly the order they should be asked.
Does it keep working when the internet doesn't?
Pakistan's connectivity is good in most places, most of the time — and unreliable often enough that "most of the time" isn't good enough for a till. A system that simply stops taking sales during an outage costs you real revenue during exactly the moments you can least afford it. Ask specifically: what happens to a sale rung up while the connection is down? Does it queue and sync automatically, or does it need to be manually re-entered later, or worse, does it just fail?
Does it actually produce a compliant invoice?
An FBR-compliant receipt isn't cosmetic — it needs the right invoice detail on it by default, without your cashier having to remember to do anything differently. Ask to see an actual sample receipt, not a marketing screenshot. And ask directly whether the vendor's system is relevant to FBR's point-of-sale integration requirements for your size and category of business — this varies by business, and a vendor who can't answer clearly is a warning sign.
What happens to your sales data if you ever switch away?
This is the question most owners forget to ask, because it only matters on the day they wish they'd asked it. Can you export your full sales and stock history in a usable format? Is your data held in a format specific to that vendor, or something portable? A system that makes switching away difficult is optimising for its own retention, not for your interests — worth knowing before you're a year of data deep into it.
Does it talk to your accounting, or create a second job?
If every sale at the till has to be re-entered into a separate accounting system or spreadsheet at month-end, you haven't automated your bookkeeping — you've just moved where the manual entry happens. Ask specifically whether sales post into your accounting system automatically, and how far that automation actually goes: just totals, or itemised detail your bookkeeper can actually reconcile against.
What does support look like after go-live, not during the sales pitch?
Implementation support is easy to promise before a contract is signed. What matters more is what happens three months in, when a till stops printing receipts on a Saturday afternoon during a rush. Ask what the actual support channel is, what hours it covers, and — ideally — talk to an existing customer rather than take the vendor's word for it.
Are you locked into specific hardware?
Some POS systems only run on hardware sold by the same vendor, at a markup, with no real alternative. Others run on standard tablets or low-spec PCs you can source yourself. Neither approach is automatically wrong, but you should know which one you're getting into, because it affects both your upfront cost and what happens if a device breaks and needs replacing quickly.
The actual total cost, not just the subscription line
The monthly subscription is one part of the cost. Hardware, a receipt printer, a barcode scanner if you need one, installation, and staff training time all add up before the system has processed its first sale. Ask for the full picture up front, not the subscription price alone — a lower monthly figure with expensive mandatory hardware can cost more in year one than a higher figure that includes everything.
Where EZ POS fits into this
We built EZ POS around the answers to exactly these questions: it queues sales offline and syncs automatically, produces FBR-compliant receipts by default, posts every sale into EZ Books without a re-entry step, and runs on standard tablets rather than proprietary hardware. That's not a reason to skip asking the questions above — it's a reason those questions are worth asking of anyone, including us.
A quick way to test before deciding
Most of the questions above can be tested directly rather than taken on faith. Ask for a working demo on real hardware, not just a screen share of a laptop. Turn the Wi-Fi off mid-demo and ring up a sale — a vendor confident in their offline handling won't hesitate to show you. Ask for an actual printed receipt you can hold, not a screenshot of one. And ask to speak to one existing customer running a business roughly your size, not just see a logo on a slide — a vendor unwilling to arrange that is telling you something on its own.
None of this takes more than a single afternoon, and it's a far better use of that afternoon than reading feature lists that all start to sound the same after the third one.
See EZ POS for the full detail, or book a demo and bring your busiest till receipt — we'll show you exactly how it handles it.