Odoo Point of Sale is the application for selling in person, the till. This piece is about setting it up.
What Odoo Point of Sale is
Odoo Point of Sale, POS, is the application for selling directly to customers in person, in a shop, at a counter, anywhere a face-to-face transaction happens. It is the till: the interface a cashier uses to ring up a sale, take payment, and complete the transaction. Setting up Odoo POS is configuring that point of sale so it works as the business's in-person selling tool.
The foundation: products
Setting up Odoo POS rests on the foundation of the products. A point of sale sells products, so the products it will sell have to be set up in Odoo, since the POS sells the business's genuine products. With the products set up, the POS has the genuine catalogue to sell from.
Configuring the point of sale
Setting up Odoo POS means configuring the point of sale so it works for the business's genuine in-person selling: how the products are organised on the selling screen, the payment methods the point of sale accepts, how receipts are handled, how the till genuinely operates. The configuration should reflect how the business genuinely sells in person, so the POS, configured, is a point of sale that suits the business's genuine selling.
Speed and simplicity matter
An important point in setting up Odoo POS is that a point of sale is used under pressure, with a customer waiting, so it has to be fast and simple to use. Setting up the POS well means configuring it, the organisation of the selling screen above all, so that ringing up a sale is genuinely quick and simple for the cashier. A POS set up so selling is fast serves the genuine in-person selling environment; one set up so selling is slow or fiddly fights the cashier under pressure. Speed and simplicity should be protected in the setup.
The connected point of sale
The central thing about setting up Odoo POS, and its value, is that the point of sale is part of the connected Odoo system. Setting it up well means setting it up as the connected thing it is: a sale through the POS reduces the genuine inventory, the products being the business's genuine products, and the sale's money reaches the accounts. The point of sale is not an isolated till; it is the in-person front of the connected operation. Setting up Odoo POS, a business sets it up so the in-person selling is genuinely connected to the business's inventory and accounting.
The takeaway
Setting up Odoo Point of Sale is configuring the till for in-person selling. It rests on the products being set up, and it involves configuring the point of sale, the selling screen, the payment methods, the receipts, the operation, to suit the business's genuine in-person selling. Speed and simplicity matter, since a point of sale is used under pressure, so the setup should make selling fast. And the POS is part of the connected Odoo system, so set it up as the connected in-person front of the operation, connected to inventory and accounting. For how we approach Odoo, see our ERP practice.